Atheist Delusions

David Bentley Hart's Atheist Delusions presents a vigorous intellectual history that challenges contemporary atheist narratives about Christianity's role in Western civilization. The work directly confronts the New Atheist movement, particularly targeting claims by authors like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris regarding Christianity's allegedly pernicious influence on human progress. Hart employs historical scholarship to dismantle what he considers mythological accounts of Christianity's impact on science, reason, and social development.

The monograph's central thesis contends that modernity's self-understanding rests on fundamental historical falsehoods about the Christian revolution. Hart argues that Christianity, far from being an obstacle to human flourishing, inaugurated a moral and philosophical transformation that created the very conditions for concepts like human dignity, individual rights, and social justice that secular critics now invoke against it. He traces how Christian theology introduced revolutionary ideas about the infinite worth of every human person, challenging ancient pagan assumptions about natural hierarchy and the expendability of human life.

Hart's methodology combines meticulous historical documentation with philosophical analysis, examining primary sources to reconstruct the actual conditions of late antiquity and the medieval period. He demonstrates how popular narratives about the "Dark Ages," the conflict between faith and science, and the supposed rationality of pagan antiquity fail to withstand serious historical scrutiny. The work engages in what might be termed a cumulative case argument, building evidence across multiple domains to establish Christianity's positive civilizational contributions.

The intellectual history approach allows Hart to contextualize Christianity's emergence within the brutal social realities of the ancient world, highlighting how Christian charity, hospitals, and concern for the marginalized represented genuine innovations. He argues that attempts to preserve Enlightenment values while discarding their Christian foundations represent a form of cultural amnesia that fails to recognize the genealogy of modern moral intuitions.

Hart's analysis extends beyond historical correction to prophetic warning, suggesting that post-Christian society risks losing the moral resources necessary to sustain its highest ideals. The work functions as both scholarly refutation and cultural critique, challenging readers to reconsider assumed narratives about religious belief and secular progress. His argument implies that honest historical investigation reveals Christianity not as humanity's enemy but as the source of many values its critics claim to defend.