The New Atheists: Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett

Between 2004 and 2007 four writers published books against religion that sold in very large numbers and set the terms of public argument about God for a decade. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett were soon spoken of as a group, the "New Atheists." Many Christians first met serious objections to their faith through these books, or through debates and videos built on them.

This article sets out what the four actually argued, in their own words where their words could be checked. It then gives the responses of their critics, including atheist and agnostic ones, describes how the movement divided, and offers the answers the Orthodox Church gives. The four men deserve courtesy: two of them have died, and all of them wrote with energy and conviction. Their arguments deserve a firm and reasoned reply.

In brief

The New Atheist books were Harris's The End of Faith (2004) and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), Dennett's Breaking the Spell (2006), Dawkins's The God Delusion (2006) and Hitchens's God Is Not Great (2007). Their common claims were that belief in God is a hypothesis that the evidence makes very unlikely, that faith means belief without evidence, and that religion does great harm and should not be shielded from criticism. Dawkins's central argument was that any designer of the universe would be more complex, and therefore more improbable, than what it explains. Critics answered that the books misunderstood the God of classical Christianity, who is not a complex being among beings but the uncreated source of all being. Some of the sharpest criticism came from critics who made no claim to faith, such as the philosopher Michael Ruse and the biologist H. Allen Orr. The four never agreed on everything; by 2012 the wider movement was divided over feminism and conduct, and by 2024 Hitchens and Dennett had died and Dawkins was calling himself a "cultural Christian." The Orthodox answer is that the New Atheists were right to reject an idol, wrong to think it was the God of the Church, and wrong that God cannot be known.

Thesis: The New Atheists raised real questions, but their main arguments attacked a picture of God that historic Christianity never held, and on the questions that matter (why anything exists, what grounds morality, what to make of Christ) atheism has no better answer than the one the Church has always given.

Four books in four years

The label came quickly. In November 2006 Wired published Gary Wolf's long report "The Church of the Non-Believers," which named Dawkins, Harris and Dennett and described their challenge: "They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God."¹ Wolf noted that Harris's first book had sold "more than a quarter million copies" in two years. Hitchens's book followed in 2007.

{{very-strong: The four best-known New Atheist books appeared between 2004 and 2007 and were widely read.}}

They were never a single school. Harris told an atheist conference in 2007 that it was an honor to be "continually assailed with Dan [Dennett], Richard [Dawkins], and Christopher [Hitchens] as though we were a single person with four heads," but that the label had let people "dismiss our arguments without meeting the burden of actually answering them."²

What they argued

Richard Dawkins: the "Ultimate Boeing 747"

Dawkins, an Oxford evolutionary biologist, defined what he called the God Hypothesis: "There exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."³ He treated this as a scientific claim to be judged by probability. His central argument, in the chapter "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God," turned the old design argument around: "the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer." In his summary: "However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747."⁴ He did not claim certainty, describing himself as thinking God "very improbable" and living "on the assumption that he is not there."⁵ He also argued that religion as such should lose its protected status: "As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."⁶

Christopher Hitchens: "four irreducible objections"

Hitchens, a journalist and essayist, subtitled his book How Religion Poisons Everything. Its first chapter states his case: "There still remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." He insisted that unbelief was not another creed: "Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith." And he wrote: "We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion."⁷

Sam Harris: the danger of faith

Harris, described by Wired as a neuroscientist, argued that faith itself is the problem. In 2007 he put it bluntly: "I remain convinced that religious faith is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised."⁸ His Letter to a Christian Nation told American believers that unbelievers stand dumbstruck "by your denial of tangible reality, by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by your attachment to an imaginary God."⁹

Daniel Dennett: breaking the spell

Dennett, a Tufts philosopher of mind, wrote the most measured of the four books. He said the spell that "must be broken is the taboo against a forthright, scientific, no-holds-barred investigation of religion as one natural phenomenon among many."¹⁰ His aim was to explain religion by evolution and psychology rather than to refute it argument by argument.

What the critics said

Religious critics were expected. What drew attention was criticism from unbelievers and scientists. The philosopher of biology Michael Ruse, who describes himself as an agnostic and "pretty atheistic" about Christianity's main claims, wrote in 2009 that Dawkins's book "would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course," and: "I have written elsewhere that The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist."¹¹ The evolutionary biologist H. Allen Orr, reviewing the book in the New York Review of Books as one who did not claim to know the answer ("for all I know, Dawkins's general conclusion is right"), judged that "The most disappointing feature of The God Delusion is Dawkins's failure to engage religious thought in any serious way."¹² The literary critic Terry Eagleton objected that "God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in."¹³

The Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga went to the heart of the 747 argument. "According to classical theism, God is a necessary being," he wrote, and since God "is a spirit, not a material object at all, and hence has no parts," it is "far from obvious that God is complex."¹⁴ Reviewing Dennett in Christianity Today, John Wilson questioned the premise that any taboo prevented the scientific study of religion, since sociology and anthropology had treated religion as a natural phenomenon for generations.¹⁵ Eagleton pressed the same point: "Theologians do not believe that he is either inside or outside the universe, as Dawkins thinks they do."¹⁶

{{strong: Some of the most serious criticism of the New Atheist books came from unbelieving philosophers and scientists, not only from believers.}}

The movement divides

Even at its height the movement disagreed with itself. Hitchens's own book complains of Dawkins and Dennett "for their cringe-making proposal that atheists should conceitedly nominate themselves to be called 'brights.'"¹⁷ Harris told the 2007 conference: "We should not call ourselves 'atheists,'" and defended meditation and the study of contemplative experience, admitting that on these matters "I don't entirely line up with Dan, Richard, and Christopher."¹⁸

By 2012 parts of the atheist movement were divided over feminism and harassment at its own events. In August 2012 the blogger Jen McCreight called for "a new wave of atheism," which became known as Atheism+, arguing that the "second wave" of "New Atheists" like Dawkins and Hitchens should give way to one concerned with social justice.¹⁹ Hitchens died in Houston on December 15, 2011, and Dennett died on April 19, 2024.²⁰

Two later moments surprised many. In November 2023 Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had moved in the same circles and counted Hitchens and Dawkins among her friends, published "Why I am now a Christian," writing that she had "found life without any spiritual solace unendurable."²¹ In March 2024 Dawkins told LBC radio: "I call myself a cultural Christian," adding, "I'm not a believer."²² Neither event refutes an argument. Both show that the confident forecast of religion's retreat did not describe even the movement's own circle.

{{debated: Whether New Atheism has ended as a movement, or simply dispersed into other causes, is a matter of interpretation; no agreed measure exists.}}

The best answers

The God they rejected is not the God of the Church

When God revealed His name to Moses, the Septuagint the Orthodox Church reads renders it: "I am THE BEING" (Exodus 3:14, Brenton).²³ God is not one more item in the universe, however large. St John of Damascus, summing up the Fathers in the eighth century, confesses God as "without beginning, without end, eternal and everlasting, uncreate, unchangeable, invariable, simple, uncompound, incorporeal," and says that what He is in His essence "is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable."²⁴ The Church knows God not in His essence but in His uncreated energies, by which He truly makes Himself known.

This answers the Ultimate 747. Dawkins's argument works against a designer who is a complex physical system built out of parts, which would indeed need explaining. The God of the Creed is not assembled from anything, does not come into existence and does not depend on anything else. "Who designed the designer?" assumes that God is the kind of thing that could be designed. The real question is why anything exists at all rather than nothing, and pointing to physical laws or a multiverse moves the question back without answering it (see Does God Exist? The Strongest Arguments).

Faith is not belief without evidence

The New Atheists defined faith as belief without evidence and then condemned it. The Scriptures do not. St Paul says that God's "invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Romans 1:20), and St Peter tells Christians to be ready "to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).²⁵ St John of Damascus writes that "the knowledge of God's existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature."²⁶ Christian faith is trust in a God who has made Himself known in creation, in conscience and above all in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. Faith goes beyond what argument can reach; it does not go against reason. Science studies the created order and depends on its regularity; it is not a rival account of why that order exists (see Has Science Disproved Christianity?).

Morality needs a ground

Hitchens and Harris wrote with moral passion against cruelty, hypocrisy and the abuse of children. They were right to condemn those evils. But on their own view the universe has no purpose and humans are products of unguided processes; it is hard to see why moral judgments should bind anyone. Hitchens's "certainty" that "an ethical life can be lived without religion" is true of many individual atheists, who often live admirably. It does not explain why goodness is real and obligatory. The Church's answer is that the moral law is written on the heart by the Creator, whose own goodness is its source (see Can Objective Morality Exist Without God?).

Religion and violence

The charge that religion "poisons everything" requires a comparison. Orr asked the question directly: "compared to what?"²⁷ Harris, who rejects the charge that Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot show where atheism leads, admitted that it kept being "thrown back at me in reviews."²⁸ Christians have committed real crimes in Christ's name, and the Orthodox Church does not deny it. But they did so against the Gospel, which commands love of enemies; the question is not whether believers sin, but whether Christ's teaching is true.

Objections to these answers

"If the premises are false, there is no need to study the theology."

The philosopher A. C. Grayling replied to Eagleton in exactly these terms: "when one rejects the premises of a set of views, it is a waste of one's time to address what is built on those premises," comparing theology to astrology.²⁹ But the premise in question is the existence of God, and the classical arguments for it are not built on theology; they begin from the existence of contingent things. To reject that premise one must answer those arguments as their defenders state them, which is what Ruse and Orr said Dawkins did not do.

"Divine simplicity is incoherent."

Philosophers do debate how a simple God can know and will many things. That is a serious question, and the Orthodox distinction between God's unknowable essence and His uncreated energies is the Church's answer to it. It is not an argument that God is a complex being who needs a designer.

"Christianity is wish-fulfilment."

A faith that calls for repentance, self-denial and the carrying of a cross, and that warns of judgment, is an odd wish. In any case, the origin of a belief does not settle whether it is true; that is decided by the evidence, above all for the resurrection of Christ.

What we can say confidently

• The four main New Atheist books appeared between 2004 and 2007 and were widely read.
• Dawkins's central argument was that a designer must be at least as improbable as what it designs: "God is the Ultimate Boeing 747."
• Serious critics, including the philosopher Michael Ruse, an unbeliever, and the biologist H. Allen Orr, judged that the books did not engage the best religious thought.
• Classical Christian teaching, including the Orthodox Fathers, holds that God is uncreated, simple and not a being among beings, so the 747 argument does not touch Him.
• The movement was divided by 2012, and by 2024 Hitchens and Dennett had died and Dawkins was calling himself a "cultural Christian."

What remains disputed

• Whether New Atheism has ended or dispersed; observers disagree, and there is no agreed measure.
• How much the books changed belief; sales figures show readership, not conversions.
• How best to state divine simplicity philosophically; Christian philosophers themselves debate this, while agreeing that God is uncreated and not composed of parts.

Conclusion

The New Atheists did the Church an unintended service. They forced Christians to ask whether their faith rested on reasons, and they exposed how often the God of popular imagination is a large being somewhere in the sky. That God does not exist, and the Fathers would have agreed. The God who said "I am THE BEING" is the source of all that is, known in His works and fully revealed in His Son.

Atheism is not true. God's existence is knowable, as St Paul says, and Christ is risen. The right response to Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett is neither mockery nor anxiety but the patient witness St Peter asked for, "with meekness and fear," and the life of the Church, where the God they rejected is met not as a hypothesis but as the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whose eternal Son became man for our salvation.

Notes

1. Gary Wolf, "The Church of the Non-Believers," Wired, November 2006, https://www.wired.com/2006/11/atheism/.
2. Sam Harris, "The Problem with Atheism," edited transcript of a talk to the Atheist Alliance, Washington, D.C., 28 September 2007, https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-problem-with-atheism.
3. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006), ch. 2, as quoted in Wesley J. Wildman, review of The God Delusion, Boston University, https://people.bu.edu/wwildman/atheo/reviews/review_dawkins01.htm.
4. Dawkins, The God Delusion, ch. 4, as quoted in Wildman (see note 3) and in Alvin Plantinga, "The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum," Books & Culture, March/April 2007, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2007/03/dawkins-confusion/.
5. Dawkins, The God Delusion, as quoted in Wildman (see note 3).
6. Dawkins, The God Delusion, as quoted in Wolf (see note 1).
7. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great, ch. 1, "Putting It Mildly," publisher's excerpt (Twelve) on BookBrowse, https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/2052/page_number/2/god-is-not-great.
8. Harris, "The Problem with Atheism" (see note 2).
9. Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), as quoted in Wolf (see note 1).
10. Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006), as quoted in John Wilson, "Trapped with Dr. X," Christianity Today, May 2006, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2006/05/trapped-with-dr-x/.
11. Michael Ruse, "Why I Think the New Atheists Are a Bloody Disaster," Beliefnet, "Science and the Sacred," August 2009, https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/scienceandthesacred/2009/08/why-i-think-the-new-atheists-are-a-bloody-disaster.html.
12. H. Allen Orr, "A Mission to Convert," New York Review of Books, 11 January 2007, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/01/11/a-mission-to-convert/.
13. Terry Eagleton, "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching," London Review of Books 28, no. 20 (19 October 2006), https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching.
14. Plantinga, "The Dawkins Confusion" (see note 4).
15. Wilson, "Trapped with Dr. X" (see note 10).
16. Eagleton, "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching" (see note 13).
17. Hitchens, God Is Not Great, ch. 1 (see note 7).
18. Harris, "The Problem with Atheism" (see note 2).
19. Jen McCreight, "How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy's Club & Why It's Time for a New Wave of Atheism," Blag Hag (Freethought Blogs), August 2012, https://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/08/how-i-unwittingly-infiltrated-the-boys-club-why-its-time-for-a-new-wave-of-atheism/.
20. "Christopher Hitchens was militant pundit and humanist," Christian Science Monitor (Associated Press), 16 December 2011, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1216/Christopher-Hitchens-was-militant-pundit-and-humanist; Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences, "Remembering Daniel C. Dennett," 19 April 2024, https://as.tufts.edu/news-events/news/remembering-daniel-c-dennett-university-and-fletcher-professor-philosophy-emeritus.
21. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Why I am now a Christian," UnHerd, 11 November 2023, https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/.
22. "Famous Atheist Richard Dawkins Says He Considers Himself a 'Cultural Christian'," Catholic News Agency, via National Catholic Register, April 2024 (reporting an LBC interview broadcast 31 March 2024), https://www.ncregister.com/cna/famous-atheist-richard-dawkins-says-he-considers-himself-a-cultural-christian.
23. Exodus 3:14, trans. L. C. L. Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha (1851), https://ebible.org/eng-Brenton/EXO03.htm.
24. St John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1.2 and 1.4, trans. S. D. F. Salmond, NPNF2 9, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/33041.htm (New Advent credits Watson and Pullan, who translated Hilary in the same volume).
25. Romans 1:19-20; 1 Peter 3:15 (NKJV).
26. St John of Damascus, Exact Exposition 1.1 (see note 24).
27. Orr, "A Mission to Convert" (see note 12).
28. Harris, "The Problem with Atheism" (see note 2).
29. A. C. Grayling, letter, London Review of Books 28, no. 21 (2 November 2006), printed with Eagleton's review online (see note 13).

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982. Brenton, Lancelot C. L., trans. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: English. London: Samuel Bagster, 1851.
• Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Bantam; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006 (quoted through the reviews listed).
• Dennett, Daniel C. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking, 2006 (quoted through the reviews listed).
• Harris, Sam. The End of Faith. 2004. Letter to a Christian Nation. 2006. "The Problem with Atheism." 2007.
• Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve; London: Atlantic Books, 2007.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• St John of Damascus. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Trans. S. D. F. Salmond. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 9. 1899.

Other scholarship and criticism

• Eagleton, Terry. "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching." London Review of Books, 19 October 2006.
• Orr, H. Allen. "A Mission to Convert." New York Review of Books, 11 January 2007.
• Plantinga, Alvin. "The Dawkins Confusion." Books & Culture, March/April 2007.
• Wildman, Wesley J. Review of The God Delusion. Boston University.
• Wilson, John. "Trapped with Dr. X." Christianity Today, May 2006.
• Wolf, Gary. "The Church of the Non-Believers." Wired, November 2006.

Sources from atheist and secular writers

• Grayling, A. C. Letter. London Review of Books, 2 November 2006.
• Hirsi Ali, Ayaan. "Why I am now a Christian." UnHerd, 11 November 2023.
• McCreight, Jen. "How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy's Club & Why It's Time for a New Wave of Atheism." 2012.
• Ruse, Michael. "Why I Think the New Atheists Are a Bloody Disaster." Beliefnet, 2009.