WESTERN ATHEISM: A SHORT HISTORY

BY JAMES THROWER (PUBLISHED 2000 BY PROMETHEUS BOOKS.  ISBN: 1-57392-756-2)  157 pages

Anyone making an attempt to condense the entire history of atheism within the confines of a single 157 page book faces a most daunting task.  There are, quite simply, far too many worthwhile freethinkers to cover in such a limited space.  How could any writer even introduce, much less adequately deal with, such crucial figures as Robert G. Ingersoll, Chapman Cohen, Wallace Matson and Paul Kurtz in so small a work?

James Thrower has solved this problem in a rather unique manner: He doesn’t mention them at all!  In fact, despite the title of the book, virtually every thinker and philosopher we associate with atheism is not mentioned in Western Atheism.  Obviously, Thrower has utilized a different approach to his subject than we would imagine from its title.

Thrower, professor of the History of Religions at the university of Aberdeen, Scotland, divides his book into three main parts.  The first part, “Atheism in Classical Antiquity,” discusses the problems with theism that the ancient Greeks encountered.  Section two, “Western Atheism to the Seventeenth Century,” covers the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  This section also deals with the rise of science during the same time period.  The final section, “Modern Atheism,” covers the period from the Enlightenment on up to the present day.

The author’s approach throughout is to examine the works of some of the best known philosophers in history (who may or may not be atheists; many in fact are well-known god-believers) to see how they have dealt with the various problems associated with god-belief, rather than focusing on those philosophers who are explicitly known as atheists.  Among the men (why no women?) discussed are Thales of Miletus, Socrates, Pyrrho, Carneades, Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Pierre Bayle, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Baron D’Holbach, Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus.

Naturally, given the brevity of the book, Thrower does not go into much detail on any of these men.  However, its value is that they are presented in an orderly, sequential manner that takes us through 2500 years of intellectual history and, by so doing, allows us to compare and contrast different historical eras in terms of the key issues that have always intrigued Western thinkers.

Thrower’s particular strength lies in the various ways he elucidates ancient Greek philosophy.  He introduces us to Carneades of Cyrene (213-129 BCE) who, despite his relative obscurity in comparison with better known figures such as Plato and Aristotle, seems to have been much more of a real atheist than either of these men were.  Perhaps that is the main reason for his obscurity, as Thrower shows him to have been a man of real depth.  Carneades takes many of the traditional rationalizations for the existence of gods and turns them inside out: How can God, who is supposed to be omnipotent, face danger?  If god is all-powerful, then there is nothing for him to be afraid of.  Consequently, he cannot possess the virtue of fortitude, a trait attributed to him by the Stoics.

Carneades also notes that, if God’s great gift to humankind is our reason, whig did he distribute it so unevenly?  Does God show favoritism or partiality in his treatment of different people?  For Carneades, the simplest answer is that God does not exist, a conclusion that would be arrived at after the Enlightenment by David Hume in the late eighteenth century and by John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth.

Although Thrower does cover such early Islamic thinkers as Averroes and Avicenna, he fails to mention some of the other key thinkers in Islamic history, many of whom were quite advanced in their thinking.  Some, such as al Kindi, were literal atheists.  A true Renaissance man, al Kindi (801-873 CE) was a philosopher, mathematician, musician and physician, as were many of the other Muslim philosophers during that time period.  At a time when Western Europe was in the darkest period of the Christian Dark Ages, the Muslim world was enjoying a humanistic Renaissance that should be more widely recognized.  In many ways, these men saved civilization.  Unfortunately for all of us, the fanatics won out, and the respect for reason exhibited by these early Muslims has all but disappeared from view today.  Today’s Muslim terrorists would do well to make a concerted effort to understand their own history.

Western Atheism is flawed in many ways, not the least of which is the exclusion of so many important atheist scholars.  Despite this, James Thrower takes us on a most entertaining journey through twenty-five hundred years of philosophic inquiry.