The Devil's Delusion.. Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions presents a sustained critique of contemporary scientific atheism, particularly targeting the arguments advanced by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. Written from within the secular-naturalist tradition, Berlinski employs the tools of analytic philosophy to challenge what he perceives as the overreach of scientific materialism in addressing metaphysical questions.

The work's central thesis contends that modern atheism, particularly in its "New Atheist" incarnation, claims scientific authority for positions that science cannot legitimately support. Berlinski, a mathematician and philosopher of science, argues that his atheist interlocutors commit a category error by extending empirical methods beyond their proper domain. He systematically examines claims about cosmology, evolution, and neuroscience that purportedly demonstrate God's non-existence, finding each scientifically underdetermined and philosophically naive.

Berlinski's engagement with the problem of evil takes an unconventional approach. Rather than defending theodicy, he questions whether scientific materialism offers any coherent foundation for the moral categories necessary to formulate the problem. He argues that if atheistic naturalism is true, then the very concepts of good and evil that animate the objection become merely subjective preferences without normative force. This move attempts to show that atheists who deploy the problem of evil argument implicitly rely on moral realism that their worldview cannot support.

The text's significance lies not in advancing positive arguments for theism—Berlinski describes himself as a secular Jew—but in its internal critique of scientific atheism's philosophical pretensions. His analysis draws on the philosophy of science, particularly regarding the limits of scientific explanation and the role of metaphysical assumptions in scientific theorizing. He argues that questions about ultimate origins, consciousness, and moral value remain fundamentally outside science's explanatory reach.

Berlinski's contribution to the God debate operates primarily through negative argumentation, demonstrating what he sees as logical lacunae and unwarranted confidence in atheistic appeals to science. His work represents a notable intervention from someone who shares neither religious faith nor atheistic certainty, positioning himself as defending intellectual humility against what he characterizes as a new dogmatism dressed in scientific garb.