Purpose of This Book
Introduction
In recent years theism—the view that God exists—has been on the rise and atheism on the decline worldwide.[1] Perhaps as a result, a movement dubbed the “New Atheism” has emerged, propagated by a flurry of provocative atheist publications. WIRED magazine (the publication which coined the name) noted the group’s simple message: “No heaven. No hell. Just science.”
The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil.[2]
Indeed, the New Atheists do not merely attempt to convince people to quit believing in God; they endeavor to make respect for belief in God socially unacceptable.[3]
Lest you think this movement is ineffective or not getting a wide hearing, consider this: through their writings, the New Atheists have created a flourishing worldwide, antireligious, atheistic movement. Their books have been national and international bestsellers for several years and include such stirring titles as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett and God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. The list goes on.
A central theme of these books is that belief in God (and religious belief in general) is not only false but dangerous—dangerous both to individuals and societies—and should therefore be rejected, criticized and denounced whenever and wherever possible. The New Atheists are not inconspicuous about their agenda. Richard Dawkins boldly proclaims: “I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.”[4] Sam Harris opines, “It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.”[5] He says elsewhere that “at some point, there’s going to be enough pressure that it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God.”[6] Michael Onfray, a French atheist with over thirty books to his credit (the latest of which, Atheist Manifesto, is a bestseller in France, Italy, and Spain), argues that atheism is facing a “final battle” against “theological hocus-pocus” and thus must organize and rally its troops. “We can no longer tolerate neutrality and benevolence. . . . The turbulent times we live in suggest that change is at hand and the time has come for a new order.”[7] Christopher Hitchens ends his not-so-subtly titled book God Is Not Great with these words: “It has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it.” The enemy, of course, is religion—all religion. As one author recently describes the situation, atheism has become militant.[8]
While the New Atheists attack religion in general, Christianity is typically singled out as their primary target. Dawkins candidly expresses in The God Delusion that he has “Christianity mostly in mind,”[9] Sam Harris titles his book Letter to a Christian Nation, and Daniel Dennett claims that religion generally but Christianity in particular is addicted to blind faith.[10] Given these relentless attacks on God, religion and Christian faith, we think the time is ripe for a comprehensive response by a number of top-notch scholars from across the disciplines.
Purpose of This Book
Our primary objective in compiling this book is to answer challenges advanced by the New Atheists and others raising objections to belief in God and the Christian faith. Despite our overall impression of the New Atheists’ writings as fresh packaging for “tired, weak, and recycled arguments” (to borrow a phrase from Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath’s assessment of Dawkins’s The God Delusion),[11] they are making much more headway with their message than many religious believers are willing to admit. Their rhetoric is powerful and often persuasive enough to convince people to think that (1) in order to believe in God and Christ, a person must be either uneducated or intellectually dishonest, and (2) religion is actually dangerous—a harm to humanity. In the past few years we have been in dialogue with a number of folks—students, churchgoers and others—who have been either convinced by the New Atheists’ writings and lost their faith or persuaded in some way that Christian faith is unreasonable. This is unfortunate, especially since the material swaying them, while often witty and engaging, is generally poorly argued and lacking in substance.
We have sought out leading thinkers representing a wide range of expertise—from cosmology, astrophysics and biology to New Testament studies, theology and philosophy—to join us in responding to these arguments and claims. Throughout these pages we tackle some of the most vexing and perplexing challenges currently facing believers in God, some of which are formidable but none of which is insurmountable. We also go on the offensive and present some of the significant challenges confronting atheists.
The book is divided into four parts.
Part one tackles God’s existence. Contrary to New Atheist allegations, there are a number of robust arguments and evidences for God which many philosophers and scientists find convincing, and some of them are explored in this section.
Part two focuses on challenges to God’s creative design in the world, both at the cosmological and biological levels. Is naturalistic Darwinian evolution reasonable to affirm given the most recent scientific findings? Does cosmic evolution count against the belief that God is the grand designer of our world? These and other important questions are taken up here.
Part three addresses questions of God’s goodness, a major bone of contention of the New Atheists. For example, how could a perfectly good God coexist with evil or hell? And what about the Old Testament laws that seem so revolting, if not malevolent? Does it make sense to believe in a good and wise God who ordained such things? These and other topics are tackled in these chapters.
Part four shifts from theistic issues generally to Christianity specifically. It hones in on issues related to divine revelation and Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It also addresses the question of why all this is relevant. Why does it really matter what we believe about these things?
Our aim with this project is to provide a well-argued resource—one that is irenic in spirit and not a vitriolic attack on any persons or groups. We wish to offer positive engagement in the ongoing dialogue between those who believe in God and Christ and those who do not. As you read through the following pages we challenge you to carefully weigh the arguments and evidences on both sides of these issues and, as Augustine exhorted, follow the truth wherever it leads.