What do you think?
Rate this book
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization
"Gregg's book is the closet thing I've encountered in a long time to a one-volume user's manual for operating Western Civilization." —The Stream
"Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization offers a concise intellectual history of the West through the prism of the relationship between faith and reason." —Free Beacon
The genius of Western civilization is its unique synthesis of reason and faith. But today that synthesis is under attack—from the East by radical Islam (faith without reason) and from within the West itself by aggressive secularism (reason without faith). The stakes are incalculably high.
The naïve and increasingly common assumption that reason and faith are incompatible is simply at odds with the facts of history. The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures of a reasonable Creator imbued Judaism and Christianity with a conviction that the world is intelligible, leading to the flowering of reason and the invention of science in the West. It was no accident that the Enlightenment took place in the culture formed by the Jewish and Christian faiths.
We can all see that faith without reason is benighted at best, fanatical and violent at worst. But too many forget that reason, stripped of faith, is subject to its own pathologies. A supposedly autonomous reason easily sinks into fanaticism, stifling dissent as bigoted and irrational and devouring the humane civilization fostered by the integration of reason and faith. The blood-soaked history of the twentieth century attests to the totalitarian forces unleashed by corrupted reason.
But Samuel Gregg does more than lament the intellectual and spiritual ruin caused by the divorce of reason and faith. He shows that each of these foundational principles corrects the other’s excesses and enhances our comprehension of the truth in a continuous renewal of civilization. By recovering this balance, we can avoid a suicidal winner-take-all conflict between reason and faith and a future that will respect neither.
"Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization offers a concise intellectual history of the West through the prism of the relationship between faith and reason." —Free Beacon
The genius of Western civilization is its unique synthesis of reason and faith. But today that synthesis is under attack—from the East by radical Islam (faith without reason) and from within the West itself by aggressive secularism (reason without faith). The stakes are incalculably high.
The naïve and increasingly common assumption that reason and faith are incompatible is simply at odds with the facts of history. The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures of a reasonable Creator imbued Judaism and Christianity with a conviction that the world is intelligible, leading to the flowering of reason and the invention of science in the West. It was no accident that the Enlightenment took place in the culture formed by the Jewish and Christian faiths.
We can all see that faith without reason is benighted at best, fanatical and violent at worst. But too many forget that reason, stripped of faith, is subject to its own pathologies. A supposedly autonomous reason easily sinks into fanaticism, stifling dissent as bigoted and irrational and devouring the humane civilization fostered by the integration of reason and faith. The blood-soaked history of the twentieth century attests to the totalitarian forces unleashed by corrupted reason.
But Samuel Gregg does more than lament the intellectual and spiritual ruin caused by the divorce of reason and faith. He shows that each of these foundational principles corrects the other’s excesses and enhances our comprehension of the truth in a continuous renewal of civilization. By recovering this balance, we can avoid a suicidal winner-take-all conflict between reason and faith and a future that will respect neither.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published June 25, 2019
62 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Gregg
58 books36 followersDr. Samuel Gregg has a D.Phil. in moral philosophy and political economy from Oxford University, and an M.A. in political philosophy from the University of Melbourne.
He has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, monetary theory and policy, and natural law theory.
In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 2004. In 2008, he was elected a member of the Philadelphia Society, and a member of the Royal Economic Society. In 2017, he was made a Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He served as President of the Philadelphia Society from 2019-2021.
He has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, monetary theory and policy, and natural law theory.
In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 2004. In 2008, he was elected a member of the Philadelphia Society, and a member of the Royal Economic Society. In 2017, he was made a Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He served as President of the Philadelphia Society from 2019-2021.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 6, 2020
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization by Samuel Gregg is published by Regnery.
Regnery is a well known publisher of conservative books, and the books they publish are quality materials with depth. We are not talking about talk radio conservatism, but well-thought out, tradition-based, serious conservative interaction in the world of books and ideas.
I try not to cut and paste from others in doing my book reviews, but this comment found on the Regnery page for this book is a gem:
“Gregg’s book is the closet thing I’ve encountered in a long time to a one-volume user’s manual for operating Western Civilization.” —The Stream
Gregg’s book is a not a historical narrative, but is a analysis of key thinkers who have positively or negatively interacted with the issues of reason and faith. In many formats, the reason versus faith matchup has been discussed. In one sense, it goes back to the old line by Tertullian, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?” But the debate intensified during the Enlightenment.
If your study of Western Civilization—whether it be a class you teach or take, books you read, or your “study” via popular culture, or your Sunday sermons–is not raising questions of reason and faith, something is missing. “Something” here meaning only the most vital elements. And like it or not, the struggle for Western Civilization is a war of coalitions. Yes, Protestants differ from Catholics. Yes, we differ from those other people whose definitions of faith are inadequate. But this is war and struggle.
We face a host of opposing ideologies. Among others, Gregg focuses upon authoritarian relativism, Jihadism, and liberal religion. These ways of thinking attack boldly, seep in, disguise themselves, and find other ways of infiltrating our culture and thinking. Consider this quote from the one time Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” (And we cringe to remember that Kennedy was a Catholic and a Reagan appointee.) If that statement is truly the heart of liberty or belief in that statement is the norm, we are in trouble.
But this book is not a gloom and doom Jeremiad. Concluding with a chapter titled “A Way Back,” Gregg follows up his making us better aware of the issues confronting us with a reminder of the hope and the means of recovery. Western Civilization can, by God’s grace, say, “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
Regnery is a well known publisher of conservative books, and the books they publish are quality materials with depth. We are not talking about talk radio conservatism, but well-thought out, tradition-based, serious conservative interaction in the world of books and ideas.
I try not to cut and paste from others in doing my book reviews, but this comment found on the Regnery page for this book is a gem:
“Gregg’s book is the closet thing I’ve encountered in a long time to a one-volume user’s manual for operating Western Civilization.” —The Stream
Gregg’s book is a not a historical narrative, but is a analysis of key thinkers who have positively or negatively interacted with the issues of reason and faith. In many formats, the reason versus faith matchup has been discussed. In one sense, it goes back to the old line by Tertullian, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?” But the debate intensified during the Enlightenment.
If your study of Western Civilization—whether it be a class you teach or take, books you read, or your “study” via popular culture, or your Sunday sermons–is not raising questions of reason and faith, something is missing. “Something” here meaning only the most vital elements. And like it or not, the struggle for Western Civilization is a war of coalitions. Yes, Protestants differ from Catholics. Yes, we differ from those other people whose definitions of faith are inadequate. But this is war and struggle.
We face a host of opposing ideologies. Among others, Gregg focuses upon authoritarian relativism, Jihadism, and liberal religion. These ways of thinking attack boldly, seep in, disguise themselves, and find other ways of infiltrating our culture and thinking. Consider this quote from the one time Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” (And we cringe to remember that Kennedy was a Catholic and a Reagan appointee.) If that statement is truly the heart of liberty or belief in that statement is the norm, we are in trouble.
But this book is not a gloom and doom Jeremiad. Concluding with a chapter titled “A Way Back,” Gregg follows up his making us better aware of the issues confronting us with a reminder of the hope and the means of recovery. Western Civilization can, by God’s grace, say, “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
October 21, 2019
Great book! Thought-provoking look at history, including the Enlightenment, Isaac Newton, Fredrick of Prussia, Roger Bacon, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mills’ utilitarianism (and attempt to destroy faith), Edmund Burke, and Woodrow Wilson’s efforts at eugenics.
Quotes:
“The problem is that if we reduce reason to the scientific method and limit knowledge to the measurable, science ceases to be guided by what is MORALLY reasonable. The door is then opened to horrors such as medical EXPERIMENTS on priests in Dachau, the SYSTEMATIC use of terror by Communist regimes against their opponents, and the EFFICIENT destruction of European Jewry.” -p. 19
“Christianity stressed three ideas that were particularly influential in the development of Western culture. The first of these was God’s rational and creative nature… The second point stressed by Christianity was the affirmation that all people are capable of knowing the truth through natural reason...That people can choose and act rightly implies that they can also choose and act wrongly. The third idea that Christianity stressed, then, is FREEDOM…
There was, however, something else that Christianity stressed about freedom, namely, freedom is more than an absence of constraint. Man is free FOR something. That something is excellence-- the excellence that is the fruit of using our reason to understand the world and unfold its potential AND the excellence of freely choosing what reason and revelation show us to be true.” -pp. 40-43
“(Pope) Benedict asserted that once reason ceases to regard knowledge of God as part of the search for truth, then reason, far from being liberated, is unduly constricted-- not least because it is closed off from its ultimate source. And that, in Benedict’s view, is a betrayal of the very heart of Western culture.” -p. 50
“Scientism’s Achilles’ heel is that it is based on what philosophers call a self-refuting premise. The truth of the claim ‘No claims are true unless they can be proven scientifically’ cannot itself be proved scientifically. You need to deploy OTHER forms of reasoning to make such arguments. But these are forms of reasoning that scientism considers unreasonable… Far from representing reason’s victory over superstition, scientism is the amputation of reason.” -p. 77, 79
“Like Judaism and Christianity, Marxism has its own canon of sacred books- the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, among others- which its adherents study as Jews and Christians study the scriptures. Marxists join a church-like organization- the Party- with its own faithful (party members), clerical hierarchy (the Central Committee…), theologians…, saints (Che Guevara or Lenin, whose embalmed body is venerated in a shrine), and doctrines from which party members may not stray without compromising their orthodoxy...The more you look, the more obvious are Marxism’s parallels with Christianity.” -p. 87
“Skepticism assumes there is an absolute, objectively true standpoint from which we can determine that every claim to truth is fictional. But the existence of such a standpoint is itself irreconcilable with the human mind’s supposed inability to know truth.” -p. 98
“‘We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires’ (--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger)...
