Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies |  | Author: David Bentley Hart
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Pages: 272
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Product Description
Contemporary antireligious polemics are based not only upon profound conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history or even outright historical ignorance: so contends David Bentley Hart in this bold correction of the distortions. Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the Age of Reason was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reasons authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values. Publisher: Spring Arbor/Ingram Yale University Press 2009 Author: David Bentley Hart Format: 272 pages, paperback ISBN: 9780300164299
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
 A much needed history lesson May 24, 2009
Jordan M. Poss (Georgia, United States)
69 out of 85 found this review helpful
The only thing I dislike about Atheist Delusions is its title. A few other reviewers have pointed out that it seems to indicate the book will be a rebuttal of atheist writers like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and the rest. It is not. Indeed, David Bentley Hart asserts that men like them are hardly worth attention because of the infantile level on which they argue. What Hart does, instead, is provide a history lesson for the "fashionable enemies" of Christianity.
The delusions in question, Hart says, are mostly historical ones. One will not discuss religion with an atheist long before history comes up. What of the injustice of the Inquisition? The Crusades? The long-running war of religion against science? The Reformation and the subsequent wars of religion? We hear constantly that religion (read: Christianity) is the most destructive force in human history. It is Hart's purpose to debunk the delusions and historical fabrications that characterize historical arguments against Christianity.
The primary focus of Hart's book, hinted at in the subtitle, is the "Christian Revolution," those first, tense centuries AD when Christianity replaced ancient paganism. The pagan era has been eulogized since in the Enlightenment as an era of peace and progress, of scientific advance that was stymied by the bigoted, book-burning Christians of the "Dark Ages." Hart shows that, while we owe much to the ancient world, it was also an irredeemably ugly place of slavery, infanticide, of callousness and hopeless reconciliation to the whims of cruel fate. Christianity, which he calls the only true revolution in history, changed everything from the bottom up--and since Christianity was first accepted among the lower classes and slaves, it changed everything quite literally from the bottom up.
Christians did not, Hart shows, burn the Library of Alexandria, or torture millions during the Inquisition, persecute Galileo, or wreak havoc across Europe during the Reformation in the name of religion. Christianity gave the world hospitals, modern science, and the moral framework to regard all life as worthy of life. In this coup de grace, Hart even points out that it would not even be possible for men like Dawkins and Hitchens to make their arguments of justice and fairness were it not for the "Christian Revolution," that their concepts of justice and fairness are rooted not just in Western Civilization but in Christianity itself.
The only way in which Atheist Delusions left me wanting was in a discussion of the Crusades. I am a military and medieval historian and so this topic is near and dear to my heart, but Hart only gives the Crusades a paragraph or two at the beginning of one chapter. He claims that the Crusades were not rooted in any Christian doctrine of just war--but they were, and were he to investigate further he would see the reasons the Crusades were considered just. (To take up the slack on this topic, I recommend Thomas F. Madden's New Concise History of the Crusades.)
But that one niggling issue aside, Atheist Delusions is one of the best books I have ever read--and I do not say so lightly. I read through it as quickly as I could and have thought about it daily ever since. I've found more food for thought, more intellectual challenge and stimulation here than in any book I've read in years.
Highly recommended.
Fascinating correction of "the narrative" March 12, 2010
Geoff Puterbaugh (Chiang Mai, T. Suthep, A. Muang Thailand)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
To begin with, the book should probably be titled "Atheist Delusions About Ancient History." This book is not so much a debate with our Fashionable New Atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens -- "The Gang of Four?? :-) ) It is more a long, and endlessly fascinating, revisit of Ancient History.
It may not be surprising to learn that there are at least two main narratives commonly provided for "The History of Western Civilization." Here they are (very compressed):
Narrative #1: The Christian Version. "The world was lost in pagan immorality and darkness; man enslaved man and man dominated woman. Then, with the Birth of Christ, came the Divine Light, and the world was forever transformed. The barbarian, knuckle-dragging rapists of Europe were baptised and brought to Jesus, and the world got much, much better. Even today, there is no other known source of European civilization and we reject it at our peril." One of the most popular novels of all time, "Quo Vadis," is in this narrative tradition.
Narrative #2: The Modernist Version. "We had the Glory of Greece and the Splendor of Rome, but alas a bunch of superstitious people completely replaced the glories of Paganism with the knuckle-dragging ignorance of Blind Faith. The result was the Dark Ages, which only ended when Heroic Forces restored the classics of Greece to a benighted Europe. Then came the Enlightenment, and Democracy, and all manner of good things, once the Europeans cast off the shackles of Faith." Arthur C. Clarke and many other modern thinkers followed this narrative.
Whether you approve of my "summaries" or not, the point is that they are both tremendous oversimplifications and they are both therefore silly. If you want to be a propagandist, OK, take one of those simple-minded narratives. But if you really want to understand the history of Western Civilization, you need much more information.
One myth which has been repeated endlessly is that "Christian mobs destroyed the Library of Alexandria." This is completely false. In the first place, there were two libraries, and there have been a number of "suspects" beginning with Caesar, but nobody really knows what happened. (A man named Parsons wrote a whole book on the subject.) Another myth is that Christianity somehow destroyed the original Greek manuscripts of Aristotle, and that we had to get them back from the Arabs, in Arabic. If this myth were true, how could we possibly have all of Aristotle in the original Greek today? (The original Greek manuscripts were preserved in Byzantium.)
Things like this make the book under review invaluable, and there is one larger discussion I would like to share with you. It concerns Galileo, and the Myth of Galileo -- apparently launched by the great hypocrite Brecht. Basically, all you need to know is that "everything you think you know about Galileo is false," most particularly the idea that Galileo and other modern astronomers were engaged in some sort of running war with the dogmatic Catholic Church. Not at all. In the end, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton were engaged in a much larger and more difficult battle: they were overturning the dead hand of Aristotle, which had stifled European science for thousands of years. Newton's final victory was the collapse of Hellenistic "science" --- such as it was.
Well, I've either stirred up your interest, or I haven't! Back to Beethoven Op. 127. :-)
An Easterner Defends the West April 4, 2009
Jacob of Sterlington (Louisiana)
82 out of 108 found this review helpful
I will forgo the standard adjectives that came to mind when I read this book: brilliant, stunning, breathtaking. That is a given when one reads David Bentley Hart. This book is a combination of alternative history, apologetics, and smash-mouth theology.
Hart claims the Christian faith represented a revolution in the story of humanity (ix). It shattered the pagan cosmology (115) and introduced new categories of reality, the dimension of the human person for one. However, Hart's thesis is more subtle than that. He is not simply saying "Christianity has done a lot of good to the world; therefore, you need to belive,"--that would be a variant of the genetic fallacy that Hart so masterfully refutes. Rather, Christianity has its own telling of the story, a telling that reworks the categories of human existence within the framework of its own story.
Over against the story is the narrative of modernity. Modernity's telos is that of freedom. Its highest ideal is putting trust in the absence of a transcendental. Its freedom is nihilistic. Modernity's current defenders, and this is the first half of Hart's book, retell the Western story in a way to demonize Christianity in their defense of modernity. Therefore, Hart meticulously shows how Christianity did not impede science (the chapter on Galileo is hilarious), burn witches (the Inquisition, despite its bad moments, actually limited the bloodiness of the State's persecution of heretics), or fight religious wars (the Crusades are actually a different case, worthy of a conversation but not under this topic).
One slight criticism: Given Hart's thesis of the Christian revolution of thought and humanity, its shattering and rebuilding of worlds, it is rather surprising to see Hart end on so dismal a note. If the Christian Revolution is as powerful as he says and as I believe, and if the detractors of Christianity are slightly moronic, as appears to be the case, does this not ultimately point to the triumph of the Christian narrative? Of course, the word triumph needs to be carefully qualified.
Conclusion:
What many of Hart's readers might not realize with this book, but this is actually Hart's clearest piece of writing. Most of Hart's writing (*Beauty of the Infinite*), while beautiful, is borderline incoherent. This book, on the other hand, is understandable.
EDIT: I've actually become more critical of this book in particular, and Hart in general over the past year. Hart is quite learned and makes a number of pointed responses to the "New Atheist Detractors." And to be fair, if the New Atheists are going to ridicule Christianity in the most scathing of terms, they need to be ready to play hardball. That being said, this book started well, had a nice historical review, but had one of the most lame conclusions I've ever read. Imagine Beethoven's 9th ending with everyone humming "Kum-by-yah." I mean, there is a major dialectical tension in this book. If Hart is correct on the Christian narrative, then how does his conclusion follow?!?
Dont let the bombastic title fool you: this is a much needed (and quite hilarious) corrective to modern atheist mythology April 4, 2009
Derrick A. Peterson (Oregon)
70 out of 92 found this review helpful
Dont let the bombastic title fool you (it appears to be a play on both Dawkin's The God Delusion and the latter part of the title of Schliermacher's famous On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers and so is actually a rather sly title despite its prima facie inflammatory nature). This is by no means a standard book of apologetics. You will find here no trenchant rehashing of the so-called arguments for God's existence (cosmological, axiological, ontological), theodicy, or the well worn cart paths of the wearisome and quixotic Evolution vs Creationism debates. Rather what Hart attempts to do (and does beautifully) is to show that the assumptions of the "New Athiests," (e.g. Dennet, Dawkins et all) and the common mythology of atheism amongst laypersons and professionals pervading our contemporary atmosphere--namely that the history of Christianity is one of completely violent, doctrinaire aggression, suppression of scientific inquiry, fideistic stupidity, the abnegation of freedom and self thinking, and all in all the historical quintessence and amalgamation of nearly all the maladies and vicious shortcomings of Western history--are completely false.
