The so-called new brand of atheism and the postmodern mood of the hour

Unlike the much more sophisticated postmodern thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Focault, Paul de Man and Richard Rorty, the new atheists, led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Samuel Harris and Daniel Dennett, appear to be out of touch with 21st century realities. This is most particularly obvious to those who are familiar with the current intellectual and moral crises that the various expressions of the postmodern way of thinking have brought into the field of philosophical inquiry.

As if trying to resurrect the past, the new atheists appeal to outdated rhetorics and arguments that have long been dismissed in the academic world as untenable and unfounded. One of such arguments is the notion that science has for a long time already proved the hypothesis of the existence of God and the supernatural dimension of life non-existent. The new atheists make it appear that this notion is still the dominant point of view in the academy when it is no longer the case. Taking a look at the history of the philosophical foundation upon which this line of argument rests will make one realize that this so-called new brand of atheism has nothing new to offer at all to address the new set of challenges put forth by the postmodern mood of the hour that currently shapes the prevailing thought-patterns of the day.

In his magisterial work Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant established the fact that exhaustive knowledge of all reality is impossible. Left to its own devises, reason alone, he said, is helplessly incapable to completely comprehend and articulate all that is there to know by the Cartesian thinking subject. He even complained over the fact that reason often raises questions that it cannot answer. Furthermore, he was able to demonstrate, with much success, that there is more to know beyond the reach of sensory experience. Thus, he touched the very nerve of both rationalism and empiricism, the two major schools of thought that came into full flower during the Age of Enlightenment.

By positing such an epistemological formula to the discussion table of the academy, Kant introduced what has been later termed by philosophers as "the Enlightenment fallacy." Here is a Copernican revolution in philosophy that eventually proved to be inimical to the philosophical values of the Enlightenment project in modernity. Only recently, such an epistemological point of view finally gave birth to what we know today, for lack of a better term, as postmodernism.

Unwilling to face the logical implications of the Kantian epistemological formula, which also gave way for metaphysical considerations to find their place in the academic discussion table, atheists resorted to naturalistic materialism, which in so short a time eventually took a new form in Darwinian evolutionism. Having strategically positioned themselves through the course of time in the respectable world of the hard sciences, atheists appealed to scientific method to disprove the hypothesis of God's existence. They made it appear that science has all that it takes to satisfactorily answer, in naturalistic terms, questions that reason alone is unable to adequately comprehend.

But as already stated above, this approach is no longer tenable in the academic world. There appears to be a consensus among leading scientists today that categorically states that one cannot either prove or disprove the hypothesis of God's existence through scientific experimentation. Such an issue, these scientists conclude, has to be settled on other grounds, not in the scientific laboratory.

As Oxford historical theology professor Alister McGrath (who also holds a doctorate degree in molecular biophysics from Oxford, not to mention his doctorate in divinity from the same institution) points out, even as early as the 1880s, one could hear the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, also known as “Darwin’s bulldog,” declaring that the question of God's existence could not be settled on the grounds of scientific experimentation. The late Stephen Jay Gould, arguably America's foremost biologist, agreed by saying, "Science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists." Oxford immunologist Sir Peter Medawar, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work in this field, made exactly the same conclusion when he said, "The existence of a limit to science is, however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary questions having to do with first and last things – questions such as ‘How did everything begin?’; ‘What are we all here for?’; ‘What is the point of living?"

What the new atheists are doing can therefore be likened to a musical piece played out of tune with the impulses of the moment in popular culture and the consensus of leading thinkers in the academic arena. No, it's not the musical piece itself that is out of tune. Those who insist to play this old musical piece in the 21st century world, they are the ones, namely the new atheists, so-called, that are out of tune.

References:

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York, NY: Viking, 2006.

Harris, Samuel. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

___________. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve Hatchette Book Group USA, 2007.

McGrath, Alister, and Joanna Collicutt McGrath. The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. London: SPCK, 2007.

McGrath, Alister.  "The Growing Crisis of Confidence within Atheism: Reflections on the Atheist Apologetics of Richard Dawkins." Salisbury Cathedral, March 22, 2006.

Spaulding, Mike.  "The New Atheism: Another Skirmishes with a Twist." A paper presented to The Annual Meeting of the International Society of Christian Apologetics, Deerfield, Illinois, April 18, 2009.