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8 - Christian Europe

from Part II - Atheisms in History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2021

Michael Ruse
By
Ian Logan
Edited by
Stephen Bullivant
Michael Ruse
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Stephen Bullivant
Affiliation:
St Mary's University, Twickenham, London
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Summary

It has been a matter of controversy among historians whether there existed anything resembling the modern phenomenon of doxastic atheism in the medieval world (, 613). The reason for this is straightforward enough: there is no coherent body of literature on which to draw if one wants to give an account of atheism in medieval Latin Christendom. Although there is a variety of literature providing potential glimpses of what we might consider as possible examples of atheism in medieval life, there is no first-hand account from anyone expressing atheistic views that are unambiguously atheistic, and when others provide accounts of putative atheists, it is difficult to determine that they are atheists in a sense that twenty-first-century readers would recognize. If atheism is present, we will have to find echoes of it in the extant literature written by believers who had little or no direct interest in atheism as such.

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The Cambridge History of Atheism , pp. 139 - 158
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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