John F. Haught is Senior Fellow in Science and Religion at the Theological Center at Georgetown. As their 1970-2005 Theology Department Chair and Professor, he became a leading thinker in theology and science, an international lecturer, and a prolific author. (For his books I've read, click on his name.)

The books he critiques are primarily Richard Dawkin’s God Delusion, Sam Harris’ The End of Faith (book 211), and Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great, but he does not restrict himself to these three. I reviewed Harris’ The End of Faith, which I gave a ‘thumbs down’. I read a borrowed copy of Dawkin’s God Delusion, but chose not to waste my time reviewing it. Since these books received a lot of media attention, I felt maybe I ought to read them. But then I was advised not to waste my time on Hitchens’ diatribe (a term used by others whose judgments I respect). Now that I see Haught has done such a great job responding to Harris, I’m confident I got all I needed in Haught’s response to all three.

Haught’s critical response is based upon this: “The belief system that Dennett and the other new atheists subscribe to is known as scientific naturalism” (aka scientism – only science can give us complete and reliable knowledge of reality). Haught points out the obvious – that their ‘belief system’ is really a ‘faith’ (but they would never admit this). He says their “treatment of religion consists mostly of breezy over generalizations that leave out almost everything that theologians would want to highlight in their own contemporary discussion of God. Rather, the new atheism is so theologically unchallenging. Its engagement with theology lies at about the same level of reflection on faith that one can find in contemporary creationist and fundamentalist literature. This is not surprising since it is from creationists and intelligent design theists that the new atheists seem to have garnered much of their understanding of religious faith.”

As is appropriate, John F. Haught has ‘taken off the gloves’ in his criticism. (Later he compares the depth of their theological knowledge to a 2-D Flatlander confronted with a 3-D world of theology that they cannot envision.) In detail, Haught points out the unstated assumptions of these new atheists and proceeds to pick apart their false conclusions. In his last chapter – Christian Theology and the New Atheism – he says that “what our new atheists understand by ‘God’ has almost nothing to do with what Christian faith and theology today understand by that name.” I ordered this book the day I read about it. It has my very highest recommendation. If only all doubters would read it.