(Tolerance) becomes a tool for shutting down discussion by insisting that NO ONE may claim that his philosophical or theological positions are true. Tolerance becomes a means of banishing the truth as the standard by which all ideas are tested. The coercion at the heart of the dictatorship of relativism follows from the conclusion that we OUGHT to marginalize anyone who argues that some ideas are right while others are wrong.” -p. 103
“If the West’s unique integration of reason and faith is a defining characteristic of its civilization, we must conclude that this civilization is seriously imperiled. Ideas that contest and undermine this integration- authoritarian relativism, Prometheanism, Nietzscheanism, scientism, etc- have permeated every sector of public life.” -p. 122
“This avowal of religious liberty is based squarely on the proposition that human beings are obliged, because they possess reason and free will, to SEEK the truth about the ultimate significance and causes of the universe and to adhere to their conclusions.” -p. 130
“Rooting the right to religious liberty in human reason’s orientation to truth placed a stronger limitation on state power than rooting it in feelings, customs, or the preference of the majority would do. For if rights are simply a reflection of emotions, conventions, or the predilections of the majority, then they lack a foundation in reason, and there is no reason in principle for governments to protect them always and everywhere.” -p. 131
“Economic freedom is no more absolute than religious freedom. But because it is essential both as a bulwark against despotism and for people to realize their full human potential, the presumption in favor of economic freedom rests on grounds far more compelling than simple efficiency and utility.” -p. 133
Discussion with the author: https://www.nationalreview.com/podcas...
Quotes:
“The problem is that if we reduce reason to the scientific method and limit knowledge to the measurable, science ceases to be guided by what is MORALLY reasonable. The door is then opened to horrors such as medical EXPERIMENTS on priests in Dachau, the SYSTEMATIC use of terror by Communist regimes against their opponents, and the EFFICIENT destruction of European Jewry.” -p. 19
“Christianity stressed three ideas that were particularly influential in the development of Western culture. The first of these was God’s rational and creative nature… The second point stressed by Christianity was the affirmation that all people are capable of knowing the truth through natural reason...That people can choose and act rightly implies that they can also choose and act wrongly. The third idea that Christianity stressed, then, is FREEDOM…
There was, however, something else that Christianity stressed about freedom, namely, freedom is more than an absence of constraint. Man is free FOR something. That something is excellence-- the excellence that is the fruit of using our reason to understand the world and unfold its potential AND the excellence of freely choosing what reason and revelation show us to be true.” -pp. 40-43
“(Pope) Benedict asserted that once reason ceases to regard knowledge of God as part of the search for truth, then reason, far from being liberated, is unduly constricted-- not least because it is closed off from its ultimate source. And that, in Benedict’s view, is a betrayal of the very heart of Western culture.” -p. 50
“Scientism’s Achilles’ heel is that it is based on what philosophers call a self-refuting premise. The truth of the claim ‘No claims are true unless they can be proven scientifically’ cannot itself be proved scientifically. You need to deploy OTHER forms of reasoning to make such arguments. But these are forms of reasoning that scientism considers unreasonable… Far from representing reason’s victory over superstition, scientism is the amputation of reason.” -p. 77, 79
“Like Judaism and Christianity, Marxism has its own canon of sacred books- the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, among others- which its adherents study as Jews and Christians study the scriptures. Marxists join a church-like organization- the Party- with its own faithful (party members), clerical hierarchy (the Central Committee…), theologians…, saints (Che Guevara or Lenin, whose embalmed body is venerated in a shrine), and doctrines from which party members may not stray without compromising their orthodoxy...The more you look, the more obvious are Marxism’s parallels with Christianity.” -p. 87
“Skepticism assumes there is an absolute, objectively true standpoint from which we can determine that every claim to truth is fictional. But the existence of such a standpoint is itself irreconcilable with the human mind’s supposed inability to know truth.” -p. 98
“‘We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires’ (--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger)...
