Alexander, Denis, & McGrath, Alister (Eds.). (2023). Coming to Faith Through Dawkins: 12 Essays on the Pathway from New Atheism to Christianity. Kregel. https://www.kregel.com/biography/coming-to-faith-through-dawkins/
The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ – Psalm 14:1 (ESV)
This problem of meaning was what truly laid bare the poverty of atheism. – Sarah Irving-Stonebraker
What do a biochemist, a history professor, an actor, a magazine editor, a professor of ethno-ornithology, a South African doctoral candidate studying race and reconciliation, an engineer, a Nietzsche scholar, an Egyptian pastor’s kid, a licensed professional counselor, a graphics designer, and an artist have in common? Each was once an atheist who became convinced that atheism is intellectual and moral foolishness, and who subsequently converted to Christianity. Coming to Faith Through Dawkins contains twelve autobiographical essays outlining the path from atheism to Christianity written by twelve highly intelligent individuals. Each story is unique, but what they all have in common is that they became disillusioned about their atheism not mainly through the arguments of Christian apologists—though these played a role for some—but through the shallowness and hollowness of anti-theistic arguments presented in the bestselling books of Richard Dawkins and other “new atheists” like Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens.
Each of the twelve essayists present what they consider to be the compelling reasons that pushed them from atheism to Christianity. I’ll expand on one that I found especially compelling, then give a few quotes from each of the other chapters.
Chapter 2 – “Wrestling with Life’s Biggest Questions” by Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, associate professor of history
Sarah Irving-Stonebraker was an atheist while she was working on her PhD in history at Cambridge University. Her doctoral research into seventeenth-century natural science forced her to delve deep into the writings of the founders of the scientific revolution, men like Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. Initially she found these men’s frequent references to religion to be amusing and unnecessary, but over time she began to see that their Christianity was the fundamental foundation for their development of the scientific method. She saw that these men did not lay the foundations for science despite their Christian faith, but because of it. She concludes this section with:
“Far from a conflict between Christianity and the foundations of modern science, the experimental scientific method was actually premised on a Christian worldview that involved the sinful fallibility of human cognition and senses, the order of the natural world, and the necessity of pursuing the study of nature as a duty to improve the conditions of human life and remedy the effects of sin.” (pp. 46-47)
The thoroughly Christian nature of the scientific revolution was just one of three main issues that confronted Irving-Stonebraker’s atheist beliefs. Another was the question of the basis for human value. She had always considered it a self-evident truth that human beings have innate equal value, but was confronted by the reality that atheism provides no solid means for this conviction. Irving-Stonebraker’s atheism was challenged when she attended a lecture given by ethicist Peter Singer, an atheist. She wrote this about her experience:
“With logical consistency, Singer pursued the implications of atheism for ethics, even when they led to uncomfortable positions. Indeed, I left Singer’s lectures with a profound intellectual vertigo. I was compelled to confront one of my most deeply held beliefs. I had always believed in the innate equality of all people: black or white, able-bodied or disabled, sick or healthy, young or old. I assumed this was something that all reasonable people agreed upon and that it was entirely consistent with my atheism. One of Singer’s foundational claims, however, is that the innate preciousness and equal value of human beings is a Christian myth. Moreover, the sanctity of human life is a principle that ‘cannot rationally be defended’ precisely because it depends upon Christian underpinnings.” (pp. 47-48)
Irving-Stonebraker goes on with a quote from River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins:
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (p. 48)
This left Irving-Stonebraker with a conundrum. One option was to accept that there really isn’t such a thing as innate human value; that her old belief in the inherent equality of all people was an invention that had no firm basis in reality. The other option would be to accept that her cherished beliefs about human equality was actually true, that humans have a real, inherent value, even if they are very young or very old, able-bodied or disabled, black or white, strong or weak. Accepting this second option, however, would require her to abandon her atheism because it provides no foundation for such a belief.
Later in her essay, she tells of discovering Galatians 3:28, in which Paul wrote about human equality: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (NIV, p. 54). If Christianity is true, if humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and if all people stand equal before God (Gal 3:28), then this provides a sure foundation for human worth that atheism could not provide.
The third question she was asking was about the meaning of life. She wrote, “To my mind, because God didn’t exist, I was free to create the meaning and significance of my life” (p. 53). The problem was that this was never enough. Awards and success only provided shallow, temporary satisfaction and meaning. She was struck by the stark contrast between atheism and the biblical view of human life and meaning. For Irving-Stonebraker, “This problem of meaning was what truly laid bare the poverty of atheism” (p. 57).
Like several others whose stories are recounted in Coming to Faith Through Dawkins, Irving-Stonebraker was assisted in her journey to Christ through Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. “I was struck by how reasonable Lewis’s arguments were, and that book chipped away at some of my narrow-mindedness” (p. 55). Ultimately, however, it was wrestling with God as she read Scripture that convinced her of the truth of Christianity.
In the end, she “realized that the God of the Bible is real, that he loves us, and that Jesus Christ is his Son who died for you and for me so that we may have a relationship with God.” (p. 42). Near the end of the essay, Irving-Stonebraker recounts her meditation on the life of Jacob in the book of Genesis, and writes:
“Jacob, the completely undeserving, the one who had arrogantly swindled and rejected God and manipulated others, who had pursued his own ambition to the hurt of others. Jacob, a liar and a crook. Yet God rescued him.
But why? God’s mercy to Jacob/Israel did not make sense to me until I understood the rest of the story. In the New Testament, the cost of God’s mercy was paid by the true Israel. At Calvary, the true Israel, Jesus Christ, stood in Jacob’s place. God himself was nailed to a tree so that he could take the wrath that Jacob deserved—that we all deserved—for rejecting him. That wrath, meted out to Jesus, was death. So Jacob (now Israel) was blessed, but only because Jesus, the true Israel, took the curse that Jacob deserved. God blesses those who deserve to be cursed because on the cross God cursed Jesus, the true and sinless Israel, who deserved a blessing.” (pp. 57-58)
Quotes from the Rest of the Book
These quotes from the other chapters in Coming to Faith Through Dawkins don’t provide comprehensive arguments for the falsehood of atheism or the truthfulness of Christianity. You will have to read the book for yourself to understand what convinced these people to repent and convert to Christ.
Book Endorsements
“A common thread through each of the essays is a gradual realization that, beyond the antitheists’ facile rhetoric, their arguments are shallow and often inconsistent, relying on implausible scientism and knocking down easy straw-man misrepresentations of theism, not the long intellectual tradition of classic Christianity.” – Ian Hutchinson, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT. (p. 3)
Introduction by Alister McGrath
“Evangelical atheism is the faith that mass conversion to godlessness can transform the world. This is a fantasy. If the history of the past few centuries is any guide, a godless world would be as prone to savage conflicts as the world has always been.” – Quote from John Gray, “Why Humans Find It Hard to Do Away with Religion,” New Statesman, January 20, 2016. (p. 13)
Chapter 1 – “A New Christian Meets New Atheism” by Sy Garte, PhD biochemist
“It was not the Greek philosophers who declared there is no difference between Greek or Jew, slave or free, male of female; it was Saint Paul. It was not the senate of the Roman Empire that declared that love between all people was the central commandment; it was Jesus Christ. And it was not because the Black preachers and ministers who began, sustained, and carried through the American Civil Rights Movement were, you know, not that bright, that they sand songs about God and were fervent Christians. It was because Christianity turned out to be the best way to live and breathe those ideals I had learned as a child.” (p. 35)
“The arguments of the New Atheists utterly failed to weaken my new-found Christian faith since I found nothing in any of them either convincing or even very coherent. I rejected the claims that religion exists to explain the natural world and that methodological naturalism is the one and only valid epistemology.” (p. 38)
Chapter 3 – “From Dawkins to Christ via William Lane Craig” by Peter Byrom, actor and apologist
“What Craig pointed out (indeed you might have noticed this at a glance) was that even if all the premises in Dawkins’s argument [in The God Delusion] were true, the conclusion “God almost certainly does not exist” still would not follow!” (p. 69)
“It’s not ultimately about the arguments but of coming to know God personally through his Son, Jesus Christ.” (p. 82)
Chapter 4 – “A Winding Path Through New Atheism to Faith” by Anikó Albert, editor
“Faith and reason, far from the enemies the New Atheists believe them to be, held hands and led me to the communion table one Sunday.” (p. 103)
Chapter 5 – “Hearing God Through an Enchantment with Nature” by Andrew G. Gosler, professor of ethno-ornithology
“Since Darwin, a belief has been accepted within biology that exclusive and bitter self-interest underpins life… Robbing all life of meaning or value, it denies all motivation for human concern for the welfare or indeed existence of others, let alone other species, other than that of pure self-interest.” (p. 111)
Chapter 6 – “An Afrikaner’s Faith Pilgrimage” by Johan Erasmus, doctoral candidate
“I’ve become convinced that we are not as rational as we claim to be… it is hopelessly naïve to think we are neutral toward truth claims when those claims go against our nature.” (p. 128)
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.” (p. 132, quote from C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?”)
“The most cursory historical glance will reveal that the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. Our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization, whether it be the conviction that church and state should exist as distinct entities or that polygamy is unacceptable. From women’s rights to the dignity of the individual and yes, even the darling of the New and the new New Atheists, something like ‘modern science’ are all deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed.” (p. 134, with a footnote to Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland, a book I highly recommend.)
Chapter 7 – “Coming to Faith via The God Delusion” by Nick Berryman, engineer
“Reading Mere Christianity gave me a hunger to find out more. It had not changed my mind; I was still an atheist. But I could no longer with integrity dismiss Christianity as a fairy tale or myth.” (p. 147)
“I have found the Bible to be more coherent than I had ever imagined… I have found the Bible to be more relevant than I had ever thought.” (p. 156)
Chapter 8 – “The God Delusion and Probability” by Louise Mabille, Nietzsche scholar
“It is clear that once more, the Dawkinites need to be reminded that there is nothing necessary about the coming about of life. If the wind continues to blow over the sand surfaces of an infinite number of planets for an infinite number of years, it still does not entail that life will spring from such action… We may just as well say that not only will life pitch up sooner or later but so will the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Batman, E.T., and Darth Vader. If the law of large numbers as Dawkins understands it is consistently applied, it means in effect that sooner or later, given the infinity of time and space, everything will turn up. This implies that, sooner or later, a redeemer will be born of a virgin. Who says you need Stephen Jay Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial to reconcile science and religion? Apparently, according to the law of large numbers, anything is quite literally possible.” (pp. 168-169).
