Justin Welby said: ‘I feel deeply, deeply, deeply for Charlie Gard’s parents and for all the rest of the people involved in the most tragic case.’
Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

The archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of his deep sympathy for the family of Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old boy who died last week after a long legal battle, as well as the medics who treated him and the judges who presided over his case.

Justin Welby evoked the memory of his own daughter, Johanna, who died when she was less than a year old as he said the world could not be explained by rationality alone.

Welby was responding to comments from Prof Richard Dawkins last week on the primacy of evidence and reason, not emotion, when making big decisions.

“It’s quite well known that one of our own children died and we had to stand by the bed and they died when the life support was withdrawn. And I think that, in a case like that, I’m not going to say anything except that my heart breaks for the parents,” Welby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.

While he said evidence-based decision-making was important to him, he cited the Gard case as an example of where it could only be a part of the right approach.

Timeline: Charlie Gard and his parents' legal battle to save him

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Speaking on the same programme last week, Dawkins said people should avoid voting with their gut and adopt a more scientific approach. “Of course, we all think with our gut a lot of the time. But when we’re making important decisions, like when we’re voting [or] when we’re taking important business decisions, don’t think with your gut, think rationally. Look for the evidence one way or the other; weigh it up.”

Dawkins said the scientific method should be applied beyond the lab, adding that “evidence is the only reason to believe anything about the real world”.

However, Welby said it alone could not answer all of the big questions. “The world is not entirely materialism. It’s not entirely made up of what you can experiment with. There are things we deal with every day – emotions around love, around the value of people, around how we treat those who are weaker and stronger – where mere rationality, even evidence-based rationality, which I hold to as a really important thing, does not answer the whole question adequately.”

Referring to the Gard case, which was at the centre of a long-running legal battle over the child’s care, Welby said any parent would “fight for the life of their child as long as they could”, adding: “We know what that’s like.”

The judges and doctors who were treating Charlie at Great Ormond Street hospital came in for abuse as the case progressed through the courts, but the archbishop said that each person involved was worthy of sympathy because they wanted the best for Charlie.

“I’m sure they cared to the depth of their being about doing the right thing and it’s a very good example of where sometimes rational, evidence-based thinking is not the whole story. The medics weren’t operating on that. They grieve when they lose a patient and particularly a child.

“I just feel deeply sorrowed by the whole thing and feel deeply, deeply, deeply for Charlie Gard’s parents and for all the rest of the people involved in the most tragic case. Sometimes, we want to come to clean, quick conclusions and it’s right just to pause and grieve.”