(Tolerance) becomes a tool for shutting down discussion by insisting that NO ONE may claim that his philosophical or theological positions are true. Tolerance becomes a means of banishing the truth as the standard by which all ideas are tested. The coercion at the heart of the dictatorship of relativism follows from the conclusion that we OUGHT to marginalize anyone who argues that some ideas are right while others are wrong.” -p. 103
“If the West’s unique integration of reason and faith is a defining characteristic of its civilization, we must conclude that this civilization is seriously imperiled. Ideas that contest and undermine this integration- authoritarian relativism, Prometheanism, Nietzscheanism, scientism, etc- have permeated every sector of public life.” -p. 122
“This avowal of religious liberty is based squarely on the proposition that human beings are obliged, because they possess reason and free will, to SEEK the truth about the ultimate significance and causes of the universe and to adhere to their conclusions.” -p. 130
“Rooting the right to religious liberty in human reason’s orientation to truth placed a stronger limitation on state power than rooting it in feelings, customs, or the preference of the majority would do. For if rights are simply a reflection of emotions, conventions, or the predilections of the majority, then they lack a foundation in reason, and there is no reason in principle for governments to protect them always and everywhere.” -p. 131
“Economic freedom is no more absolute than religious freedom. But because it is essential both as a bulwark against despotism and for people to realize their full human potential, the presumption in favor of economic freedom rests on grounds far more compelling than simple efficiency and utility.” -p. 133
Discussion with the author: https://www.nationalreview.com/podcas...
June 1, 2020
Well researched but I can't help notice that every time a book makes arguments in favor of religion driving the morality of the West, we take a standard narrative journey through Eugenics, Hitler's Germany, Marxism & Communism, and always end of in the same place, yet these same people ask us to not only talk about the bible in terms of it's slavery, murder, and excessive injustices.
Always good to see the other side, but starting to see the argument is very one dimensional.
Always good to see the other side, but starting to see the argument is very one dimensional.
November 20, 2021
This is a solid book on how faith and reason, at least the Judeo-Christian faith, have primarily been working in harmony through most of history. Gregg points out how it is a belief in a rational, logically consistent God that has enabled the West to run further ahead in scientific discovery. He gives a short history of early Greek thought and Judeo-Christian beliefs. He then goes on to show how a synthesis of the two has made Western Civilization what it is today.
Gregg does an excellent job of confronting the modern myth that the Enlightenment was predominantly anti-Christian. Yes, there were many great thinkers of that time who were. But they are actually a minority. Far more were not just scientists and Christians... they were scientists because they were Christians.
Gregg then goes on to show how the modern divide between reason and faith has led to "pathologies of reason" (prometheanism, scientism) and "pathologies of faith" (Jihadism, Neitzche's nihilism, Marx's communism, JS Mill's liberalism). He concludes by arguing that there is a way back from this divide. I would have loved for these concluding chapters to be fleshed out a bit more, but to be fair, Gregg covered an awful lot for a short 250 page book.
This is a great read for anyone interested in the supposed conflict between faith and reason and why this apparent conflict needs to end for the sake of society. There is nothing groundbreaking here and Gregg has a clear conservative bias, but it is still a great short read no matter what your perspective might be.
Gregg does an excellent job of confronting the modern myth that the Enlightenment was predominantly anti-Christian. Yes, there were many great thinkers of that time who were. But they are actually a minority. Far more were not just scientists and Christians... they were scientists because they were Christians.
Gregg then goes on to show how the modern divide between reason and faith has led to "pathologies of reason" (prometheanism, scientism) and "pathologies of faith" (Jihadism, Neitzche's nihilism, Marx's communism, JS Mill's liberalism). He concludes by arguing that there is a way back from this divide. I would have loved for these concluding chapters to be fleshed out a bit more, but to be fair, Gregg covered an awful lot for a short 250 page book.
This is a great read for anyone interested in the supposed conflict between faith and reason and why this apparent conflict needs to end for the sake of society. There is nothing groundbreaking here and Gregg has a clear conservative bias, but it is still a great short read no matter what your perspective might be.
May 14, 2022
‘Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization’ by Samuel Gregg covers two critically important subjects: the relationship between rationality and religious belief for one, and the legacy and destiny of the West for another.
Gregg argues clearly and concisely here that Western Civilization is predicated on the synthesis of faith and reason. Instead of choosing one or the other, the wedding of Jewish belief and Greek thought in Christianity made possible the greatest and surest improvement in human quality of life ever, bar none.
Therefore, those striving to divorce the West from its theological and philosophical heritage stand poised to destroy the single greatest force for good humanly speaking since the beginning of recorded history.
But the second book I finished today was a surprisingly fitting companion to Gregg.
‘Sex, Lies, and Scantrons: The Average American’s Public School Experience’ by Matt Saccaro serves as a first-hand account of the personal ramifications of such efforts by secularists to hollow out Western thought and remake it in their own godless image.
According to Saccaro, our education system routinely allows students to torment, harass, bully, and pressure one another into unhealthy ways of being and relating. Teachers, meanwhile, alternate between barely concealing their disdain for their pupils and harshly upbraiding them for making them look as bad as they in fact are.
