Evil, the New Atheism, and the God of the Trinity
by Jacob H. Friesenhahn on Thursday, July 12, 2012 • Filed under Issue #20: Evil, Theology http://theotherjournal.com/2012/07/12/evil-the-new-atheism-and-the-god-of-the-trinity/ Recently the so-called Four Horsemen of the New Atheism lost one of their members, as Christopher Hitchens succumbed to esophageal cancer in December of 2011. Although the remaining horsemen—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris—often irritate more than intrigue, with their crass materialism and strident rejection of all things religious, I always found Hitchens too fascinating to ignore. His spirited challenges to Christian theism, both in his book god is Not Great1 and in his numerous public lectures and debates, continue to shape my theological reflections. While perhaps no less a materialist and certainly no less a critic of religion than the other popular New Atheists, Hitchens was clearly a man of letters, a most gifted writer, a formidable debater, and a public intellectual with an impressiv...