What the New Atheists Can Teach Us About Our Program

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by Dr. Paul J. O’Reilly
President, Thomas Aquinas College
New England Opening Lecture
St. Vincent de Paul Lecture & Concert Series
September 2, 2022

 

Atheism, the denial of God’s existence, is almost as old as creation, so what is meant by the “New Atheists”? There are at least four well-known authors who have been so called: Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. They are called the New Atheists for at least two reasons: 1) They not only reject religious belief, but they attack it in a way that has not been seen before. Fueled by mass media, and gifted with bombastic rhetoric, they have voiced an antagonism for religion that goes so far as to suggest that educating the young in religion is a form of child abuse. 2) They also seem to think that their challenge to traditional Christianity is novel. But this is one of their weaknesses: They are unaware of, or uninterested in, the anticipation of their views by the great teachers of faith: the “doctors” of the Catholic Church, in particular: St. Augustine, and St. Thomas.

An example of their harsh rhetorical one-liners:

“I don’t believe there is a single word of truth in either Exodus or Genesis.”

— Christopher Hitchens: Love, Poverty, and War, p.324.)

“Religion comes from the period of prehistory where nobody…had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge.”

— God is not Great (Hitchens)

And reviews of their books illustrate the influence they have:

“The most coherent and devastating indictment of religion I have ever read.”

— Mail on Sunday (UK)

Why it Matters

Would it not be better just to ignore them? I think not; if we ignore their positions we do so at our peril. For the times we live in are formed by popular arguments, not by precise scientific considerations. It is my view that the position of Dawkins and others will be persuasive to many, and that, as a result, the anti-religious positions they advocate will become more mainstream. The effects will be felt in schools and the public square.

Consider these words of Socrates in the dialogue Protagoras:

“Knowledge cannot be taken away in a parcel. When you have paid for it you must receive it straight into the soul. You go away having learned it and are benefited or harmed accordingly.”

— Protagoras, 314 a-b

Most of us are affected by contemporary thinking and we are hardly aware of it. It is even more that way for the very young. As the position of the New Atheists becomes more and more embedded in our culture, it will be difficult to undo the intellectual customs and prejudices of those who have absorbed their rhetoric. We need to have a new strategy. It seems to me that many of our Catholic schools are not prepared for the coming challenge.

TAC students are the antidote: You are learning to consider and defend first principles. You understand the different kinds of arguments. You understand where philosophy and theology begin and end. You are becoming equipped, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to renew the face of the earth.

However, you might be wondering: If I think the New Atheists are wrong — and indeed, I do — why waste our time discussing their position? Mr. Mark Berquist gave a wonderful lecture many years ago: “Where Philosophers Disagree.”

One of the things he said during that lecture: “To study philosophy is to study disagreement. … One would remain in dogmatic slumber if you were never challenged by certain contradictions … the beginner, if he has a strong mind, will see in these disagreements … an opportunity to learn (pp.308 and 310-311) .

I think that this audience is inclined to disagree with the positions of the New Atheists. (And in that respect, you are a minority in our culture.) But what can we learn from our disagreement? That is what I want to explore tonight.

My thesis, then, is quite straightforward: The best way to understand our disagreement with the new wave of religious criticism is to be aware of basic philosophical principles and some fundamental theological distinctions. I will begin with a brief consideration about the nature of faith. Then I will consider the three basic objections the New Atheists raise about what Christians believe, and this is how we can learn from the New Atheists: by considering their objections. Then I will propose responses to their objections. Finally, I will point out, in a general way, how the program at TAC equips us to stand up to the New Atheists. That should show that TAC students are well positioned to be, as John Paul II put it, the New Evangelists.

In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins is critical of religious faith: “Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument” (pg. 347). The problem is, “You don’t have to make the case for what you believe” (pg. 346). Further, he claims, “the higher one’s intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold ‘beliefs’ of any kind.” (pg. 129)

Dawkins’ criticism is not new at all.

St. Augustine said:

“There are those who think that the Christian religion is what we should smile at rather than hold fast, for this reason … men are commanded faith about things which are not seen … [W]e may refute these men … whom folly has so made subject to their carnal eyes … [for there are] many things they not only believe but also know, which cannot be seen by such eyes.”

— Concerning Faith of Things not Seen

Whatever else is the case, this is the what is true about faith: It is accepting something, not on the basis of direct evidence, but on the testimony of another.

What the New Atheists fail to see is that faith, which is a kind of trust, even in other human beings, is necessary, natural, and reasonable. If faith in other human beings has these characteristics, it is not an objection to religious faith that “you don’t have to make a case for what you believe.” The assumption, of course, is that a case cannot be made. I think your four years of Theology here at TAC will show that indeed a case can be made, and that the Christian faith is reasonable.

Now to the reasons why the New Atheists object to the existence of God

The New Atheists raise innumerable arguments purporting to show that belief in God is irrational. As best as I can tell, these arguments reduce to three kinds of objections.

Before considering the objections to the existence of God that the New Atheists raise, it is worth turning to Junior Theology. St. Thomas first considers two objections one might make to show that God does not exist, before giving his five proofs for the existence of God. The objections go something like this:

First: If God exists then He is infinitely good. But the presence of infinite goodness would mean that there would be no evil in the world. That is not the case, for there is evidently much evil in the world, so God must not exist.

Second: It seems that all things can be explained either by natural principles, or by human intellect and will. Therefore, there is no reason to suppose that God exists.

There is so much contained in these two objections. Does St. Thomas think that these are the only plausible objections to God’s existence? (St. Thomas does not say so explicitly, but I think that all objections to God’s existence come down to these two objections.) And why does he put the objections in this order? Why start with the problem of evil?

As I said, the New Atheists raise at least three main objections to the claim that God exists. But I will argue that these three objections reduce to the two basic objections that St. Thomas raises.

Here are the three basic criticisms that the New Atheists offer:

1. It is incoherent to hold that God exists in light of the evil in a world that is alleged to be created by a good God.

2. It is unreasonable to conclude that God exists because everything can be explained in terms of natural principles

3. The principal religious texts, and here they focus on the Bible, are irrational and, also, mere copies of pagan myths. Hence they are fictions and unreasonable. And insofar as they are fictions, any belief that they engender is as irrational as the basic pagan myths.

1. Problem of Evil

Very often the New Atheists point to particular, horrific, acts of wickedness and undeserved suffering, in very graphic detail, to make the case that there cannot be an all-powerful, good God. (You will see a compelling version of this in the novel Brothers Karamazov, which we read in Senior Seminar.)

So how should we respond to this difficulty?

I would like to suggest that we be careful in how we approach the problem of evil. One way to address the problem is to learn from those who have suffered evil. I will consider the case of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. (C.S. Lewis is another good case.)

Wiesel’s book, Night, is a very difficult book to read because it narrates the author’s experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp. As one reviewer wrote: “Night is almost unbearably painful.” The reader confronts the horror of man’s wickedness in this book.

I hope this is not too graphic, but here is an example. Three prisoners, two men and one boy, were accused of sabotaging the power plant at Auschwitz. Wiesel describes what he saw:

“The three condemned prisoners together stepped onto the chairs. In unison nooses were placed around their necks.

“Long live liberty!” shouted the two men.

But the boy was silent.

“Where is merciful God, where is He?” someone behind me was asking …

At the signal, the three chairs were tipped over.

Total silence in the camp …

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing…

And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. …

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “For God’s sake, where is God?”

And from within me, I heard a voice answer:

Where is he? This is where — hanging from these gallows …”

(Just to be clear, this is not meant to be a blessing, an affirmation of faith, but a curse!)

Elie Wiesel later recounts what a rabbi who was with him in Auschwitz told him at that time: “It’s over. God is no longer with us.” But then, as if trying to correct himself, he added: “I know … no one has the right to say things like that … Man is too insignificant, too limited, to even try to comprehend God’s mysterious ways. But what can someone like myself do?” … Where is God’s mercy? Where’s God? How can I believe, how can anyone believe in this God of mercy?”

After Auschwitz Wiesel wrote:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself.

Never.

— Night, p. 34

Elie Wiesel has voiced a very powerful and moving accounts of the problem of evil. His account highlights the real question at hand.

So how to respond to the problem of evil?

We should not be seduced into answering as the New Atheists challenge us to answer. (More on that later.) One must be very careful in giving a response to the problem of evil. Think, first, of those who have suffered. A quick formulaic account is not a good approach. However, the friendship, good example, and prayers for those who have suffered are the best response to the problem of evil.

What happened to Elie Wiesel?

(The number of survivors of Auschwitz who committed suicide is significant: Tel Aviv University suggests it is more that three times the “normal” rate.)

This suggests to me that, in fact, when people encounter evil in tangible and horrific ways, it is, as St. Thomas seems to suggest, the principal reason why people despair about the existence of God. It is not from a general principle about good and evil, but the particular experience of evil in their lives.

