Everything has a cause but nothing a reason

The above pretty much sums up Richard Dawkins naturalistic view of existence as being life ` nasty brutish and short` Hobbes and altogether purposeless. Dawkins wrote `the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design,no purpose,no good,nothing but pitiless indifference’. Of course if this is all true neither should we expect to see love,charity,faith,wisdom,hope none of which play any necessary role in Dawkins world of the blind watchmaker.As not only do they have no logical place in such a universe but in many ways could be seen as running counter to the iron clad rule of survival of the fittest.

Actually I agree with Aristocle that the question runs in reverse. There is clearly a reason for love,charity,faith,hope etc as they reach out and touch our heart and spirit in a way which is totally unique and different from the cause and effect of science which is mechanical not spiritual. They bring meaning and purpose to a world that otherwise would fit perfectly into the Dawkins and Harris world view. What I dont see in physics and chemistry is a mechanism that provides for them quite the reverse the beauty of science and the structure of the creation ,evolution and functioning of the matierial world speaks overwhelmingly of a creator.The so called `theological virtues `are from another place.

Tom Hollands book Dominion shows us a world before Christ which is frighteningly alien brutal and in many ways very naturalistic .Yet extraordinarily there evolved from a penniless preacher in the middle east a world view that changed everything. Power and force was replaced by the beatitudes and the innate dignity of every being underwritten by God which gives us so much of our moral structure today.You only have to do one term of ancient history at school to realize the mind blowing improbability of it all. We live our lives today with a set of moral principals which would never have evolved from the Roman world without the life of Christ.

Such is their power that whenever over the centuries regimes and countries have tried to return to the ideals of Sparta and Rome by example as the Nazis tried to do they invariably implode. I think of the words of St Paul "my grace is sufficient for you ,my power made perfect in weakness".