¹ For background on this, see Martin, Michael (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).Google Scholar

² One might take the ‘a’ in ‘atheist’ to signify that an atheist is just someone who has no belief in God, not someone who declares that he or she claims to know that God does not exist. Cf. Martin, op. cit. who distinguishes between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ atheism. The authors I am discussing here, the ‘New Atheists’, are, by Martin's criteria, ‘positive atheists’. They tend to claim that God definitely does not exist.

³ The term ‘New Atheism’ seems to have gained popular currency following a cover article in the November 2006 issue of the technology‐focused monthly periodical, WIRED magazine. In it, contributing editor Gary Wolf discusses the now familiar trend of activist anti‐theism among intellectuals, including Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennet. Notwithstanding the influence of this article—both for drawing attention to the phenomenon and applying to it such a ready‐made name—Gary Wolf was not the first to use this coinage. A year earlier in a review for the literary magazine Bookforum, Ronald Aronson adopted the term ‘New Atheists’ as his handle for the recent cadre of authors voicing opposition to traditional religious beliefs. Since it is not clear that Wolf borrowed his usage directly from Aronson, it would be somewhat unfitting to credit Aronson as the sole creator of the auspicious title of ‘New Atheism’. Still, it is quite reasonable to surmise that the term evolved from Aronson's original mention of ‘New Atheists’ in 2005, though the cover article in WIRED magazine exposed it to a wider audience.

⁴ I am not, of course, denying that there have long been critics of religious belief coming from a scientific perspective. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1825), for example, attacked various religious beliefs while supporting the writings of Charles Darwin (he has been often referred to as ‘Darwin's bulldog’). Note, though, that Huxley described himself as an agnostic (indeed, he seems to have invented the term) while the authors I am concerned with take a much stronger anti‐theistic line.

⁵ Cf. Dawkins, p. 280.

⁶ Cf. Dawkins, p. 281. Cf. also Dawkins, p. 289.

⁷ Eagleton, Terry, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 55f.Google Scholar

⁸ Cf. Dawkins, p. 287.

⁹ Herbert McCabe, OP, God Matters (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987), p. 92.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Arnold, Matthew, Literature and Dogma, ed. Super, R.H. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 162.Google Scholar

¹¹ This is not to say that Aquinas thinks that different adjectives used when talking about God are synonymous, as you can see from Summa Theologiae, Ia, 13, 4.

¹² Cf. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, Chapters 101 and 102.

¹³ Cathechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), p. 32.Google Scholar

¹⁴ P. 32.

¹⁵ Here I would note that the Catholic Church has never formally denigrated belief in evolution. I would also note that in an address to the Pontifical Academy of sciences, the late John Paul II said: ‘Today, more than a half‐century century after the appearance of the encyclical Humani Generis, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.’ Here is the text of these comments in the original French in which they were delivered: ‘Aujourd’hui, près d’un demi‐siècle après la parution de l’encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaître dans la théorie de l’évolution plus qu’une hypothèse. Il est en effet remarquable que cette théorie se soit progressivement imposée à l’esprit des chercheurs, à la suite d’une série de découvertes faites dans diverses disciplines du savoir. La convergence, nullement recherchée ou provoquée, des résultats de travaux menés indépendamment les uns des autres, constitue par elle même un argument significatif en faveur de cette théorie’.

¹⁶ This I take to be a central point made by Michael Ruse in his Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2000).Google Scholar Ruse's book, I should add, is one that anyone interested in the New Atheism discussions should read since it is both scientifically informed and well aware of the history of Christian theology.

¹⁷ Cf. Dawkins, p. 72. Cf. Dawkins, p. 82: ‘A universe with a supernaturally intelligent creator is a very different universe from one without … The presence or absence of a creative‐super intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question’.

¹⁸ Here I entirely agree with Eagleton, who observes: ‘Dawkins falsely considers that Christianity offers a rival view of the universe to science. Like the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett in Breaking the Spell, he things it is a kind of bogus theory or pseudo‐explanation of the world. In this sense, he is rather like someone who thinks that a novel is a botched piece of sociology, and who therefore can't see the point of it at all. Why bother with Robert Musil when you can read Max Weber … Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It is rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov … God for Christian theology is not a mega‐manufacturer. He is rather what sustains all things in being by his love, and would still be this even if the world had no beginning’ (Reason, Faith, and Revolution, pp. 6–7.

¹⁹ On p. 68 of God is Not Great Hitchens desclares: ‘The scholastic obsessives of the Middle Ages were doing the best they could on the basis of hopelessly limited information, ever present fear of death and judgement, very low life expectancy, and an audience of illiterates’. I cannot think of any contemporary expert on medieval thinking who would regard this remark with anything but well‐deserved scorn.

²⁰ Cf. Hitchens, p. 282. Hitchen's comment here strikes as comparable to that of Nikita Krushchev when saying that God does not exist since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew into space but did not see God.

²¹ Cf. Summa Theologiae, 1a, 3.

²² Monologion, 15. I quote from p. 26 of Davies, Brian and Evans, G.R. (ed.), Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

²³ Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution, p. 10.

²⁴ This point is well stressed by Denys Turner in ‘How to be an Atheist’, New Blackfriars, Vol. 83, No. 977/978, July/August 2002.Google Scholar See especially p. 327: ‘When you ask of the world “How come that anything at all existrs?” you are not asking an as yet unsolved question of empirical fact, because you are not asking any sort of empirical question … When you ask that question you are merely giving expression to something you know about the world: it is a state of affairs which might not have been, that's the sort of world we have: that it exists at all has been brought about’.

²⁵ Cf. Dawkins, pp. 100–101.

²⁶ Cf. Dawkins, p. 101.

²⁷ In Chapter 3 of The God Delusion Dawkins lists and rejects other arguments for belief in God. I agree with much that he says about them, but, for my present purposes, I can pass over them in silence at this point.

²⁸ Cf. Dennett, p. 242.

²⁹ Cf. Dennett, p. 242.

³⁰ Cf. ‘A Debate on the Existence of God’, reprinted in Hick, John (ed.), The Existence of God (London and New York: Macmillan, 1964), pp. 167–91.Google Scholar

³¹ Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus (trans. Pears, D.F. and McGuiness, B.F., London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 73.Google Scholar

³² I am not, of course, denying that some theists think of belief in God in these terms.

³³ Cf Dennett, p. 220.

³⁴ Cf Dennett, pp. 206–207.