Although he himself would undoubtedly reject the question out of hand, as a Christian believer you might conceivably find yourself asking what part Richard Dawkins plays in the divine plan. The question itself is not, of course, wholly serious. No one could presume to declare authoritatively what God is doing in or through the life of another person. Yet the recent work of Dawkins, and of the other ‘new atheists’, is inviting people of religious faith to present their beliefs with greater precision, avoiding all tendencies to credulity or superstition and acknowledging the limits of what can in truth be said or known. It is not wholly fanciful to see the hand of God at work in all this. Nor is the process a new one. Karl Marx’s description of religion as ‘the opium of the people’, sedating them against the hard work of combating injustice in the world, challenged Christians to avoid preaching a ‘pie in the sky when you die’ religion. Responding to this challenge would, over the following century and a half, transform the face of Roman Catholicism in much of Latin America and beyond. The full impact of the current debate with atheism remains to be seen.
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