Consequently, the kids are foul-mouthed, uncouth, abusive, and unrestrained by anything that could remotely be called Christian morality. And to this the adults in the mix by and large shrug. They turn a blind eye, unless doing otherwise might cost them personally.
In sum, the whole lot acts like animals and mercenaries because they’re conditioned to believe they’re animals and mercenaries in the absence of even the concept of the soul or its significance.
And this is why we homeschool, by the way.
Of a piece with all off the above is the recent story from Not the Bee of a Tallahassee, Florida middle school principal Sarah Hembree taking to Facebook to rebuke parents for “getting in their way,” then brag that teachers are going to “do what’s best for your students in spite of you.”
The whole lot explains also why Louisiana HB813 – ‘The Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act’ – was just withdrawn by its sponsor, Republican State Rep. Danny McCormick, after an amendment passed 65 to 26 on Thursday night stating that “the pregnant female shall not be held responsible for the criminal consequences” if she tries to get an abortion in violation of the proposed legislation.
In conclusion, to the degree the West generally, and America in particular, has abandoned the union of faith and reason, we have correspondingly lost the ability to agree or reach anything approaching consensus that truth and goodness are objectively knowable, and that it is our sober responsibility before God to both know them and act accordingly.
Nowhere is this more starkly evident than with regards to how we dispose of our children, prenatal and post-partum.
If there is to be any hope of salvaging the above for ourselves and our posterity, by God’s grace, we must return once more to this conviction, that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
Nothing less will do.
For more related musings and thoughts on 'Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization' by Samuel Gregg, check out this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast.
https://thegarrettashleymulletshow.co...
Gregg argues clearly and concisely here that Western Civilization is predicated on the synthesis of faith and reason. Instead of choosing one or the other, the wedding of Jewish belief and Greek thought in Christianity made possible the greatest and surest improvement in human quality of life ever, bar none.
Therefore, those striving to divorce the West from its theological and philosophical heritage stand poised to destroy the single greatest force for good humanly speaking since the beginning of recorded history.
But the second book I finished today was a surprisingly fitting companion to Gregg.
‘Sex, Lies, and Scantrons: The Average American’s Public School Experience’ by Matt Saccaro serves as a first-hand account of the personal ramifications of such efforts by secularists to hollow out Western thought and remake it in their own godless image.
According to Saccaro, our education system routinely allows students to torment, harass, bully, and pressure one another into unhealthy ways of being and relating. Teachers, meanwhile, alternate between barely concealing their disdain for their pupils and harshly upbraiding them for making them look as bad as they in fact are.
Consequently, the kids are foul-mouthed, uncouth, abusive, and unrestrained by anything that could remotely be called Christian morality. And to this the adults in the mix by and large shrug. They turn a blind eye, unless doing otherwise might cost them personally.
In sum, the whole lot acts like animals and mercenaries because they’re conditioned to believe they’re animals and mercenaries in the absence of even the concept of the soul or its significance.
And this is why we homeschool, by the way.
Of a piece with all off the above is the recent story from Not the Bee of a Tallahassee, Florida middle school principal Sarah Hembree taking to Facebook to rebuke parents for “getting in their way,” then brag that teachers are going to “do what’s best for your students in spite of you.”
The whole lot explains also why Louisiana HB813 – ‘The Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act’ – was just withdrawn by its sponsor, Republican State Rep. Danny McCormick, after an amendment passed 65 to 26 on Thursday night stating that “the pregnant female shall not be held responsible for the criminal consequences” if she tries to get an abortion in violation of the proposed legislation.
In conclusion, to the degree the West generally, and America in particular, has abandoned the union of faith and reason, we have correspondingly lost the ability to agree or reach anything approaching consensus that truth and goodness are objectively knowable, and that it is our sober responsibility before God to both know them and act accordingly.
Nowhere is this more starkly evident than with regards to how we dispose of our children, prenatal and post-partum.
If there is to be any hope of salvaging the above for ourselves and our posterity, by God’s grace, we must return once more to this conviction, that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
Nothing less will do.
For more related musings and thoughts on 'Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization' by Samuel Gregg, check out this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast.
https://thegarrettashleymulletshow.co...
July 9, 2020
Excellent account of the role and importance of faith and reason in the making of Western civilisation, the notions of individual freedom and the dangers of relying only on faith or only on reason. Concise and interesting. Excellent audio book.
January 12, 2023
A treatise on the tie between faith and reason and its necessity to maintain Western Civilization.
June 6, 2020
This book describes how the different ways of combining reason and faith impacted the development of western civilization. It was a synthesis of history, philosophy and political science.