If that is right, the most persuasive response to the problem of evil is from those who have suffered evil. Let’s hear what Elie Wiesel has to say:

His words in his acceptance of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize are inspiring. He begins his remarks, after thanking the dignitaries present, with a Jewish prayer: “Blessed be Thou … for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this day.”

In an article in the New York Times, Elie Wiesel, after retelling the horrors of Auschwitz concluded:

“Let us make up, Master of the Universe. In spite of everything that happened? Yes, in spite. Let us make up: for the child in me … it is unbearable to be divorced from you so long.”

I think he expresses the response to the problem of evil best when he says:

“I express to you my deepest gratitude as one who has emerged from the Kingdom of Night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.”

— Nobel Peace Prize Speech

No philosophical argument can improve on the words of Elie Wiesel, who experienced evil in the most personal way. That the wickedness of others does not destroy his faith is a great testimony to faith. For a man who has suffered so much to say, “Every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them” — that is the best response to the problem of evil: The admission from those who have suffered that God is not the cause of evil, but God alone has the power and goodness of overcome it.

One might, indeed, come to know that there is Divine Providence over all things, but one cannot have knowledge of the significance of particular individuals and events in the divine plan for creation as a whole. That is what the New Atheists demand: an explanation of why these evils have come to this person, and how can that be justified. But it is a mistake to try to “justify” any particular evil; you will come to see that St. Thomas’s response is to answer the problem of evil in general terms: noting that God is good and omnipotent.

So in response to the problem of evil:

Be careful, remember: The Christian does not seek to justify the evil but rather trusts in God’s power to overcome and annihilate it.

The New Atheists’ complaint about the problem of evil rings hollow. The problem, as they articulate it, seems academic: Comfortable academics raising an abstract problem, even if they color it with lurid details. I take more seriously the view of Elie Wiesel, and others who have met evil face to face. We should not judge those who struggle with the problem of evil, but we should marvel at the testimony of those who see their way past the problem of evil.

2. God is an Unnecessary Hypothesis

According to the New Atheists, God is an “unnecessary hypothesis.”

Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker, writes:

“The [oldest] alleged [alternative] to the theory of natural selection … is the theory that life was created … by a conscious designer. It would obviously be unfairly easy to abolish some particular version of this theory such as the one (or it may be two) spelled out in Genesis” (p. 316).

“All that we can say about such beliefs is, firstly, that they are superfluous and, secondly, that they assume the existence of the main thing we want to explain, namely organized complexity” (pg. 316).

Briefly question this assumption: In Junior Theology (Prima Pars, Q. 3, A. 7) you will see St. Thomas’s arguments that God is in every way simple; and, in fact, simplicity is prior to complexity. He gives several arguments to show that the first cause must be simple, including that everything that is complex must necessarily be caused. [Diverse constituting principles cannot unite unless there is a cause to unite them.]

But also note the claim that natural mechanisms, time, and chance are sufficient to explain all that is.

Superfluous: The assumption must be that natural causes are adequate to explain all that is. If so, an appeal to God’s causality would be superfluous.

Dawkins goes on:

“The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity” (p. 317).

He makes a crucial elaboration at this point:

“Single-step selection is just another way to say pure chance … Cumulative selection, by slow and gradual degrees, is the explanation, the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed, for the existence of life’s complex design” (p. 317).

But there is more:

“We have sought a way of taming chance … To ‘tame’ chance means to break down the very improbable into less probable small components arranged in a series” (p. 317).

And the grand conclusion:

“It is the contention of the Darwinian worldview that … slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection is the ultimate explanation of our existence” (p.318).

The New Atheist position comes down to the following: It is out of ignorance that men posit the existence of God. Science has shown conclusively that slow, cumulative, natural selection and the agency of chance is “the only workable explanation” for the way things are. Science has discovered the “ultimate explanation” of things, and in so doing it has shown that the “God hypothesis” is unnecessary.

Cardinal Pell in a debate with Dawkins argued that there is evidence of purpose in nature, so chance cannot be the ultimate cause of all natural things. Dawkins responded with what he thought was a devastating criticism: If there is purpose in nature, you must be able to know, for example, what is the purpose of mountains?

The problem here is that Dawkins begins with something in nature that is less known to us. Maybe there is complexity about purpose in nature, but our starting point should be about living beings such as ourselves, and parts of natural beings, such as wings and gills. Do gills have a purpose? That is a better starting point than the purpose of rocks and mountains. Living things and their parts are, in some way, more known to us.

This is a crucial point: To think well about God, religion, or any other matter, involves good sense about what is more obvious and what is less so. From the more obvious it is easier to draw out a principle which we can employ in harder cases. We must be wary of falling into the trap of trying to explain complex matters in order to defend basic positions.

So the New Atheists deny the more evident because of the less well known.

Another presumption they make is that, because they have discovered a natural cause of a phenomenon, there can be no other cause for that same phenomenon. That is a bold claim: Has contemporary science such an understanding of the causes at work in nature, that one can conclude that they are sufficient to explain all that is?

It turns out that St. Thomas Aquinas has already considered this claim. He shows that “the same effect is ascribed to a natural cause and to God, not as though part were effected by God and part by the natural agent: but the whole effect proceeds from each, yet in different ways …” (SCG, III, 70)

What he means by this is that there can be several causes of any effect, and that there is some relationship between the causes.

A simple example is that the baseball player and the baseball bat are both causes of hitting the home run. In this example, the ballplayer cannot hit the home run without using the bat, and the bat can’t bring about the home run unless it is moved by the hands of the player.

Compare this point to Dawkins’ words:

“Natural selection not only explains the whole of life; it also raises our consciousness to the power of science to explain how organized complexity can emerge from a simple beginning without any deliberate guidance” (pg. 141).

Our response: If we understand that God, the creator of heaven and earth, is not a competing cause with nature, we can avoid this mistake. Just because scientists discover natural causes in the created world, they have not thereby given a complete explanation, and, as a result, they have not done away with all other possible causality, much less with divine causality.

To expand on this point a little: Consider that each of us exists, and we are what we are, because something else existed before us. All of us here present owe our existence to our parents, and what is true of us is also true of them. Our existence and our nature are dependent on others. It is not necessary that we exist; we are contingent beings. Simply put: We come to be and pass away. Our nature and our existence are due to another. As St. Thomas puts it, the existence of any creature is received from another. Since what we are and that we are depends on another, our power to do anything is also dependent on another.

This needs further explanation; let me use a likeness to clarify the point. Just as the baseball bat does not explain its own existence or cause its own motion, all natural things have existence and power from another. So even if a natural thing really causes something else to be, it cannot be a sufficient cause of what it produces. It will be, in the language of Aquinas, a secondary cause.

The assertion that matter, natural mechanisms, and natural powers can explain everything is not true. Every natural being is changeable and corruptible. As a result, natural things cannot explain their own existence and their own power. However, true it is that natural phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes, there is still need of a self-sufficient, first cause, the cause of causes. For example, an extension cord is necessary if you want power to something that is far from an electric outlet. However, the extension cord is only a cause due to something else — the outlet; without the outlet, the extension cord cannot be a cause at all. To explain everything around us in terms of changeable finite creatures would be like explaining how a light bulb is lit up by just one extension cord after another, without reference to an electrical outlet at the origin. The extension cord, or any number of extension cords, is inadequate by itself.

What follows from this point?

There is no need to choose between a natural explanation based on observation and experimentation and a religious account of the universe that depends on God as an omnipotent creator. If the scientist insists that we choose between experimental science and religious doctrine, he is overstepping his authority.

In Sophomore Philosophy you have the opportunity to consider several things that are implied in what I have said. In particular, there are several different kinds of cause, and that there is an order among them. In addition to the causes, there are modes of causality: including universal and particular causes (and therein lies a good deal of discussion), essential and accidental causes, etc.

Also, you encounter a thorough consideration of the nature of chance, and in what way it can be considered a cause. Chance cannot be an essential principle of things coming to be, it is only a cause in virtue of something that is prior. Furthermore, chance cannot be an ultimate explanation of things coming to be.

So the atheist is mistaken when he suggests that God is an “unnecessary hypothesis.” Natural causes are secondary causes, requiring more fundamental causes in order to be causes. And chance cannot explain the origin of all that is.

Furthermore, in Senior Natural Science, when you discuss Darwin, you will discover that natural selection is not an explanation of things coming into existence, it is a hypothesis about how living things survive once they have come into existence.

We have addressed two problems the New Atheists struggle with: 1) the problem of evil and 2) the supposed sufficiency of natural causes.

Let us now look at the third objection to religion that is commonly offered by the New Atheists:

3. Bible is Myth

Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker:

“Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders” (p.316).

