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Why I Am Not an Atheist
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April 2, 2026
This was not what I expected, especially coming to know Beha primarily as a novelist. I thought this would be heavy on narrative and life experience, a memoir of sorts. It had some of that, but this is primarily an intellectual biography. Beha maps the arc of his intellectual life, but in a way that is representative of vast swaths of the population during those same periods. I, as a fellow Catholic convert who partially read his way into the faith (with a fraction of the learning of Beha) and converted around the same time, may have been the particular audience, but I thoroughly enjoyed this nevertheless.
Despite his many protestations that he is not a professional philosopher, his depth of philosophical analysis and comprehension is so staggering that I flinch at referring to him as an amateur. In many ways, this could serve as an introductory textbook on philosophical thought, but that would necessarily make it less interesting.
What makes this book primarily interesting is that the staggering amount of philosophical knowledge is sort of ancillary to Beha's conversion. In one sense it is important, because each strain represents time and effort and energy Beha spent searching for the truth. But each, in its various ways, is found wanting. Beha is keen to pick up on this as the via negativa, which is not incorrect, but what stood out to me are the kernels of truth that eventually led him back to the Faith.
Now, I think we cannot discount the "haunting" aspect that a thoroughly Catholic upbringing provides (this is, in my read, the main point of Brideshead), but it is otherwise the simplest of realizations that leads Beha back to the Faith: God is Love. This claim, which I remember from corny Sunday school songs, seems almost trivial. However, when the claim is taken seriously as a metaphysical claim, it makes all the difference. What a marvelous realization.
The true art of this book is to so thoroughly law the groundwork for Beha's intellectual background that when this realization is grasped by Beha, the reader is able to see the gears click into place. If Beha had simply written that he was convinced by "God is Love" no one would have understood. It is the hundreds of pages of build up that suddenly shift aside and show the Truth that makes realistic this miracle. And this is how God works in many small miracles, by providing certainly and peace into a convoluted and crowded mental landscape. That's what causes conversion and its a feat for Beha to describe.
Despite his many protestations that he is not a professional philosopher, his depth of philosophical analysis and comprehension is so staggering that I flinch at referring to him as an amateur. In many ways, this could serve as an introductory textbook on philosophical thought, but that would necessarily make it less interesting.
What makes this book primarily interesting is that the staggering amount of philosophical knowledge is sort of ancillary to Beha's conversion. In one sense it is important, because each strain represents time and effort and energy Beha spent searching for the truth. But each, in its various ways, is found wanting. Beha is keen to pick up on this as the via negativa, which is not incorrect, but what stood out to me are the kernels of truth that eventually led him back to the Faith.
Now, I think we cannot discount the "haunting" aspect that a thoroughly Catholic upbringing provides (this is, in my read, the main point of Brideshead), but it is otherwise the simplest of realizations that leads Beha back to the Faith: God is Love. This claim, which I remember from corny Sunday school songs, seems almost trivial. However, when the claim is taken seriously as a metaphysical claim, it makes all the difference. What a marvelous realization.
The true art of this book is to so thoroughly law the groundwork for Beha's intellectual background that when this realization is grasped by Beha, the reader is able to see the gears click into place. If Beha had simply written that he was convinced by "God is Love" no one would have understood. It is the hundreds of pages of build up that suddenly shift aside and show the Truth that makes realistic this miracle. And this is how God works in many small miracles, by providing certainly and peace into a convoluted and crowded mental landscape. That's what causes conversion and its a feat for Beha to describe.
Displaying 1 of 1 review