The Errors of Atheism

271 Pages·2010·1.18 MB·English

by  J. Angelo Corlett

The Errors of Atheism
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The Errors of Atheism
J. Angelo Corlett
2010
The Continuum International Publishing Group
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright © 2010 by J. Angelo Corlett
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the permission of the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-1-4411-5187-2 (hardback)
978-1-4411-5893-2 (paperback)
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed in the United States of America
To my mother, Diana Bellotto,
and my brothers, Frank S. and Waldo W.
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
PART I: THE ERRORS OF ATHEISM
1. Analyzing Atheism 29
2. The Errors of Atheism 51
3. Dawkins’ GodLESS Delusion 69
4. The New Agnosticism 87
PART II: GROUNDING GOD
5. Naturalizing Theism 101
6. Liberating Theism 148
7. Is Hybrid Minimalist Theism Plausible? 208
Conclusion 225
Bibliography 227
Index 243
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Preface
It takes a brave voice indeed, it is said, to question the assumptions on which
a common public discourse and its conception of a common reason and
experience are said to depend.
—D. Z. Phillips1
Come now, let us reason together.
—Isaiah 1:18
The Errors of Atheism has grown out of three decades of study of n umerous
works in philosophy of religion and Christian theology as an orthodox
Christian theist, then as a student of neo-orthodox, liberal, revisionist, and
radical (including secular, process and liberation) Christian theologies,2
then as an atheist, and currently as an agnostic. Having converted to
Christian theism three decades ago while an undergraduate student, and
having assiduously studied philosophy, philosophy of religion, Christian
(and some non-Christian) theologies both as an undergraduate and
throughout my seminary years, I found what I then thought were good
reasons to believe in the unorthodox and radical Christian conceptions of
God, reasons supplied by theologians such as Thomas Aquinas,3 Anselm,4
Walter Rauschenbusch,5 Paul Tillich,6 Rudolf Bultmann,7 process thinkers
1 D. Z. Phillips, “Religion, Philosophy, and the Academy,” International Journal
for Philosophy of Religion, 44 (1998), p. 130.
2 For a helpful taxonomy and discussion of these “models” of Christian theology,
see David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975),
especially Chapters 1–2.
3 Umberto Eco refers to him as “doctor angelicus” [Umberto Eco and Carlo Maria
Martini, Belief or Nonbelief? Minna Proctor (trans.) (New York: Arcade
Publishing, 1997), p. 61.]
4 S. N. Deane, Translator, St. Anselm: Basic Writings (LaSalle: Open Court,
1962).
5 Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theory for the Social Gospel (New York: Abingdon
Press, 1917).
6 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Volumes 1–3 (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1951).
7 Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribner’s, 1958). It
is said by David Ray Griffi n that Bultmann was “the greatest New Testament
scholar of the post-World War II generation” [David Ray Griffi n, John Cobb,
Jr., Richard Falk, and Catherine Keller, The American Empire and the Common-
wealth of God (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2006), p. 146].