The author looks at different modes of thought: Neitzeism, Marxism, materialism, utilitarianism, scientism, fideism and Christianity. He then explains how each system combines reason and faith to arrive at their own philosophical truths. He then looks at the implications. His conclusion is that systems like Marxism are bound to fail because of the incoherence of the reason + faith synthesis. I think he does an effective job making this argument.
The book really shines in its development of Christian thought. Using Christian tenets, faith and reason blend in a natural way where one reinforces the other. His thesis is that the reinforcement is natural because it is closest to the truth.
The book covered a lot over 240 pages. I'm surprised this isn't a more widely read. I plan on reading more from the author. Apparently he is a fellow at the Acton institute.
The author looks at different modes of thought: Neitzeism, Marxism, materialism, utilitarianism, scientism, fideism and Christianity. He then explains how each system combines reason and faith to arrive at their own philosophical truths. He then looks at the implications. His conclusion is that systems like Marxism are bound to fail because of the incoherence of the reason + faith synthesis. I think he does an effective job making this argument.
The book really shines in its development of Christian thought. Using Christian tenets, faith and reason blend in a natural way where one reinforces the other. His thesis is that the reinforcement is natural because it is closest to the truth.
The book covered a lot over 240 pages. I'm surprised this isn't a more widely read. I plan on reading more from the author. Apparently he is a fellow at the Acton institute.
November 15, 2019
A month or two ago, I came across Samuel Gregg’s book while perusing items at Acton.org, and the title caught my eye. In my personal efforts to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), I’ve frequently felt that I don’t yet have an adequate understanding of the relationship between faith and reason, and by extension, the relationship between the sciences and Scripture.
The book didn’t take me where I hoped to go on that topic. It did, however, provide an interesting and enjoyable survey of the history of Western thought, and one of the better interpretations of the role of reason and Christianity in Western thought.
Samuel Gregg is the director of research at the Acton Institute and has degrees in philosophy from the University of Melbourne (MA) and Oxford (PhD). Though he has written a pile of books, mostly on economics, his focus in this volume is more history-focused than I expected. Though the hardcover edition has 256 pages, I also felt that it ended at just about the point where there should have been several more chapters on various views of the relationship between faith and reason and analysis of supporting arguments—as well as more consideration of potential strategies for preserving what remains of Western Civilization.
Chapters six and seven do address these topics, and they aren’t a bad start, but I was hoping for a deeper and more comprehensive exploration.
Gregg’s writing is highly readable, and sometimes strikingly synthesis-dense. That is, he sometimes connects quite a lot of dots (ideas, persons, themes in Western history) in a few relatively short sentences. The writing flows with an apparent ease that suggests he has deeply absorbed this information—either that, or he has an extraordinary note-taking and accessing system!
I have to respect that.
The argument
The preface frames the book’s purpose and identifies the central thesis. (References in this review are Kindle location numbers and are somewhat approximate).
I hope, however, that this book shows that the far greater bloodshed of the twentieth century’s darkest decades, carried out at the behest of ideologies that hardly need to be named, owed much to what I call, after Joseph Ratzinger, pathologies of reason and faith. Fortunately, there is more to this story than the ways in which Western societies become unmoored whenever reason and faith drift away from each other. One argument of this book is that not only can reason and faith correct each other’s excesses, but they can also enhance each other’s comprehension of the truth, continually renewing Western civilization. (67)
Gregg returns to the concept of “pathologies of reason” and “pathologies of faith,” throughout the book, and further develops the idea that faith and reason need each other in order to avoid these "pathologies."
In the preface, Gregg also acknowledges the book’s reliance on the thought of Joseph Ratzinger and John Finnis (78).
Chapter one uses Joseph Ratzinger’s (a.k.a., the retired Pope Benedict XVI's) 2006 speech “Faith, Reason, and the University: Memories and Reflections” as the backdrop for, and much of the substance of, a discussion on what Western Civilization is.
It’s also here that we first see Gregg’s interest in Islam, and his view—with Ratzinger—that Islam's belief system is deeply anti-Western largely because it's anti-Reason (112).
This is a perspective on Islam I hadn’t previously considered and, though it seems tangential to the question of how faith and reason ought to relate, it does provide some context for exploring that question.
Is God a reasonable Deity? This question matters, not least because one alternative to a Deity who embodies reason is a Deity who is pure will, operating beyond reason. Quoting the French scholar of Islam, Roger Arnaldez, Benedict noted in his Regensburg lecture that such a God “is not bound even by his own word.” He could even command us “to practice idolatry.” (125)
Gregg considers several ways to define what makes a culture "Western," highlighting the roles of freedom from coercion and freedom of thought, and their relationship to a high view of truth and reason. He insists that the synthesis of these ideals with Christian belief is essential to understanding the West.
