Philo Sofee wrote:At Last! A Mormon Scholar “Takes On” the (New) Atheists
O.K., this is cool. Hyrum Lewis, now at BYU-I, has written a sparkling new book “There IS A God”, CFI, 2017.
The first thing I thought of was “Yeah, but which one is real?” The title is quite wrong if history is our guide, and he is, after all, an historian. It should read “There Are Multitudinous Gods, But Ours is the Correct One,” or something along those lines. But that opens up dozens of cans of worms this author would rather ignore or disregard. But why? Aren’t Gods supposed to be the most important thing in the universe? Are there problems with many gods instead of just one? I should say so! (Matt McCormick, "Atheism The Case Against Christ," Prometheus Books, 2012, Chapter 10 "500 Dead Gods and the Problem of Other Religions," shows the vast majority, the VAST... majority... of Gods are invented by humans, upping the probability beyond any possible reasonable doubt that yours is just an invention also)
This book attempts to refute atheism.
He has written a pretty darn good book actually. I enjoyed reading it. That being aside, in this entirely too brief a review, I can only point to a few things that mar the book, and one of those things is fundamentally, on the ground level, absolutely fatal against his claims against atheism, which I shall get to.
In refuting “atheism,” Professor Lewis simply conflates the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchins with atheism itself. These men are not atheism, and in fact, may not be even representative of atheism actually. They are atheists each with his own philosophy and views on myriads of issues, not necessarily agreeing with each other either. Professor Lewis does not get off as easily as he wishes by merely showing a few arguments of Dawkins or Harris, et al., are shallow, stupid, or wrong....
Does he even do
that? Lewis's first chapter is entitled, "The Argument From Evil." That alone should tip off the reader that the book isn't focused on responding to "new atheism"--new atheists don't talk about abstract philosophy like that--they don't waste their time trying to refute Aquinas. New atheism isn't driven by old school philosophical arguments about God.
More than anything else, new atheism can be defined as a scientific approach to truth that rejects the claim that science and religion are or even could be two distinct spheres of knowledge. Their basic claim is that all matter and energy--in other words, everything in the observable universe--is, in principle, within the purview of science. According to new atheists, we now know enough about the natural world to see that basically all conceptions of God don't fit within it. Most importantly, they take the philosophical and ethical position that in the current high-stakes world we live in, these issues and questions are too important for scientists to politely, condescendingly, and insincerely say that science doesn't have an opinion on religious truth claims.
In a sense Lewis engages with New Atheism because according to Lewis, reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it are actually scientific endeavors--although he doesn't come right out and say it this way, he thinks Mormonism is a scientific discipline. Thus if a scientist takes the tools of science and rigorously applies them to religion, Mormonism is the inevitable result. Thus, it seems that Lewis concedes the New Atheists' most basic point: religious claims are in fact subject to scientific scrutiny.
Science, properly conceived, understands that beliefs are legitimized by subjecting them to testing (attempts at falsification). Science is not about going out and finding pure truth; it is about creating theories based on observation and holding them up to critical examination. Einstein found Newton’s theory wanting and developed a new, more adequate one that we call general relativity. Astronomers tested the theory’s core prediction during an eclipse and found that it came to pass. This corroborated the theory and made it an improvement over Newton’s.
This is precisely what those with testimonies do with the gospel.
Lewis, Hyrum. There is a God: How to Respond to Atheism in the Last Days (Kindle Locations 1146-1150). Cedar Fort, Inc.. Kindle Edition. emphasis added
But really, his biggest problem with new atheists is their attitude. He thinks they are arrogant, rude, and mean. I'll conceded the arrogant part, although they aren't any more arrogant than, say, every Mormon apostle.
