Last week my wife and I were able to view the film COLLISION: Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson
Somewhat surprisingly to me, Hitchens’ main arguments are that religion is not necessary for morality (in fact, he says, it degrades it, as it is more commendable to love one’s neighbor in the absence of divine instruction rather than because of God’s commandment) and that the doctrine of vicarious substitution is perverse and wicked (because of the idea that one person, an innocent person, can bear the blame for another). As expected, Hitchens repeatedly mentions the Old Testament slaughtering of whole nation-states (men, women, and children).
Wilson presses hard on the lack of any basis for morality in Hitchens’ atheistic worldview. His accusation is not that Hitchens is himself overtly immoral but that Hitchens has no basis for morality. Thus Hitchens, in strenuously claiming certainty, precisely about ethical matters, is borrowing Christian concepts while denying the Christian framework which validates those concepts.
All in all, a great film. Just a teaser: The interaction at the end is very interesting and surprising. Watch the movie, and then check out this 15-minute conversation that John Piper and Doug Wilson had about it.
Here’s a two-minute trailer: