Confession of an atheist

As soon as I moved beyond childhood pieties, I became a bigoted atheist. Like Richard Dawkins, I found it personally offensive that anyone could be so naive and stupid as to worship God. Over the years, that has softened. Although I cannot believe, I no longer think it absurd to do so. One has to respect Christopher Hitchens: no one has been so atheistically defiant in the face of death since Don Giovanni on his way to hell. Even so, the stridency of Messrs Dawkins and Hitchens reminds me of my own jeering adolescence.

It is worth remembering that a substantial majority of the cleverest people who ever lived have believed in a God. Anyone who thinks that there is progress in ideas is invited to justify that position, with reference to the 20th century.

Moreover, Christianity has almost irresistible attractions. It starts with the parable of Adam and Eve, who reject pet-hood in favour of human-hood and launch humanity on a Promethean mission. Before the end of Genesis, Father Abraham has refined that mission; the human race is no longer at war with its Creator. There follows the history of the Chosen People: more than a millennium of conflict, exile, backsliding, poetry, disaster, triumph — and more conflict. Yet throughout their troubles, that proud and stiff-necked people kept faith with monotheism and with Jehovah.

Then the climax: the Incarnation. A Virgin conceives, and a stable in Bethlehem becomes a still point in the turning world, for all time. So does a hill outside Jerusalem. Between the swaddling-clothes and the Cross, Christ offers mankind an impossible redemption. He challenges us to sublimate life into love. It cannot be. The Saviour is crucified. The Resurrection follows. But mankind is still nailed to the cross, of its history in a fallen world, a history best summarised in two words, ‘original sin’; a history which for most of those who have had to endure it has been a cry of pain.