Short description
Michael J. Buckley traces the argument that informed the rise of modern atheism, finding that this unprecedented denial of God developed out of the very strategies employed to counter it.
Long description
In this book, Michael J. Buckley investigates the rise of modern atheism, arguing convincingly that its roots reach back to the seventeenth century, when Catholic theologians began to call upon philosophy and science-rather than any intrinsically religious experience-to defend the existence of god. Buckley discusses in detail thinkers such as Lessius, Mersenne, Descartes, and Newton, who paved the way for the explicit atheism of Diderot and D'Holbach in the eighteenth century. [A] capaciously learned and brilliantly written book...This is one of the most interesting and closely argued works on theology that i have read in the last decade. -Lawrence S. Cunningham, Theology Today