Fr Michael Azkoul

The New Atheists Fr Michael Azkoul

The new atheists criticize Christianity with assumptions drawn from the Western intellectual tradition. They seem unwilling to concede to this fact. They seem unwilling to concede to this fact. They argue that they place their trust in science, but they seem unaware that science, like philosophy, is dependent upon epistemology. The theory of knowledge provides no theoretical certainty. In a word, their atheism is indemonstrable.

Moreover, the new atheists are ignorant on what so call "Eastern Christianity" (Eastern Orthodoxy). She teaches that God is incomprehensible. Unlike the Western intellectual tradition, the East denies that God is being the idea which is basic to that tradition. But more than that, the new atheists simply deny the supernatural, an arbitrary presupposition. The theists only strengthen the position of the new atheists by conceding that they dispute about the same Deity. Both are unaware that the knowledge of God is not cognitive but gnostic, spiritual knowledge, an access to the truth impossible to materialists.

Furthermore, the new atheists have no knowledge of the Eastern Church, a knowledge is involves more the "supernatural." The knowledge of God transcends the powers of reason. It includes the moral condition of the soul. Dispassion is necessary for such knowledge; and also true faith. To know that God exists and who He is requires more than intellectual ingenuity.