Faith and Belief: ‘The Evolution of God’ by Robert Wright and ‘The Case for God’ by Karen Ar
This article reviews two recent books on religion. The summary paragraphs have been excerpted.
Robert Wright, “The Evolution of God”:
Wright’s title notwithstanding, his God does not evolve. He is rather a constant, the C-factor without which human evolution does not compute. His book, despite many protestations to the contrary along the way, is finally an argument from design for the existence of God, and as such it does not convince.
Karen Armstrong, “The Case for God”:
In an ambitious work clear in outline and rich in detail, Armstrong writes the history of how apophatic theology was forgotten in the late Middle Ages; how rational and then quasi-scientific Newtonian theology rose to replace it in early modernity; how, when others were recognizing this as a mistake, fundamentalists tightened their embrace of it; and how, in the wake of the passing of modernity and the failure of both its theism and its atheism, postmodern theology may point toward the recovery of what was lost. A god whose existence you can prove is a god to whom you cannot pray, postmodern theology argues, and prayer—not proof—is where religion rises or falls. Armstrong’s very considerable service is to show how this novel idea is a very old idea newly recovered.
Still just very old bullshit!
posted on October 13, 2009report this as inappropriate
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