A longtime admirer of the so-called New Atheists—public intellectuals like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens—the comedian, podcaster, and journalist Konstantin Kisin has begun wondering about the sustainability of a wholly secular society. Kisin, in a recent essay, went so far as to describe himself as a “lapsed atheist.” Carl Trueman responds:
The question of God’s existence and moral order is famously raised by Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. For Ivan, if God does not exist, then everything is permissible. And yet he is a decent, compassionate human being who does not live life consistently with his principles. He has a sensitivity to human suffering. It is Smerdyakov, his illegitimate and unacknowledged half-brother, who represents the lethal practical consequences of Ivan’s intellectual rebellion against God. Ivan is a man divided between his intellectual convictions and the moral intuitions of (what I would call) his God-given humanity.
What is emerging among some erstwhile left-wing intellectuals today is the realization that atheism, while an interesting theoretical position, offers nothing to address the deeper questions of life. Of course, Nietzsche’s Madman pointed this out to the polite atheists in The Gay Science. But as the Madman himself conceded, he had come too early for his argument to be understood. Well, his time has now come and the dilemma at the heart of Ivan Karamazov is emerging with force among some of the most impressive public intellectuals and voices of our day. . . . These are interesting times.
As Kisin himself concludes, “the reason new atheism has lost its mojo is that it has no answers to the lack of meaning and purpose that our post-Christian societies are suffering from. What will fill that void? Religious people have their answer. Do the rest of us?” That may not amount to a cry for help, but it is certainly a call for further interaction with those of us who see ancient wisdom as offering answers to our modern problems.
Read more on First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/07/in-our-chaotic-age-some-atheists-are-rethinking-secularism