Theology After New Atheism

Abstract

The popular ‘movement’ which became known as ‘new atheism’ reached its pinnacle in the late 2000s with the publication of books by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and a number of others. At risk of using tabloid language, I do not think it would be objectionable to say that such a ‘movement’ sought to attack both theology as a discipline and also religion qua religion. Yet as a movement it seems that the momentum has waned; its proponents have largely returned to writing books in their own field of specialisation (science, philosophy, etc.). Perhaps they feel they have made their case against religion, and their popularity might indicate that they are satisfied with their success rates of, as they proudly suggest, ‘outing’ atheists and making it acceptable (or even fashionable) to be an atheist in today’s world. Suggesting that the new atheism has halted is not of course to say that atheism has disappeared or waned itself. Rather, it continues to be popular. The idea of new atheism as an intellectual trend or movement however, seems to be completed, but it has strong remnants in numerous atheist and secularist groups around the world who have now found public solidarity and support from the celebrity intellectuals of the new atheists. In this paper, I hope to assess the implications of the new atheist movement for theology, asking whether it had any influence on theology and whether it shed any new light on age-old questions that have been the concern of theologians and philosophers for millennia. Atheism itself is a curious issue for theology as there is an often overlooked common ground, namely, an interest in the ‘big questions’ of God, meaning, and particularly in the case of the new atheists, religion. Atheists have gone through the process of identifying themselves as atheists, which is indicative of the fact that they have put thought into this self-identification. They have (or at least should have) enquired about existential questions of meaning, purpose, existence, and so on, and come to the conclusion that there is no purpose or intentionality behind existence itself: this is the crux of atheism, but one achieved through the same models of investigation utilised by theology. Moreover, if atheists have a disdain for religion, then that too is indicative that they have actually given the matter thought. As such, atheists are not disinterested parties, but rather, probably care quite deeply about the same questions that