To complete this task Hart sets forth a history of Christianity that shows, e.g. that Christianity was not some great and malicious interruption to the ideals of Classical and Hellenistic science in the so-called Dark Ages, but in fact preserved and expounded upon classical ideas, and even--interestingly enough--mediated to Islam via Syriac Christianity's copious translations of Aristotle the Aristotelian scientific heritage that eventually became re-integrated into the Western world. Or, for example, the notorious case of Galileo and his condemnation by Pope Urban the VIII is wonderfully narrated with the historical precision it deserves to show (rightfully, and finally in a way that will reach the popular consciousness) that this was an anomaly in the general historical relationship between science and the Church; that it was not in fact a battle between the incandescent purity of the reason of scientific legitimacy versus the stalwart bastion of traditional fideistic dogmatism of the church but rather the asinine conflict between two supremely egotistical men; that, if one looks at it, Galileo despite his brilliance could provide no empirical evidence for his Copernicanism (which, up to that point had created no stir in the church and found both admirers and detractors...in fact Pope Paul the 3rd, to whom Copernicus' book was dedicated quite liked it) and so, ironically (as Hart wonderfully puts it), it was the CHURCH that was demanding evidence from GALILEO, who was in many ways blindly devoted to the hypothetical system of Copernicanism despite the lack of empirical evidence for his heliocentricism; and, quite humorously, that the eventual success of heliocentricism in the likes of Kepler and Newton was not the eventual success of some Classical Greek scientific spirit obfuscated by some Christian decline, but its final and ultimate defeat by a new system of science which superceded the old Aristotelian prejudices due to the influence of Christianity.
This is only a small piece of the books recovering of Christian history, but overall Hart's thesis is that the Christianity transformed the ancient world: it brought dignity to human beings, liberated us from fatalism, subverted the cruelest aspects of pagan society, emphasized learning and self control, and elevated charity above all virtues. In fact, to summarize, no Christianity means the disappearance of most, if not all of the positive force of Western history (a lofty thesis, to be sure).
But the book is so much more than even this corrective. Hart is not only a scholar of profound depth, but he also has a sharp sense of humor that saturates his beautiful writing style with a glamor and a fluidity of reading that few academics of his stature can achieve. There were moments when I actually laughed out loud at some of Hart's hilarious observations, and overall I could hardly put this book down. I strongly recommend this book. Not only is it an innovative and historically accurate (though as Hart himself admits, not exhaustive) account of Christianity, and not only does it provide an excellent introduction to Hart apart from his much more difficult (but also amazing) Beauty of the Infinite, but it is a ripping good read in its own right. An indispensable read for Christians (and atheists!) of all levels of learning.
Metaphysical Underpinnings Matter June 7, 2009
G. Kyle Essary (Melaka, Malaysia)
23 out of 30 found this review helpful
This is not a direct response to the New Atheists, but to their skewed perspective of history (full of error and logical inconsistency). As such, it does not respond to their errors one by one, but instead attempts to show how influential the metaphysical underpinnings of Christianity have been and continue to be to the Western mind. It shows how often they rely on the metaphysical underpinnings of a Christian mindset to even make their arguments.
As has become typical of Hart's work, the reader will need a dictionary at their side while reading. That's okay, because learning a new word here and there can only help us in our precision, and precision matters immensely to Hart.
Hart has given the reader historical correction at its finest. He first takes the historical errors (such as the "Dark Ages") that have too often pervaded the Western mindset and places them into their proper context, often showing that what pop-historians often write as fact, is more a created myth than reality. He follows this correction by illuminating the reader to the radical Christian revolution in the West, which transformed its values, ethics and persona.
One cannot finish this book (no matter their philosophy) without having a great appreciation for the influence of Christianity, whether it be in regards to science and creativity, medicine and hospitals, education and the university or our entire conception of justice and "human rights." The reader may continue to disagree with the truth of such a view, but they cannot help but appreciate the results that it brought about in Western life.
The book does not end with a happy or triumphalist tone. In fact, Hart admits his fear that the West will continue to move away from the Christian vision (as much of the non-Western world may be moving toward it). He sheds light on the many negative products from the myth of "progress" when not tempered by a Christian ethic. He concludes by suggesting that in the West, the reasonable thing for Christians to do may be to follow our forefathers into the desert.
Overall, the book presents a fascinating historical analysis of Western humanity, the philosophical and metaphysical basis of why the West views individuals as it does and a prophetic perspective (through the eyes of Nietzsche) of what may lie ahead for the post-Christian West. I heartily recommend the book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
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