Defining ‘Atheism’ by Stephen Bullivant, in The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Edited by Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse, Nov 2013
[Portion of first Chapter]
ATHEISM AND AMBIGUITY
THE precise definition of ‘atheism’ is both a vexed and vexatious issue. (Incidentally, the same applies to its more-or-less equivalents in other languages: Atheismus, athéisme, ateismi, etc.) Etymologically,atheism is derived from the classical Greek a- (normally meaning ‘not’ or ‘without’) and theos (‘god’). Its first extant appearance in English occurs in the mid-sixteenth century, as a translation of Plutarch’s atheotēs (Buckley 1987: 9). Even from its earliest beginnings in Greek and English, however, atheism/ atheotes admitted of a variety of competing, and confusing, definitions—often bearing no straightforward relationship to its strict etymology. While these lie outside the scope of the present chapter, some of the more interesting definitions and applications are discussed elsewhere in this volume.
Even today, however, there is no clear, academic consensus as to how exactly the term should be used. For example, consider the following definitions of ‘atheism’ or ‘atheist’, all taken from serious scholarly writings published in the last ten years:
- ‘Atheism […] is the belief that there is no God or gods’ (Baggini 2003: 3)
- 'At its core, atheism […] designates a position (not a “belief”) that includes or asserts no god(s)’ (Eller 2010: 1)
- '[A]n atheist is someone without a belief in God; he or she need not be someone who believes that God does not exist’ (Martin 2007: 1)
- '[A]n atheist does not believe in the god that theism favours’ (Cliteur 2009: 1)
- 'By “atheist,” I mean precisely what the word has always been understood to mean—a principled and informed decision to reject belief in God’ (McGrath 2004: 175)
Of course, these definitions share certain features: all regard atheism as relating, in a negative way, to a thing or things called ‘god’, and all but one describe this relationship in terms of belief. But beyond this, it is obvious that these authors are not all talking about the same thing at all. The first and second include gods; the final three specify only one (which the final two give a capital G). The fourth definition, moreover, restricts this scope even further. Definitions two and three regard atheism as simply being the absence of a certain belief; the rest, contrariwise, see it as implying a definite belief. Moreover, the fifth definition also demands a level of intellectual—and perhaps also emotional —conviction, over and above simple believing.
Though our focus in this chapter is on scholarly usage(s), it is worth pointing out that everyday speech is no more monosemic. This is, perhaps, partly to be expected: after all, English is very much a global language, and is the native tongue of approaching 400 million people. Nevertheless, even relatively homogeneous groups often display a notable lack of uniformity. For instance, a 2007 study of over 700 students—all at the same British university, at the same time, with a clear majority being a similar age and from the same country—found that, from a list of commonly encountered definitions of ‘atheist’, the most popular choice was ‘A person who believes that there is no God or gods’ (Bullivant 2008). This was, however, chosen by only 51.8 per cent of respondents: hardly an overwhelming consensus. 29.1 per cent opted instead for ‘A person who is convinced that there is no God or gods’, 13.6 per cent took the broader ‘A person who lacks a belief in a God or gods’, and 0.6 per cent answered ‘Don’t know’. Thirty-five respondents, eight of whom had already affirmed one of the suggested meanings, offered their own definitions. These included:
- 'A person who lacks a belief in supernatural forces, without suggesting that they might exist’.
- 'Someone who denies the validity of using the word “God” to indicate anything (other than a concept) which might be said to “exist” ’.
- 'A person who has no belief in any deity and finds that religion is not an important part of their life’.
- 'Someone who isn’t a member of any religion that believes in one God’.
Once again, despite general similarities, it is clear that the word is used and understood in a wide variety of different ways, even in so relatively uniform a group. (Note too the introduction of wider concepts such as ‘religion’ and ‘supernatural forces’, rather than confining themselves to just God/gods, into these definitions.) Thinking more widely, it is also worth noting that both ‘atheism’ and ‘atheist’ can carry a considerable number of overtones and connotations, positive and negative: even among people agreeing on a given abstract definition, calling someone an ‘atheist’ might well communicate very different things in, say, McCarthy-era Dallas, post-communist Krakow, or twenty-first-century London.
THE BABEL HANDBOOK OF ATHEISM?
It is important to recognize that plurality of usage, as sketched above, need not imply that some scholars are right and others are wrong. Atheism simply possesses no single, objective definition: it can be used correctly in a number of related, sometimes overlapping, and often mutually exclusive ways. This is not necessarily a problem, so long as one is always clear how exactly each author is deploying the term. (There is also a valid case to be made for certain disciplines to use the word in their own, highly specialized senses.) That is not to say, however, that all definitions are equally useful: a too-narrow definition may inadvertently airbrush out all kinds of interesting potential data, while a too-broad one may capture a large number of ‘atheisms’ with few meaningful connections between them. Alternatively, a definition that is too idiosyncratic, or culturally bound, may obviate comparisons with other work ostensibly on the same subject. Furthermore, and quite obviously, the sheer lack of agreement creates a great deal of, at best, time-consuming effort, and at worst, hopeless confusion, for all concerned. There is, therefore, a great deal of utility to be gained from finding a generally agreed-upon, serviceable (if not perfect), scholarly definition of the word atheism. The merits of this may be grasped if one imagines this Handbook—drawing together dozens of scholars, from widely diverse disciplines, and several continents—as a microcosm of the scholarly study of atheism. Without a ‘standard’ definition, outlined and explained in a chapter such as this, each contributor would need to explicate his or her own definition at the beginning of their chapter—or else, as happens all too often, their readers would simply have to infer quite how he or she is using the term. The reader, of course, would need to remember this definition throughout the duration of the chapter, before consciously relearning and reremembering what would probably (but not necessarily) be a different definition for the next chapter. With different authors defining the term in different ways, like-for-like comparisons between chapters would become next to impossible: the ‘atheists’ whose psychological tendencies one learns about in one chapter may well be a different (and possibly mutually exclusive) set of ‘atheists’ whose demographic trends are charted in the next. Such a collection would not, it must be said, be without value: each individual chapter could well constitute an exemplary and illuminating piece of scholarship. Furthermore, every single one of its definitions of atheism might be perfectly valid (if not necessarily, for the reasons mentioned above, optimally useful): clearly and precisely defined, with a weight of historical usage behind it, and having sufficient consonance with popular usage. And yet, viewed as a whole, The Babel Handbook of Atheism would be a frustrating morass of contradictions and cross-purposes. Such, writ large, is the state of the scholarly study of atheism today.
Throughout this volume, by contrast, and unless otherwise stated, ‘atheism’ is defined as an absence of belief in the existence of a God or gods. As with most mainstream definitions of the term, it is simply the fruit of two basic decisions: the meaning and scope of a-, and the meaning and scope of - theism. Neither decision, of course, is either straightforward or uncontroversial. So let me explain, explore, and defend each of them in turn, while giving special attention to the question of utility.
