Click above for audio of this year's St. Thomas Day Lecture, delivered last Thursday evening at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer by Rev. Brian Davies, O.P., a Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. Before a crowd of about 200, Fr. Davies delivered his paper entitled: "The New Atheism: Its Virtues and Its Vices."

Over the course of his remarks, Fr. Davies argued several important points.  First, he chronicled the development of the movement popularly called the "New Atheism," distinguishing it from the "Old Atheism" of previous centuries.  Then, he listed certain strengths of the New Atheism, as well as several points of agreement it shares with the classical Christian tradition, especially in the articulation given it by St. Thomas Aquinas.  Finally, Fr. Davies challenged the claim of the New Atheism to have scientifically disproved God's existence.  The Dominican philosopher explained that these scientific arguments do not actually touch the question of God's existence as understood by classical theists.  In fact, classical Christianity has never held the existence of God to be a scientific thesis, provable or unprovable through scientific experimentation.  Rather, the Christian tradition has always explained the rationality of belief in God's existence through philosophical investigation, a reality which, according to Fr. Davies, key authors of the New Atheism---Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett---inexplicably ignore.

Click here for audio of the Q & A session that concluded the lecture.