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Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer
What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope?
Former editor of Harper's and National Book Award long-listed author Christopher Beha’s own struggle with these questions, and an earnest appeal for readers to arrive at answers of their own
Twenty-five years ago, celebrated author (and cradle Catholic) Christopher Beha gave up on God. Helped along by a reading of Bertrand Russell’s classic text Why I Am Not a Christian, he became a committed atheist, certain that his days of belief were behind him. A youthful brush with mortality soon set Beha on a decades-long quest for meaning in a Godless world.
Why I Am Not an Atheist tells the story of this search for secular answers to what Immanuel Kant called the most urgent human What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? Along the way, Beha traces the development of what he understands to be the two major atheist “scientific materialism” and “romantic idealism.”
Beha’s passage through these rival forms of atheism leads him to the surprising conclusion that faith—particularly faith in a created order in which each human life has a meaningful part—preserves the best of both traditions while offering a complete and coherent picture of reality.
This magisterial investigation of the heights of human intellectual achievement is at once deeply personal and universal—grounded in decades of reading and thinking about various atheist efforts to address the problems of human suffering, mortality, and ultimate meaning. Why I Am Not an Atheist is not a polemic on behalf of belief but a record of Beha’s own working out of these questions, and a call for readers to arrive at answers of their own.
Former editor of Harper's and National Book Award long-listed author Christopher Beha’s own struggle with these questions, and an earnest appeal for readers to arrive at answers of their own
Twenty-five years ago, celebrated author (and cradle Catholic) Christopher Beha gave up on God. Helped along by a reading of Bertrand Russell’s classic text Why I Am Not a Christian, he became a committed atheist, certain that his days of belief were behind him. A youthful brush with mortality soon set Beha on a decades-long quest for meaning in a Godless world.
Why I Am Not an Atheist tells the story of this search for secular answers to what Immanuel Kant called the most urgent human What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? Along the way, Beha traces the development of what he understands to be the two major atheist “scientific materialism” and “romantic idealism.”
Beha’s passage through these rival forms of atheism leads him to the surprising conclusion that faith—particularly faith in a created order in which each human life has a meaningful part—preserves the best of both traditions while offering a complete and coherent picture of reality.
This magisterial investigation of the heights of human intellectual achievement is at once deeply personal and universal—grounded in decades of reading and thinking about various atheist efforts to address the problems of human suffering, mortality, and ultimate meaning. Why I Am Not an Atheist is not a polemic on behalf of belief but a record of Beha’s own working out of these questions, and a call for readers to arrive at answers of their own.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published February 17, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 5, 2026
Most of the book is a survey of both analytic and continental philosophy. What makes it special is that Beha, after becoming an atheist in his youth, pursued philosophy for answers.
I've listened to other books on the history of philosophy, and I must say that Beha's survey is amongst the best, because of the clarity of his prose. I think his personal pursuit of a coherent atheistic worldview after losing his catholic faith also provided a good focus. The personal element enriches his engagement with these thinkers' ideas. It was not merely academic.
Ultimately, after losing his faith and attempting to find meaning and a reason to live after the death of God, he found scienticism unsatisfying and romanticism and existentialism to be somewhat lacking. But at last, he fell in love, got married, and found himself open to love and eventually started visiting the catholic church of his youth, becoming a skeptical believer (which is only mentioned briefly as the close of the book).
What is nice about this work is in no way standard Christian apologetics. Instead, we simply have a genuine engagement and appreciation of modern philosophers, as well as an honest expression as to why, for him, the best atheistic philosophy fell short.
I've listened to other books on the history of philosophy, and I must say that Beha's survey is amongst the best, because of the clarity of his prose. I think his personal pursuit of a coherent atheistic worldview after losing his catholic faith also provided a good focus. The personal element enriches his engagement with these thinkers' ideas. It was not merely academic.
Ultimately, after losing his faith and attempting to find meaning and a reason to live after the death of God, he found scienticism unsatisfying and romanticism and existentialism to be somewhat lacking. But at last, he fell in love, got married, and found himself open to love and eventually started visiting the catholic church of his youth, becoming a skeptical believer (which is only mentioned briefly as the close of the book).
What is nice about this work is in no way standard Christian apologetics. Instead, we simply have a genuine engagement and appreciation of modern philosophers, as well as an honest expression as to why, for him, the best atheistic philosophy fell short.
February 27, 2026
A bit of a bait and switch.
The title would suggest an introspective if dialectical path to how and why he disengaged with atheism. Yet. This is 90%+ philosophy survey course. And it’s fine in doing that. Like it could be a fantastic cheat code for freshmen undergrads. But he doesn’t necessarily bring these up to engage in them in any personal way, or even in a way that might help us understand how to think about them thru the lens of spirituality.
Then it just sort of nets out to “God is Love” at the end in what could have been a blog post. And at that point I was exhausted enough to not fully engage in his fairly jargon heavy argument.
The title would suggest an introspective if dialectical path to how and why he disengaged with atheism. Yet. This is 90%+ philosophy survey course. And it’s fine in doing that. Like it could be a fantastic cheat code for freshmen undergrads. But he doesn’t necessarily bring these up to engage in them in any personal way, or even in a way that might help us understand how to think about them thru the lens of spirituality.
Then it just sort of nets out to “God is Love” at the end in what could have been a blog post. And at that point I was exhausted enough to not fully engage in his fairly jargon heavy argument.
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February 28, 2026I reviewed this book for Vol.1 Brooklyn https://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2026/02/...
February 27, 2026
Most of the book is a charting and history of metaphysics. Philosophy is a subject I find endlessly fascinating, but also challenging. I read many chapters twice through in an effort to truly understand what was being described--the chapter on Kant three times--because although I have studied the great western philosophers, I still find my grasp on much of the material (especially Kant) tenuous at best.
I was reminded I align most closely with Spinoza, and that my beliefs fall, for the most part, in the realm of mysticism.
I found his final chapter, where he describes his return to Catholicism after an adulthood as a devote atheist, both understandable and relatable, although I, personally, will not ever become a practicing Catholic for many reasons.
I was reminded I align most closely with Spinoza, and that my beliefs fall, for the most part, in the realm of mysticism.
I found his final chapter, where he describes his return to Catholicism after an adulthood as a devote atheist, both understandable and relatable, although I, personally, will not ever become a practicing Catholic for many reasons.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews