The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. By Alister E. McGrath. Pp. xii, 306, London: Rider, 2004, $39.95; The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue. By Robert B. Stewart. Pp. xvii, 212, London: SPCK, 2008, $19.00; Real Scientists, Real Faith. By R.J. Berry. Pp. 288, Oxford: Monarch, $14.99.
There have always been advocates of atheism. However, as Richard Dawkins likes to say, although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. In view of such lofty rhetoric, what is a Christian to do? Does Darwinian science necessarily lead to atheism? Can one be a Christian after Darwin? More than that, can one be a Christian and a Darwinian simultaneously? Although no debate is final in regards to these questions, the three books currently under review might give one answers that are surprising: yes, one can be a Christian after Darwin, and one can even be a Christian Darwinian!
The first text under review is written by Alister McGrath, a lapsed atheist himself, who is currently Professor of Theology at King’s College, London. Herein McGrath explores the history of atheism in Western culture, observing that atheism is yielding to irrelevance and dissolution, the very fortunes that atheists once predicted would occur to traditional theology. McGrath pursues how atheism has become rare at the turn of the 21st century, tracing its rise and fall. McGrath begins the text by looking into classical Greek atheism, which lays the foundation for the transition into the modern era and the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century, McGrath notes, is the onset of the heyday, if you will, of atheism, with reverberations that were felt well into the early twentieth century. In covering the high noon of atheism, McGrath surveys the contributions of the predictable sources of atheistic teaching, including Voltaire, Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud. Darwin gets an honorable mention, noting that while he himself was not atheistic per se, many followers of his took his teachings to their (il)logical extension by claiming that they abolished the need of a god. But beyond these usual co-conspirators of atheism, McGrath add some unusual company from literature, the likes of Percy B. Shelley, George Eliot, and A.C. Swinburne.
As the twentieth century dawned and when it had acquired political power, McGrath notes that atheism became riddled with philosophical inconsistencies and moral failures. Moreover, atheism was seen to be without the ability to enact its imaginative reconstrual of society. With the rise of Pentecostalism in the early twentieth century and its rapid expansion throughout the remainder of the century, it seems as though the lure of the utopian dream of atheism is over. However, McGrath charges that religious believers cannot be complacent, but must be continually imaginative and responsive to new threats. Related to this idea of potential threats, McGrath sees much good in postmodernism, especially in its relation to – and possible absolution of – atheism. Toward this end, in the closing chapters McGrath points to some potential future areas of dialogue with theology and atheism, which leads us directly into the next title under review.
Robert B. Stewart is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS), and is the editor of our second title, The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue. This is the third in a series of ‘dialogue’ books edited by Stewart, with the others covering The Resurrection of Jesus, and Intelligent Design, both also by SPCK. This volume grew out of the 2007 Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture, held at NOBTS. Much alike unto the previous titles, the book begins with an introductory chapter by Stewart, leading to a short exchange between the dialogue partners, which is then followed by numerous chapters that may or may not be directly related to the dialogue partners (this is one of my criticisms of the book).
William Lane Craig, Keith Parsons, Evan Fales, and Hugh McCann took part in the conference with Stewart, McGrath, and Dennett, and also contribute chapters to the text. Within his chapter, Craig seemingly culls material from his previous titles regarding the cosmological argument for God’s existence, tailored to the dialogue between McGrath and Dennett, and in so doing also dialogues with modern science. In what may be the best essay of the lot, Parsons , interestingly, interacts with McGrath’s title reviewed above, The Twilight of Atheism, and argues that he fails to substantiate the claim that the intellectual case for atheism fails; he notes that McGrath accurately covers the attaching of atheism to various ideologies that later were proverbially wrecked, but contends that McGrath does not address the real intellectual case for atheism. Fales does not dialogue with McGrath or Dennett on the future of atheism in his chapter, but offers a meditation on how life becomes meaningful to those who believe in God and the afterlife instead, the first of several chapters that seem a little ‘out of place’ in this title.
There are also three chapters in this text that do not derive from people who were at the aforementioned conference at NOBTS, one from each of the following: J.P. Moreland, Paul Copan, and Ted Peters. Moreland renews the well-worn criticism of atheism – i.e. that it does not offer support for human reason, and may in fact even belie the possibility of its coherency. Copan’s chapter picks up the theme earlier laid out by Fales, and addresses the question of the necessary relationship between objective moral values and the existence of a deity. The text is wrapped up by a contribution from Peters that discusses the aggressive – evangelical! – atheists of the present era, as well as their dislike of certain tenets of the traditional God of classical theism. This last essay of Peters presents an adequate segue into the last book to be reviewed herein.
R.J. Berry is Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College, London, and here edits eighteen solicited contributions that all seek to present a first-hand account of how active scientists deal with the relation between their practice of science and their practice religious faith. All address, in varying degrees, the following two questions: What difference does faith makes to the practice of science; and what difference does science makes to the understanding of religious faith? The various contributors are all mature, well-known in their fields, and widely respected. A great diversity of religious views and denominations are apparent in this tidy little text. Notable contributors found herein include Denis Alexander, Derek Burke, Frances Collins, Calvin DeWitt, Alister McGrath, Simon Conway Morris, and Simon Stuart.
As these three texts clearly show, religion – even among scientists – is anything but dead. It has survived – nay, thrived! – the onslaught of atheism during the eighteenth through twentieth century’s, and is alive and well today. However, the atheism, and science-religion debates rage onward. Regarding the usage of these texts, I could easily see the McGrath volume being used – with no hesitation – in a graduate course regarding contemporary challenges to theism, perhaps in a philosophy of religion course, whereas I am more cautious regarding the employment of Stewart’s text – both because it is relatively brief in its actual ‘dialogue’ (16 of 288 pages), and because it contains several chapters that do not specifically relate to the thematic ‘dialogue’. Regarding the third book by Berry, it would be a welcome addition to a philosophy of religion course as well, though not as a standalone text (since it is a series of vignettes). Nevertheless, whatever the usage, one cannot err in reading these texts, as a greater understanding of contemporary atheism would result.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA