There are many influential figures in the world of Christian apologetics. At present, the most popular names appear to include William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, John Lennox, plus a number of popular YouTube personalities. They’re a pretty productive bunch, churning out regular videos, essays, and podcasts at an impressive pace. They work very hard to give you the impression of a rich, intellectual tradition that supports the ultimate reality of God’s existence as understood by the doctrines of traditional Protestant theology.
Not to be outdone, the Thomist community also has its own collection of influential figures who serve as the public face for their philosophy. The most prominent names appear to include Robert Barron and Edward Feser, plus a number of minor personalities and anonymous YouTube channels. They’re not nearly as popular as their Protestant counterparts, but they do seem to have a significant and dedicated following.
One the first things to jump out at me as I began my research into Thomism is the community itself. To be perfectly frank, this community is overrun with some the most pretentious philosophical snobs I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I’m talking about the kind of people who take every opportunity to name-drop philosophical figures like Sartre and Nietzsche, or who unironically use the word “metaphysics” in every other sentence. They act as if Thomism is the ultimate paragon of philosophical sophistication, and they make it out as if Christianity is the only logical conclusion one can draw from sincere evaluation of the arguments [1]---not just “mere” Christianity, mind you, but very specifically their own brand of classical theism in the Catholic tradition.
One classic manifestation of this attitude is the way in which Thomists go out of their way to talk trash about the so-called New Atheism. It’s weirdly consistent how they do, too, as if they’re all following some sort of secret playbook. Read any book, watch any lecture, or listen to any podcast on classical theism, and it is very likely that you will be subjected to a brief tirade about the philosophical ineptitude of the entire New Atheist movement [2,3,4,5,6]. They especially seem to enjoy picking on Richard Dawkins, as if he were some sort of holy patron saint to modern atheism [7,8,9,10]. It almost comes off as a goofy form of projection, in that they universally venerate Thomas Aquinas as their philosophical overlord, and so they just take it for granted that the entire atheist community would naturally think the same way about Dawkins. Either that, or they literally have nothing else to go on, and so they’re really just that excited to see their man Aquinas get acknowledged.
It’s important to understand that Thomist philosophy is not exactly well-respected in mainstream philosophical circles. I don’t mean in the sense that a bunch of atheist philosophers are sitting around the water cooler telling jokes to each other about how lame Thomism is. I mean it’s basically ignored. I’ve been engaging openly with popular Christian philosophy for over a decade now, and I’ve only barely just become aware of their existence. The simple fact of the matter is that Protestant Evangelical Christianity is the loudest and most politically active force in American culture, and so it is only natural that the majority of secular backlash would be focused against their particular school of thought.
It’s extremely bizarre to watch the Thomist community process this information. On the one hand, classical theism stands in direct opposition to theistic personalism, and so it is only natural for them to stand with us atheists in denouncing it publicly. On the other hand, standing with us atheists would require them to…. well… stand with atheists. And since atheists are the greatest dummy-heads in the universe, they cannot bear to tarnish their image by having any such association. The result is thus an extremely ham-fisted contortion of reality where atheists are simultaneously 100% right and 100% stupid in their criticism of mainstream religion.
One of the most blatant manifestations of this catch-22 can be found in a 2015 speech by Robert Barron entitled, “Aquinas and Why the New Atheists Are Right” [2]. In it, he very deliberately paints a picture of theistic personalism as some kind of fanciful concoction of the New Atheist movement. He knows perfectly well that hundreds of millions of Protestants around the world happily endorse this theology, but he still cannot help but accuse atheists of fabricating a “Straw God.”
Barron is not alone in this behavior, either, and there are numerous examples of other classical theists following a very similar playbook. Edward Feser, for example, is notorious for his portrayal of modern atheists as a gaggle of imbeciles who have no grasp on how “proper” theology really works [6]---as if the entirety of all Protestant Christianity is merely “unsophisticated” and therefore not even worth mentioning. Catholicism, it seems, is the undisputed champion of all Christian intelligentsia, and you cannot possibly hope to do “serious” philosophy without directly tackling their particular brand of theology. It’s a very pompous attitude that only indicates a fragile little core of highly delicate egos. You almost get the impression that, on some deeply subconscious level, even the classical theists themselves are not entirely confident in their own arguments.
Notes/References
- Edward Feser, "The Road From Atheism," (2012) [link]
- Bishop Barron on the New Atheists (2009) [link]
- Fr. Robert Barron, “Aquinas and Why the New Atheists are Right" (2015) [link]
- Fr. Pine, “Explaining Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs,” Pints With Aquinas [link]
- A Defense of Classical Theology (Part 1): The New Atheism and the Cosmological Arguments [link]
- Edward Feser, “What We Owe the New Atheists” (2014) [link]
- Pints with Aquinas, "Edward Feser Explodes Richard Dawkins’ “Refutation” of Aquinas’ 5 Ways" (2017) [link]
- Pints with Aquinas, "Edward Feser Continues to Refute Richard Dawkins’ Objections to Aquinas’ 5 Ways" (2017) [link]
- Pints with Aquinas, “Aquinas v Dawkins on God’s Existence" (2019) [link]
- Mark McNeil, “Dawkins vs Aquinas, Part One” (2013) [link]
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