The reason that I have not posted in the past week and a half is because I have been working on a book review for a theology class. Therefore, I believe it to be appropriate to share with you the thing that has kept me away. The book is "Atheist Delusions" by David Hart, an Orthodox (with the big 'O') theologian. Do not let the title fool you into thinking that this book is a feelings based rant like "God Delusion" by Dawkins, rather, it is an academic historical essay. Please enjoy.
In his book "Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies," David Bentley Hart does not make any attempt to be impartial or to hide his biases. He makes that clear on the very first page of the introduction, “In what follows, my prejudices are transparent and unreserved, and my argument is in some respects willfully extreme (or it might seem so)” (IX). Hart is astoundingly confident in his argument, refusing to come under the illusion of complete detachment or neutrality. Additionally, Hart does not hold himself back. He, better than most, understands the implications of his conclusions and approaches the issues head on. What are these implications and conclusions? Hart argues that Christianity radically transformed the western world’s understanding of humanity and that the “New Atheists” ignore this historical fact. Furthermore, from that foundation, Hart illustrates the potentially dire situation that faces a post-Christian society. With unreserved zeal, Hart writes a historical essay that is captivatingly dynamic and critical.
In Part One of "Atheist Delusions," Hart briefly introduces his readers to the ideas of the “New Atheists” before he wholeheartedly tackles their arguments head on. “One would think these would be giddy days for religion’s most passionate antagonists,” begins Hart, “rarely can they have known a moment so intoxicatingly full of promise” (3). He then goes on to list the “New Atheists” (Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris) and their more recent publications, offering not so subtle criticisms along the way (4-5). It is at this point that Hart chooses to address his polemical tone, “It is sometimes difficult, frankly, to be perfectly generous in one’s response to the sort of invective currently fashionable among the devoutly undevout, or to the sort of historical misrepresentations it typically involves” (4). To be clear, it is not the “New Atheists” that are at the receiving end of Hart’s criticisms, rather, it is their fallacious arguments. Hart even offers limited respect to the nineteenth century atheists, giving specific praise to Friedrich Nietzsche and his “immense culture” (5-6).
Next, Hart takes an expository look at Dennett’s book Breaking the Spell. He demonstrates Dennett’s science to be “inconsequential” and “…perfectly compatible with what most developed faiths already teach regarding religion” (7). Furthermore, Hart makes the interesting assertion that, “…religion in the abstract does not actually exist” (7). Christians, Hart states, believe in the historical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, not in a religion (8). At best, from the Christian perspective, religion is man’s “natural desire for God” (8). Hart continues chapter one, systemically discrediting and unabashedly disaffirming the popular works of the “New Atheists.”
In the first chapter Hart sets up the style and tone of his discussion. In the second, he dives into the argument. Hart begins by accusing the “New Atheists” of fideism (20). He states, “At the deepest level of their thoughts and desires, they are obedient to principles and promptings that rest upon no foundation but themselves” (20). The reasoning behind these irrational anti-Christian beliefs, Hart argues, is modernity's dogma of unimpeded freedom (20-21). He describes this modern freedom as the power of an individual’s will to be entirely unrestricted and void of all external judgement (21). This unimpeded will, Hart states, “…is -- to be perfectly precise -- nihilism” (21). He explains this nihilism as “…the rejection of any idea of an ultimate source of truth transcendent of the self or the world” (21).
Additionally, Hart contrasts modernity’s view of freedom with the Christian understanding of freedom. Freedom, according to classical thought, is not the ability to do whatever one chooses, rather, it is the ability to choose the good (24-25). True freedom is the capacity to govern one’s passions, not to be ruled by them (24). To reject this classical understanding of freedom is to declare a revolution, and that, Hart explains, is exactly what modernity did. (26). Furthermore, Hart argues, for this modern revolution to persist, it must continue to legitimize itself as being better than what came before it (26). This brings him to his second major point, the historical fictions that modernity has pronounced as historical facts.
Hart begins Part Two of his book by demonstrating the absurd, yet currently popular, modern historical myths. First, he does this by quoting the book Medieval Civilizations by the “brilliant” historian Jacques Le Goff (29). After thoroughly discrediting Le Goff’s account of Christian history, Hart makes the comment, “Every age necessarily reinterprets -- and rewrites -- the past in accord with its own interests, ideals, and illusions” (31). In addition, Hart describes modernity as “post-Christian,” a society that has consciously rejected its faith (32). Modernity, Hart continues, understands itself to be the “age of reason,” a grand revolution against the superstitious and backwards “age of faith” (33).
Hart spends the next several chapters detailing, and disaffirming, some of modernity’s more popular historical fictions. Beginning with Christianity’s presumed destruction of Greco-Roman science and literature, Hart takes his reader on a chronological tour of Christian history. Hart makes a serious and reasonable assessment of Jonathan Kirsch’s retelling of specific historical events, including the destruction of the Library of Alexandria (36-45), the popular story of Hypatia’s murder by a Christian mob (46), and other accounts of Christians violently suppressing pagan culture. All the while, Hart scrupulously dismantles all of these historical legends.
Hart then tackles perhaps the most prevalent of historical mythes: the “rebirth” of science in the sixteenth century and the Church’s oppression of Galileo and heliocentrism. Concerning the idea that Greco-Roman “science” spontaneously emerged in the sixteenth century from the Christian dark ages, Hart says this: “To suggest that Copernicus merely took up a thread that had been severed by the church in antiquity and arrived at his hypothesis by his own unaided lights defies not only the historical record but all historical logic” (58). In addition, Hart makes it evident that by the time Galileo came onto the scene, heliocentrism was not a new idea (61). Furthermore, he makes it very clear that Galileo’s theory based off of the Copernican model, “…did not have either sufficient evidence to support it or a mathematical model that worked particularly well” (65). On these grounds, Hart points out that Pope Urban VIII was completely rational in his refusal to wholeheartedly accept Galileo’s theories (65).
Next, Hart deals with Christianity’s presumed violent intolerance, manifest through witch hunting, inquisitions, and war. To these accusations Hart makes this statement, “…we see that violence increased in proportion to the degree of sovereignty claimed by the state” (86). As modern freedom encroached on Christian morality, violence became the norm. Hart states, “No cause in history…has destroyed more lives with more confident enthusiasm than the cause of the ‘brotherhood of man,’ the postreligious utopia, or the progress of the race” (107-108).
It is at this point that "Atheist Delusions" shifts gears. Hart calls this section “the heart of the book” (XIII). In the next several chapters Hart recounts for the reader how Christianity forever changed the world.
Hart begins Part Three by enlightening his readers to the social, religious, and political world of the first century Romans. This was a world constructed in a cosmic hierarchical order, the “Great God” at the top and slaves at the bottom. Hart explains that this order was being held together by “… prayers, sacrifices, laws, pieties, and coercions” (114-115). Because of this, monotheistic Christianity was scandalous and disrupting, a threat to the social order. Additionally, Christianity was “intolerant” of the pagan religions because it demanded complete and exclusive allegiance from its members (118). Finally, Christianity brought a radical new idea to the abominably violent Roman world, the virtue of charity (120-124).
A further distinction between the Greco-Roman worldview and Christianity is the way in which they understood the physical world in relation to the divine. The pagans and their gods were in an interdependent relationship; the gods needed sacrifices, and humanity needed protection (132). The notion of an all loving and transcendent God was preposterous to a pagan audience (133). Whereas the pagans wanted to escape the prison of physical reality (134), Christians saw the world as something beautiful and truly good (144).
The final major distinction between the early Christians and the pagan world, was the Christian conception of the human person. In Roman society, one’s “person” referred to ones legal privileges. However, this meant that slaves, and other lowest of the low, did not have a person (168). Through the Incarnation, God coming “in the form of a slave,” the old idea of person was forever and radically changed (174). Christ, both fully God and fully man, allowed every human being, for the first time, to participate in the divine nature (211). Hart concludes with this thought, “If, as I have argued in these pages, the ‘human’ as we now understand it is the positive invention of Christianity, might it not be the case that a culture that has become truly post-Christian will also, ultimately, become posthuman?” (215).
In the Part Four, Hart does not waste words when explaining the dire consequences that a post-Christianity society will face. He refers to modernity’s freedom as a god that required the millions of lives lost in the twentieth century as a sacrifice (227). In the name of progress, the modern world rejects the value of the human being and justifies eugenics, abortion, euthanasia, etc (231-232). Regarding this, Hart states, “…it seems quite likely that the future that beckons us will be one that will make considerable room, in its deliberations regarding the value of human life, for a fairly unsentimental calculus of utility” (237). Hart concludes his book with a glimmer of hope: the Christian should not be totally disheartened because Christianity is “a cosmic truth, which can never finally be defeated” (241).
Honestly, I really enjoyed "Atheist Delusions." Hart does a remarkably good job at coming to a reasonable conclusion by building off of solid historical and logical arguments. His book is well structured and surprisingly easy to follow, once one gets used to his academic language. Furthermore, I appreciate that he acknowledges his bias and refuses to attempt an “impartial work of history” (IX).
While reading the book there were times when I thought that Hart’s rather polemical tone, while enjoyable, somewhat negated the academic caliber that his book deserves. However, I changed my mind after I read his conclusion. If the arguments that Hart makes are true, then he has every right to thoroughly criticize the fideistic preaching found in the writings of Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Singer. He realizes that, at worst, the “New Atheists” are intentionally advocating for the destruction of millions of human lives, and at best they are ignorantly condoning it.
Twice in Part Four, Hart is compelled to justify his statements as not being alarmist. The first time is when he calls modernity’s freedom a god, and the millions of lives lost since the French Revolution this god’s sacrificial victims (227). The second is when he discusses the monstrous consequences that come as a result of modern science rejecting human value, such as eugenics and infanticide (234). Why does Hart need to explain himself? He does this because what he is saying in his conclusion is extremely alarming, although, not in any way unfounded. The modern Western world endlessly advocates for human rights and human equality, while in the same breath trying to utterly reject Christianity. However, what modernity refuses to accept is that it cannot have both. In reply, Hart makes the profound statement, “Whatever it is we think we mean by human ‘equality,’ we are able to presume the moral weight of such a notion only because far deeper down in the historical strata of our shared Western consciousness we retain the memory of an unanticipated moment of spiritual awakening, a delighted and astonished intellectual response to a single historical event: the proclamation of Easter” (180) As long as the modern world continues to ferociously abandon Christianity, there will continue to be the wholesale massacre of human life on an unprecedented scale.
"Atheist Delusions" is a refreshing book. This is the case not because it is friendly and nice, but rather, because it is brutally and bluntly truthful. This truth, while not always welcomed, is a beautiful thing in a world that values appearances over essence, rhetoric over intelligence, and tolerance over morality. In the age of enlightenment, society has lost their reason.
