Questioning Your Way to Faith: Learning to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable

by Peter Kazmaier

Questioning Your Way to Faith explores some of the most difficult and polarizing questions facing our world today. The setting is the fictional campus of the University of Halcyon-before the cataclysmic event described in the novel, The Halcyon Dislocation. Readers trace the arguments as two friends-each possessing a radically different worldview and philosophy-talk with candor, lucidity, and humor about their disagreements on life's biggest questions. As they discuss such issues as the origins of evil, morality, what it means to be human, and whether the supernatural is possible, their dialogue models the kind of respectful, thoughtful discussion that allows people to disagree without being disagreeable. No matter which side of these questions readers find themselves on, the book explores ideas sure to provoke new insights and understanding.

136 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2013

About the author

Note: someone is submitting comments in my name urging, among other things, people to vote for Goodreads Choice Awards. These are spoofed spam comments. I did not send them, I am not sure how to stop them.

Now for my biography ...

Peter Kazmaier is the award-winning author of five books. He just completed his sixth, a fantasy entitled Exiles from Mendathera. Once the editing is complete, it will be ready for publication.

Peter is also working on the sequel to Coventry 2091.

The Halcyon Cycle is Peter Kazmaier’s first book series. In writing this colonization epic, he has been able to pursue a life-long dream of writing fast-paced novels that explore the intersection between adventure, science, faith, and philosophy.

His third novel, The Battle for Halcyon won the 2016 Word Award in the category of Speculative Fiction. This sequel to The Halcyon Dislocation follows the fate of the dislocated University of Halcyon and the splinter colony Eleytheria as they fight for survival in a parallel world.

Peter has begun a new series with the publication of Coventry 2091, his fifth novel. This story follows the surprising adventures of Jacob Kraiser as he’s sent to a penal colony in Canada’s Canadian Shield. In Peter’s current manuscript he continues the saga of Coventry’s quest for freedom. This manuscript is provisionally entitled Coventry Peril.

Peter’s experience as a researcher in chemistry has enabled him to bring authentic scientific insight to his futuristic fiction stories.

J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of the Narnia , and Stephen R. Lawhead’s trilogy, Song of Albion are among his favorite and best-loved books. He also very much enjoys science fiction classics such as Robert Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky as well as Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera fantasy series.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Kazmaier's first book was a gripping novel, The Halcyon Disclocation, that combined science fiction and fantasy with a bit of religion and philosophy thrown in. I believe I referred to this book as Lewis-esque in my review a few months back. When I saw that Peter was releasing another book, I thought it would be the sequel. At first I was a bit disappointed, until I realized the sort of book it was.

One reason someone like CS Lewis was so successful as a Christian apologist was because he wrote great novels as well as good reflections on Christian life, theology and apologetics. Lewis was no dry academic. Kazmaier is the same way. He is clearly a smart guy, having been a professor of chemistry for much of his life. His thoughts on science and faith specifically, and Christian apologetics in general, are helpful. But what works best is that he places his apologetic reflections into the Halcyon universe.

Questioning Your Way to Faith takes place prior to The Halcyon Dislocation. It is an extended discussion between two characters in the later book, Al and Floyd. Al is supposedly a "nerdy" Christian but he hikes, sails and goes fishing a lot for a stereotypical nerd. Floyd is Al's friend and an atheist. But Floyd is having a crisis of faith (or non-faith) as he discovered his recently deceased grandmother was, despite her intelligence, a Christian. Floyd approaches Al to ask how smart people can be Christians. From then on their discussion covers a lot of typical apologetic topics - problem of evil, existence of god, science and faith.

The best value in this book is its real-life setting. Many apologetic books I have read are interesting...to people who read apologetics books. But when you actually talk to people in the real world, the text book answer is not always sufficient. People don't always need or want a point-by-point case for Christianity. Like Floyd, people have specific questions which require specific answers. Sometimes these answers may line up with the standard apologetics book, but not always. The real world, as Al and Floyd discover in their adventures in Halcyon, is a topsy-turvy place!

Overall, I recommend this book for all people interested in the big questions of life. We need more writers like Peter who can give us both good stories as well as profound theological and philosophical insights.

[Lee Harmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al, a nerdy chemist, and Floyd, an atheist jock, share a friendly and respectful conversation about God as they enjoy the wilderness together. Along the way, they discuss moral purpose, evolution (Al is a proponent of intelligent design), the problem of evil, neurochemistry, and causality. The discussion of Kalam’s Argument, which posits that a infinite regression of causes cannot satisfactorily explain today’s existence, is presented with clarity—that’s perhaps the best part of the book for me. You may have to be another nerd to understand the math for that discussion, simple as it is, but don’t worry: this is the only place in the book where you’ll find mathematical symbols. The truth is—and this is the real value of Peter’s book, and the reason I recommend it—Kazmaier has a way of explaining things in simple, comparative terms so that they sink in.

The title of the book invokes the question of whether or not “questioning faith” is an oxymoron. Al, the nerdy chemist, insists that he came by faith through questioning, and Floyd insists that faith is a blind (and rather inexcusable) state of refusing to question.

A group of us are discussing this book in an apologetics forum, but the truth is, I’m not sure I classify the book as apologetic, simply because of its too-friendly tone. Kazmaier seems more focused on defending the reasonableness of theism than proving the existence of a particular God. His goal seems to be to help atheists agreeably disagree with theists. That may simply be Kazmaier’s nonaggressive style rising to the surface, but it seems appropriate to me. This book does what is possible, presenting the logic for believing in a creator of sorts, and then in the final pages bringing up personal experience to seal the deal. It is Al’s “concrete experiences with the Lord Jesus Christ” that convince him that Christianity is the proper choice among theistic options.

Fun book, all the way through. But do I actually agree with all of Al’s arguments, or all of Floyd’s? Of course not. Religion has a slippery way of evading conclusions … thank God.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read that uses candid discussion between two friends as a platform to dissect life, faith, science, and how the three interact. Well worth the read.