And why do all peoples develop their own creation myth? Another New Atheist, Daniel Dennett, devotes a book to the subject: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

Dennett writes:

“The memorable myths and fairies and goblins and demons that crowd mythologies of every people are the imaginative offspring of a hyperactive habit of finding agency wherever anything puzzles or frightens us. This mindlessly generates a vast overpopulation of agent’s ideas, most of which are too stupid to hold our attention for an instant, only a well-designed few make it through the rehearsal tournament, mutating and improving as they go.”

Dawkins, The God Delusion:

“In Genesis … the well-loved story of Noah [is] derived from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim” (p.269).

Dawkins, Outgrowing God:

“Like countless such stories from all over the world, they are ‘myths.’ There is nothing wrong with myths. Some are beautiful and most are interesting, but they aren’t history” (p. 56).

“The stories differ in various details but are similar in essentials” (p. 54).

A quick comparison of the pagan myths with Genesis seems to bear out the view that there are a number of real similarities between the two. In several myths, human beings are brought into being from clay:

For example, a Sumerian Myth (Enki and Ninmah):

“Take you a measure of clay and mix it with drops of my blood. When it is well mixed, cut it into portions … shape the pieces of clay into beings. And so it was that Enki …created men and women.”

Compare these texts with Genesis 2:7.

“… then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

An original idyllic land:

“Far, far away, there is a land called Dilmun. Dilmun is a pure land, a land of peace and plenty. Beasts of prey hunt not, carrion birds feed not. In Dilmun there is no sickness and no fear, there is no slow decline into agedness, and there is no death and no mourning. Toil and travail are known not. All is young, all is peaceful, all is pure.”

—Sumerian Myth (Enki and Ninhursag)

Compare to Genesis 2:8.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and … out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food …

In one pagan myth there is the formation of a living being from a rib.

The most commonly noted similarity — a great flood:

From the Epic of Gilgamesh:

“The boat you are to build shall have her dimensions in proportion, her width and length shall be in harmony … For six days and seven nights the wind blew, flood and tempest overwhelmed the land … the boat had come to rest on Mount Nimush …When the seventh day arrived, I put out and released a dove. The dove went; it came back, for no perching place was visible to it, and it turned round. I put out and released a swallow. The swallow went, it came back … I put out and released a raven. The raven went and saw the waters receding. And it ate, preened, lifted its tail and did not turn round.”

Surely readers of Genesis will find this story familiar.

First, we should note that this criticism of the New Atheists is not new at all. In the second letter of Peter we hear:

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths … because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter, 1. 16-21).

Also, Pope Leo XIII anticipated their objection:

[There are those who] “deny that there is any such thing as revelation or inspiration, or Holy Scripture at all; they see, instead, only the forgeries and the falsehoods of men; they set down the Scripture narratives as stupid fables” (Providentissimus Deus, #10).

Now, I assume that Moses is the human author of Genesis, and that God is the primary author of that book. That does not mean that God simply dictates to Moses what to write, nor that Moses acted alone. God inspires in the same way as His grace moves us to do good works. God does not take us over, he acts on us, so that we choose the good. Without His grace we would not choose well, but nonetheless we do the choosing, God does not choose for us.

Pope Leo notes even if the biblical authors used elements from well-known myths, they were moved:

“… by supernatural power, [God] so moved and impelled them to write. He was so present to them that the things which he ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words” (#20).

The 2nd Vatican Council, Dei Verbum:

“In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything …which He wanted” (Ch. III).

So the objection that the Bible is merely a copy of earlier myths makes a critical assumption: If the human authors employ familiar elements in their writing, then they are not inspired by God; rather, any inspiration was taken from earlier human authors. In other words, the New Atheists think if the authors of Scripture are “true authors,” then God is not necessary to inspire them.

(But this does not follow. In fact, it reduces to the 2nd objection that St. Thomas noted earlier: It seems that all things can be explained either by natural principles, or by reason and will. Therefore, there is no reason to suppose that God exists.)

Here the distinction made earlier also applies: Just by discovering natural causes it does not follow that one has discovered all the causes that are at work. The more you study Scripture, the more you discover its wisdom, a wisdom that far surpasses mere human authorship. For God inspires the human authors of Scripture, but they write in a way that is natural, influenced by the idioms of their times, and their writing is colored by familiar expressions and understanding.

(And this makes sense: the Bible is written for all people, young and old, educated and uneducated, from the earliest times to the present. With such an audience, it is not at all surprising that God would inspire human authors to speak poetically to teach theological truths, and even to hide doctrines that could be misunderstood. Much like the way Christ taught through parables.)

So, it should not surprise us that some of the things we read in Genesis are like other things that would have been familiar to the human authors of Scripture. In fact, by using familiar elements, the authors of Genesis manifest not so much the similarities but go beyond likeness to manifest how radically unlike it is from the pagan myths.

This last point is crucial: What is often overlooked is that, despite some superficial similarities, what sets Genesis apart from the other creation stories is its radical unlikeness to them.

In one myth, Enuma Elish, the first gods, male and female, generated the rest of the gods. So not only is it obviously polytheistic, but also the way they bring things into being is not really creation. In fact, it is a far cry from creation understood rightly. God does not make like a carpenter, who depends on pre-existing materials, nor does he bring things into existence by generation, as living things do.

By contrast, in Genesis, “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

In that same myth, the formation of the earth and the sky is described as producing one physical thing — the earth — from another physical thing — the carcass of a slain god. There is nothing remotely like this in Genesis: “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so” (Genesis 1:9-10).

The gods described in these myths are weak, vengeful, and often wicked. And to the extent that a reason is given why they produce human beings, it is because of some need the gods have.

In one of the Mesopotamian myths (Atrahasis) the first gods agreed to generate creatures, the first human beings, in order to have them do the work of the lesser gods. And to generate these living beings they had to sacrifice a god and mix his blood with clay. All went well until the number of human beings grew so large that they created such noise that the gods could not sleep. The final solution to this problem was a flood to wipe them out. There is nothing like this in Genesis.

When the New Atheists talk about the likeness of Genesis to the pagan myths, they quote very sparingly from these myths. Any more of the texts would show plainly a greater unlikeness than likeness.

A thorough comparison of the pagan myths with Genesis shows that Dawkins is simply wrong to claim, “The stories differ in various details but are similar in essentials.” In fact it is the inverse: The stories are similar in various details but differ in essentials.

 

Summary of the comparison of the pagan myths with Genesis:

• One God vs. many gods.
  A Lord God vs. male and female gods. Note: [It is interesting that God is not called Father in the opening chapters of Genesis — perhaps to avoid the errors of other myths that attribute sex, both male and female, to the gods. Not until Exodus: “Israel is my firstborn son” and Deuteronomy: “Is not he your father who created you?”]

• A God who creates by speaking things into existence vs. gods who manufacture things.

• A God who is all-powerful vs. gods who have more or less physical strength and physical needs.

• A God who creates things that are good and very good vs. gods making a chaotic world. In fact, there is nothing like this verse of Genesis in the pagan myths: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31).

• There is nothing in the pagan myths that corresponds to the seventh day: the day that God “blessed and hallowed.”

• In Genesis we find a God who wants us to be morally and spiritually good vs. gods that are corrupt and are incapable of demanding a moral life from their creatures.

• We find a God who loves us vs. gods who show little care unless they have favorites. Even after God condemns Adam and Eve to leave Eden, he provides them with “garments of skin” to replace their fig leaves.

• In Genesis we encounter a God who makes man in His image, in the myths gods who are in our image

Conclusion

We have noted the three kinds of objections to the existence of God that the New Atheists raise. 1) The problem of evil; 2) The claim that God is superfluous; and 3) the critique of the Bible.

We have responded that the problem of evil can be addressed in terms of God’s omnipotence and goodness, but the testimony of those who have suffered, and still believe, is a powerful witness against the problem of evil.

To their second objection we proposed that one thinks God is superfluous if one fails to distinguish between universal and particular causes.

Finally, the similarities between the pagan myths and Genesis are superficial and serve to manifest more profound differences between the texts that actually highlight the divine inspiration of the Bible.

The unique program at TAC prepares us well to learn from the mistakes of the New Atheists. Here are some ways:

1. About Method: Don’t start with the complex, but with common conceptions that all should acknowledge to be true. (Euclid, Freshman and Sophomore Philosophy, Junior Seminar, etc.)

2. About Faith and Reason: Sophomore and Junior Theology

3. Problem of Evil: Book of Job, Brothers Karamazov …

4. Nature of Causality: Sophomore Philosophy, Junior and Senior Theology…

5. Luck and Chance: Sophomore Philosophy, Sophomore Seminar…

6. The Wisdom of Scripture: Theology tutorials and some Senior Seminar readings.

And so, by immersing ourselves in the program, we can become the new evangelists. We can do our part to “renew the face of the earth.”

 

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