Chapter 9 – “My Egyptian Journey to Faith” by Rafik Samuel, Egyptian pastor’s kid, researcher
“It was an encounter with the person of Jesus and not the arguments, that ultimately changed my life, brought me to reconciliation with God, and helped me regain my faith.” (pp. 174-175)
Chapter 10 – “From Lukewarm Theism to Committed Faith” by Judith R. Babarsky, licensed professional counselor
“From the outset, perhaps the biggest problem I had with The God Delusion is its decidedly unacademic presentation of the—largely antiquated—arguments for atheism and against theism. Dawkins lays his foundation for atheism by discrediting belief in God through identifying multiple individual cases, as in the form ‘so and so believes this, and this is how they are wrong, stupid, imbecilic, and the like,’ or the reverse form, ‘such and such very smart, educated, intelligent scientist/politician’ is an atheist. He does this over and over again. The further I read, the less impressed I was, due to his lack of any reasoning process at all… Ultimately, I found these arguments unconvincing.” (p. 192)
“Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] identifies the ‘great question that will be with us throughout this entire book [Jesus of Nazareth by Ratzinger]: What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?’ And he answers the question by noting, ‘The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God.” (p. 198)
“If people approach faith in a supernatural being, God, with skepticism, it is certain that they will find many ways to feed that skepticism, particularly given the proclivities of our modern culture. This is the scientism as evidence in Dawkins—and scientism is little different than fundamentalism. I choose to embrace belief in both the natural and the supernatural, with the certitude that one day both will be understood to be not only reasonable but compatible beliefs. Faith is a supernatural gift, whereas reason is a natural gift—both are gifts from God, and as such, it would be unreasonable to expect that they would be in conflict.” (p. 201)
Chapter 11 – “From Religion to Agnosticism to Faith in Christ via Dawkins” by Waldo Swart, graphic designer
“I think there are three main reasons why I believe in God and adhere to Christianity: First, to me Christianity best describes reality and the human condition… Second, Christianity works practically, when its teachings are actually followed. And third, personally, it gives meaning to my life… I still have many questions… But when I consider the alternatives, Christianity seems more probably to me.” (pp. 220-221)
Chapter 12 – “Seeking the Truth via New Atheism and Psychedelic Drugs” by Ashley Lande, writer and artist
“Hitchens would make me sure [of atheism]… My heart slowly sinking to my gut as I realized that Hitchens’s style seemed nastier than I remembered… But more than any of these minor qualms, I was uneasy about what he proffered as hard truth. On paper, in the book I held in my hands, his ‘truth’ rang hollow and dissonant, a thing devoid of beauty, devoid of tenderness, devoid of life itself. Here was truth at long last, codified, attractively packaged, delivered with decisive authority and consummate rhetorical flair. But still, Hitchens’s truth clattered like words into a vacuum, a void. Shouldn’t the truth be… beautiful? Poignantly resonant? Was it possible that capital-T Truth itself was as ugly as all this?” (pp. 225-228)
Conclusion
A person committed in their heart to atheism could, conceivably, read these twelve real-life stories and come up with rebuttals that they find convincing. Some social media atheists will stick to Dawkinsonian responses like Christians are imbeciles and There is NO evidence for God. These atheists aren’t a whole lot different than the There-is-no-evidence-for-an-old-Earth creationists.
Not all atheists, of course, are like this. My hope and prayer is that some atheists will be prompted to consider Christianity as a viable alternative and find it to be far more satisfying—intellectually, morally, and practically—than atheism. I also pray that Christians who struggle with the challenge of atheism will be encouraged and strengthened in their faith in Christ.
I toyed with atheism a bit back when I was in about eighth grade. It didn’t last long, but in my reading, writing, and interactions in the past two decades, I’ve had to interact with both the best and worst of atheist arguments, both in terms of the quality of the arguments and the behavior of the atheists. I can’t completely answer every atheist argument against theism to my complete satisfaction—I think the twelve authors in Coming to Faith Through Dawkins would say the same—but I have enough to go on to be firm in my faith as a Christian.
There are many good books that outline an intellectual case for Christianity; two of my favorites are The Reason for God by Timothy Keller and Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin. The autobiographical chapters in Coming to Faith Through Dawkins add a human side to Christian apologetics. Conversion to Christ is not just—or not even primarily—an intellectual activity but involves the entirety of ourselves as individuals, and the testimonies of real people may be more convincing that a prolonged logical argument. Several of these atheist-to-Christian authors highlighted that it wasn’t just the arguments of apologists like C.S. Lewis or William Lane Craig that led them to faith. Other ingredients included relationships, circumstances, personal struggles, and time. These twelve people made the journey, and others will follow.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” – Jesus (John 14:6).
Kevin Nelstead
GeoChristian 