You might
think from the recent spate of atheist best-sellers that belief in God
has become intellectually indefensible for thinking people today. But a
look at these books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher
Hitchens, among others, quickly reveals that the so-called New Atheism
lacks intellectual muscle. It is blissfully ignorant of the revolution
that has taken place in Anglo-American philosophy. It reflects the
scientism of a bygone generation rather than the contemporary
intellectual scene.
That generation's cultural high point came on April 8, 1966, when Time
magazine carried a lead story for which the cover was completely black
except for three words emblazoned in bright red letters: "Is God Dead?"
The story described the "death of God" movement, then current in
American theology.
But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the news of God's demise
was premature. For at the same time theologians were writing God's
obituary, a new generation of young philosophers was rediscovering his
vitality.
Back in the 1940s and '50s, many philosophers believed
that talk about God, since it is not verifiable by the five senses, is
meaningless—actual nonsense. This verificationism finally
collapsed, in part because philosophers realized that verificationism
itself could not be verified! The collapse of verificationism was the
most important philosophical event of the 20th century. Its downfall
meant that philosophers were free once again to tackle traditional
problems of philosophy that verificationism had suppressed. Accompanying
this resurgence of interest in traditional philosophical questions came
something altogether unanticipated: a renaissance of Christian
philosophy. Continue at William Lane Craig
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