A dose of reality about Christopher Hitchens, RIP...

... courtesy of Dr. Edward Feser (himself a former atheist), in case you missed his post of two weeks ago:

Christopher Hitchens, who had been suffering from esophageal cancer for over a year, has died.  I think I first came across his work around 1990, at the time his book Blood, Class, and Nostalgia appeared.  (My copy is still around here somewhere.)  I recall seeing him on television -- grilling some George H. W. Bush administration official, perhaps -- and being very impressed by his forceful and formidable intelligence.  I have always been conservative and have usually disagreed with him, but I followed his work with interest from that point on, long before he started to please right-wingers with his well-argued criticisms of the Clintons and support for the Iraq war.  He was almost always smart, funny, and interesting even when he was wrong.

Except on religion, where he was a complete bore and an insufferable hack.  There is no use sugar-coating that fact now that he is gone, and Hitchens was not in any event a fan of the polite obituary.  Religion is the last subject about which to have a tin ear or a closed mind, and Hitchens had both.  Some Catholics seem to have gotten it into their heads over the last year that he might convert -- as if someone who is overtly so very hostile to Catholicism simply must be compensating for a secret longing for it, and is sure to be moved by the prospect of imminent death to let his inhibitions fall away.  This struck me as romantic fantasy, born of too steady a diet of happy “crossing the Tiber” stories.  Sometimes a man has mixed feelings about you, but will accentuate the negative, loath as he is to acknowledge the merits of an adversary.  And sometimes he just hates your guts, and that’s that.  As far as I know, Hitchens was no closer on his deathbed to becoming the next Malcolm Muggeridge than he had been when penning his decidedly un-Muggeridgean book about Mother Teresa.   I very much hope I am wrong.

Read the entire post on Feser's blog. I've read a few of Hitchens' articles over the years and readily acknowledge his exceptional writing ability. But I was actually embarrassed for him when I read God Is Not Great. It was so bad you'd be forgiven for thinking, "Was this actually penned by a lobotomized undergraduate at a fourth-rate college who was injected with huge doses of God-hating, Christian-despising serum?" Regardless, while praying that God has mercy on Hitchens' soul, I think Feser is absolutely right in saying, "And sometimes he just hates your guts, and that’s that." Indeed.

Comments

[Kyle S.]

So the premise is that Hitchens was never going to convert? We're only to minister to the "slam dunks," then? The naked honesty of a searching soul he displayed in his writings puts him on par with George Orwell. I'd say hope in the cause of Hitchens is as valid a hope as any.

[Carl E. Olson]

Kyle: No, that's not the premise. Read Feser's remarks again. As for Hitchen's "naked honesty", I must have read all of his "naked nastiness" pieces. Glad to hear there was some honesty in his work.

[Carl E. Olson]

I would add that, yes, there is hope for everyone. And God alone judges the state of each man's soul. But the Christian belief in the reality of hope is met and held in balance by the Christian belief that eternal damnation is a real possibility for each of us, even Christopher Hitchens. Hope and Hell are proof of two profound gifts: free will and divine love.

[Lauri Friesen]

I prayed for Christopher Hitchens' soul when I heard of his death, just in case he changed his apparently firmly closed mind while he still could. As for all this admiration for his formidable intelligence and his skill with words, I am having none of it. He was an ill-mannered, belligerent, bellicose, obnoxious, egotistical blowhard who squandered his many gifts in pursuit of nothing of value.

[Peter l]

"And sometimes he just hates your guts, and that’s that."

This reminds me of a murder case i followed with some interest years ago because of it's brutal nature.the accused pleaded guilty,so the guilty verdict was never in doubt,his defence was one of insanity.In summing up with the introduction of medical report's,the judge said "a man doesn't have to be mad or bad to do such wickedness,just simply downright evil."

In other words,some people can just hate your guts.

[Peter l]

I totally agree with Lauri as well,he was everything Lauri stated him to be.Hitchen's reveled in ill-mannerism.

