Some years ago I wrote on what I called “the aesthetic fallacy” in a small book I authored on how to do history. I am not sure if I coined the term, but what I intend by it is this: a fallacious argument that appears compelling because of the aesthetics of presentation, whether merely physical (as in nicely printed and bound to look serious) or well written. I would suggest that much of the New Atheism—whether we are talking of Richard Dawkins’s use of scientific rhetoric or Ricky Gervais’s witty one-liners—is compelling, precisely because it plays to modern aesthetic sensibilities.
This is where—and why—David Bentley Hart is so important and, indeed, so enjoyable to read. Hart is the equal of Christopher Hitchens as a writer, though his style might be a little too relentless for some. Longer and longer sentences, adjectives piled upon adverbs, obscure and learned high cultural references casually thrown into the mix every other line—these are his stock in trade. The effect can be dazzling, though it risks losing some of its power because of its remorselessness. Nevertheless, he is a master of the sneering put-down Hitchens could do so well.
Hart’s book focuses on the three topics of its subtitle: being, consciousness, and bliss. This offers him a twofold advantage in discussion. First, as he himself makes clear, these are three categories of human experience for which a reductive scientific view of the universe cannot give an account. Try as Richard Dawkins might, he cannot explain so much of what is intuitive to human beings. Indeed, his arguments for the beauty of the evolutionary process are parasitic upon aesthetic concepts for which he cannot offer any justification—a point we might extrapolate to the ethical arguments the New Atheists try to make (which Nietzsche so effectively exposed as fraudulent in The Gay Science). Thus, while the title talks of “experience,” this is neither pietism nor mysticism but rather a metaphysical argument derived from the intuitions of human existence.
Second, this approach exposes what Hart (correctly, in my opinion) sees as an error made by both the New Atheists and their most notable theistic opponents: They are not actually arguing about the existence of the Christian God but rather of something more akin to the god of deism. To debate whether the Christian God exists is not like debating whether a unicorn or the Loch Ness monster exists. Unicorns, if they exist, possess being in a manner similar to human beings. If God exists, his existence is of a different order. He is not one object of existence among many; he stands in an utterly unique position relative to the created order—that of creator and sustainer. The New Atheists and their opponents ironically share a metaphysics that really does not do justice to the God of the Christian faith. Hart thus cares nothing for who wins that debate, because it is a debate about the wrong thing.
As with his earlier work, Atheist Delusions, The Experience of God is a great book for Christians to read. It is wonderful to see someone treat some atheistic arguments with the contempt that logically and factually erroneous presentations deserve. Given the modern penchant for aesthetics that come with the authority of “science” and “reason,” there is a temptation to take atheism too seriously, to see it as a respectable position with all the good arguments. Hart shows time and again that this is nonsense. Most satisfyingly, he puts to death the idea that atrocities committed by atheist movements in the twentieth century were merely incidental—or even accidental—to their a-theology. And he does it without breaking a sweat.
I do, however, have a number of concerns. First, Hart’s contempt for conservative Protestantism is evident at numerous points. That does not offend me. Hart is Eastern Orthodox, and so I expect him to despise Protestantism just as I assume the pope is Roman Catholic. But his caricature of conservative Protestantism is simply that—an inaccurate caricature that makes Hart guilty of precisely the same accusations he makes against the New Atheists: misrepresentation of an opponent’s position in order to score a quick, cheap, and (false) victory. We must all be wary of winning by means of the aesthetic fallacy.
Second, Hart’s metaphysical brilliance leaves me with one nagging question: Is Hart a Christian because it gives him a sound metaphysics, or does he have a sound metaphysics because he trusts Christ as Savior? That distinction is important. This book certainly presses home the metaphysical urgency of the Christian faith. The one thing missing in this treatment is the existential urgency of the truth of Christianity. Hart would no doubt dismiss that as the concern of a conservative Protestant pietist, but surely it is also the concern of the God of the Bible.
Carl R. Trueman is the Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania, and pastor of Cornerstone OPC in Ambler, Pennsylvania. He blogs regularly at First Things and does a weekly podcast with Aimee Byrd and Todd Pruitt, Mortification of Spin.