[downtown dave]

If he died without Christ, God is not having mercy on his soul. It is appointed unto man but once to die, after that the judgement.

[Ed Peters]

As is so often the case these days, Feser puts what I think about XYZ far better than I could have put what I think about XYZ.

[Charles E Flynn]

"Man is not so constructed as to be complete in him-self and, in addition, capable of entering into relations with God or not as he sees fit; his very essence consists in his relation to God. The only kind of man that exists is man-in-relation-to-God; and what he understands by that relationship, how seriously he takes it, and what he does about it are the determining factors of his character. This is so, and no philosopher, politician, poet, or psychologist can change it."

Romano Guardini, in The End of the Modern World.

[Charles E Flynn]

Fr. Barron comments on Why I Loved to Listen to Christopher Hitchens.

[David K. Monroe]

I wondered when Insight Scoop was going to mention Hitchen's death and what form it would take. I was frankly getting a little tired of seeing every mention of Hitchens post-mortem - even in Christian blogs - being all about his courage and his intellectual capacity and his friendliness to conservative politics with nary a mention of the deep, deep lack of perception, reasonableness and intellectual honesty that characterized his opinions on religion. Any time I have read or heard Hitchens hold forth on religion, I was not so much persuaded that religion poisons everything so much as I was persuaded that being anti-religious poisons reason.

[Agnieszka]

To Charles E Flynn:

I found Father Barron's tribute to Ch. Hitchens misplaced, inappropriate and wish he had kept his grief "unobserved" (personal).

[Ed Peters]

"I was persuaded that being anti-religious poisons reason."

Best line of the chain.

[Thomas Mellon]

Just before George Galloway taught the US senate a thing or two,he was confronted by Hitchens in the public gallery.Hitchens was hovering like a vulcher hoping to feed on Galloway's carcass once the senate had finished with him,but was brought brilliantly to earth by being described by Galloway as a "gin-soaked,former Trotskyite popinjay".

[Paula]

Well, having read the posts I wonder how many of those condeming Christopher Hitchens have also read that Christ came to save sinners, even the worst possible kind i.e. those who crucified Him.Being anti-Catholic was certainly more than Hitchen's pastime but are we forgetting that NOTHING is impossible to God.Are we all so niave in our faith not to know that is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I am with Fr Baron on this one. I prayed the Divine Mercy for Hitchens.

[Charles E Flynn]

Edward Fesser's Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011). Note the reference to censorship by Fesser's publisher.

[Charles E Flynn]

Christopher Hitchens set a challenge for Catholics, by John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy in the University of St. Andrews and consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

[Carl E. Olson]

Paula: You seem to be confusing condemnation with criticism. In addition, there is a huge difference between saying that IF Hitchens rejected Christ, he will be eternally damned, and saying that he did indeed reject Christ. The former is Church teaching; the latter is a judgment only God can make. I don't see anyone here making it. Finally, speaking of cursing the darkness, I recall a wise man once wrote, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." Who was that guy? Oh, yeah: Saint Paul (Eph 5:11). Yes, again, pray for Christopher Hitchens. But that doesn't mean acting as though he should be made Saint Hitchens next year this time!

[David K. Monroe]

I don't know what Christopher Hitchens' eternal destiny is, but I do believe that his writings regarding religion lacked a sense of perception, reasonableness, and intellectual honesty.

I suppose one thing that really grates about the occasional hagiography of Hitchens is that if he had such a blind spot in any other area of inquiry, he would have been written off as a crank by Christians and atheists alike. Anyone who was as much of a crank about politics or science or nearly any other subject as Hitchens was about religion, and had made that area of crankiness a major part of his public life, would have been universally dismissed as such and never afforded the respect that Hitchens gets. Such is the general opinion of the respect that is to be accorded to religion in our society, often even by people who profess to be religious.

[Carl E. Olson]

David: Well said; I agree completely.