This strong attachment to reason, however, does not by itself account for the distinctive character of the West. Without the Christian and Jewish religions, there is no Ambrose, Benedict, Aquinas, Maimonides, Hildegard of Bingen, Isaac Abravanel, Thomas More, Elizabeth of Hungary, John Calvin, Ignatius of Loyola, Hugo Grotius, John Witherspoon, William Wilberforce, Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, C. S. Lewis, Edith Stein, Elizabeth Anscombe, Reformation, Oxford University, Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Matthew, Bach’s Saint John Passion, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Pascal’s Pensées, Hagia Sophia, Mont-Saint-Michel, or Rome’s Great Synagogue. Absent the vision of God articulated first by Judaism and then infused into the West’s marrow by Christianity, it’s harder to imagine developments like the delegitimization of slavery or the de-deification of the state and the natural world. (229)
The chapter also includes a discussion of what went wrong in Western Civilization (242), with more explanation of the concept of pathologies of faith and pathologies of reason (301). The latter challenges some widely held beliefs about Enlightenment thought—a task he revisits later in the book.
As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the Enlightenment was much more complicated and far less monolithic than is often realized. It wasn’t a single episode, a set of accomplishments, or even the discovery of a single way forward. Nor was it anywhere nearly as antireligious as is sometimes supposed.
The book identifies the late-Enlightenment movement toward separating faith and reason--limiting religion to the realm of the purely subjective--as the primary culprit in the decline of Western thought (especially 335ff).
Highlights
For me, highlights from chapters two through seven include the following:
Three Christian ideas that strongly influenced the West (640-687): “God’s rational nature, a natural law that all men can discern, and human freedom as the power to choose the good and the true.”
Isaac Newton’s use of pantokrator (something like “Ruler of All,” 835).
Discussion of the nature of Deism (835ff)
Though Deism was on the rise during Newton’s lifetime, most men of science still shared his non-deistic understanding of God’s nature. Kepler, for instance, was a deeply religious Lutheran who believed that the Creator’s plan for his world was knowable through reason and revelation. (861)
Scientism’s self-refuting premise (1175), and its contradictory exaltation of reason while also "depreciating" reason’s role in distinguishing right from wrong (1210).
J. S. Mill’s contribution to the decline of Western thought (1400).
A differently-nuanced analysis of Nietzsche than I have previously read (1441ff).
Discussion of the problem of Fideism, using a different definition than I’ve seen elsewhere: “belief in the incapacity of the intellect to attain to knowledge of divine matters” and an “excessive emphasis on faith” (1654; Gregg is quoting from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Faith).
The claim that Islam's view of God as irrational is to blame for religiously-motivated terrorism: interesting, but he does not prove it (1833). There are probably faiths that hold to irrational deities (or quasi-deities) and yet generally embrace peace (e.g., perhaps, Buddhism and Confucianism?).
Two major Enlightenment forks and a link between the U.S. Founding Fathers and the concept of natural law:
Benedict XVI affirmed a crucial distinction between the two great revolutions of the Enlightenment, the French and the American, and before becoming pope he had argued that the latter proved more open to Christianity’s integration of reason and faith. He described “the Anglo-Saxon trend, which is more inclined to natural law and tends towards constitutional democracy,” as superior to the project associated with Rousseau, which “ultimately aims at complete freedom from any rule.” (2274)
Though it isn’t comprehensive, Gregg’s book is an important contribution to understanding Western thought in an age where misunderstanding—and simple ignorance—seem to be on the rise. I hope to read the book again before too long, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to better understand where the West once was, intellectually, as well as where it is now, and how it got here.
July 30, 2019
Reason, Faith and the Struggle for Western Civilization by Samuel Gregg
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - Reason, Faith and the Struggle for Western Civilization by Samuel Gregg
This is a well-written, well-informed and erudite survey of Western intellectual history.
Author Samuel Gregg starts with Pope Benedict's Regensberg Address and its observation that Christianity was based on the theological principle that God was Reason in contradistinction to Islam which conceived of God as Will. Gregg then follows up Christianity's definition of God as Logos and subsequent Christian intellectual history from Augustine through the modern era. This thinking was responsible for notions of freedom of choice, reason and constitutionalism.
Gregg also follows Pope Benedict's diagnosis of "pathologies of faith and pathologies of reason." These pathologies include, Prometheanism (the idea that man can be recreated by changing society), relativism, nihilism, Nietzscheanism, and Scientism, all of which totalize science at the expense of faith. Gregg follows Pope John-Paul II's observation that both science and faith are necessary, that mere faith reduces to superstition, whereas mere science removes the goal or content for which science exists.
Gregg's book is erudite. The reader is introduced to writers, ideas and concepts that are old friends if he has an acquaintanceship with the literature of Western ideas, but, for those who don't this is a good entry point.
For myself, I appreciated Gregg's linkage of Justice Kennedy's "sweet mystery of life" passage in Planned Parenthood v. Casey to the philosophy of Nietzsche. I have often wanted to turn the tables on another Supreme Court decision with the aphorism that "while the Constitution does not incorporate Mr. Spencer's Social Statics, it seems that it does incorporate Nietsche's "Beyond Good and Evil."
This is an intelligent, mind-stretching discussion on the connection between faith and reason in the West, where the West has gone wrong, and what might be done to correct the problems. It is worth the time spent.
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - Reason, Faith and the Struggle for Western Civilization by Samuel Gregg
This is a well-written, well-informed and erudite survey of Western intellectual history.
Author Samuel Gregg starts with Pope Benedict's Regensberg Address and its observation that Christianity was based on the theological principle that God was Reason in contradistinction to Islam which conceived of God as Will. Gregg then follows up Christianity's definition of God as Logos and subsequent Christian intellectual history from Augustine through the modern era. This thinking was responsible for notions of freedom of choice, reason and constitutionalism.
Gregg also follows Pope Benedict's diagnosis of "pathologies of faith and pathologies of reason." These pathologies include, Prometheanism (the idea that man can be recreated by changing society), relativism, nihilism, Nietzscheanism, and Scientism, all of which totalize science at the expense of faith. Gregg follows Pope John-Paul II's observation that both science and faith are necessary, that mere faith reduces to superstition, whereas mere science removes the goal or content for which science exists.
Gregg's book is erudite. The reader is introduced to writers, ideas and concepts that are old friends if he has an acquaintanceship with the literature of Western ideas, but, for those who don't this is a good entry point.
For myself, I appreciated Gregg's linkage of Justice Kennedy's "sweet mystery of life" passage in Planned Parenthood v. Casey to the philosophy of Nietzsche. I have often wanted to turn the tables on another Supreme Court decision with the aphorism that "while the Constitution does not incorporate Mr. Spencer's Social Statics, it seems that it does incorporate Nietsche's "Beyond Good and Evil."
This is an intelligent, mind-stretching discussion on the connection between faith and reason in the West, where the West has gone wrong, and what might be done to correct the problems. It is worth the time spent.
May 24, 2021
The smooth jazz of racist-adjacent dog whistles which insist on a western-centric cultural hierarchy. A good exercise in learning from those you disagree with - a few interesting nuggets and a good history of how faith has shaped the West today.
June 1, 2024
Questions about the appropriate relationship between reason and faith abound in our current environment. Gregg's book helps to separate out the facets of the issues. The two areas are not in fundamental conflict but several philosophical trends have tried to make them so.
Gregg admires, as do I, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and he starts out with a discussion of the Cardinal's speech to a German university before he became Pope Benedict. (https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/...) - it is worth the time to at least review a summary of his speech.
Intellectual arrogance is a common error for philosophers who advance reason as primary but also be those who say follow faith first - but ultimately faith and reason are linked. And attempts to ignore the contributions of either leads to horrible results. A couple of the hazards of ignoring the complex relationships include the assumptions in the Bush administration used in the nation building efforts in the Middle East which argued that one could equate modernization and democratic institutions.
Gregg does a good exposition of the development of faith traditions. He also demonstrates the deep part of the founding which relied an a balance between reason and faith. He also presents quite well the risks of ignoring faith - he does a good review of the thinking of Nietzsche. The over reliance on reason has the demonstrated evil of excesses of political regimes from the Nazis to both the Russian and Chinese communists. Soon the accepted range of reason becomes a dogmatic acceptance of something akin to religious fanaticism. Today's WOKE adherents have those same tendencies with their "the science is settled" memes. But he also does a good defense of the great contribution that Judeo-Christian thinking had on forming the limits of our government. The first progressives and indeed the current ones have tried to ignore those base principles.
One other caution about delving into Gregg's wonderful book. In the GoodReads comments there are a couple of snarky reviews which dismiss the role of faith in human potential. It is almost as if the reviews were written before the book was read. Ignore those reviews.
There is a good video from the Acton Institute where Gregg introduces Vernon Smith (Nobel winner who is now a professor at Chapman - https://rlo.acton.org/archives/87586-...)
Gregg's book takes some time to work through because the arguments are subtle. But it is worth the investment.
Gregg admires, as do I, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and he starts out with a discussion of the Cardinal's speech to a German university before he became Pope Benedict. (https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/...) - it is worth the time to at least review a summary of his speech.
Intellectual arrogance is a common error for philosophers who advance reason as primary but also be those who say follow faith first - but ultimately faith and reason are linked. And attempts to ignore the contributions of either leads to horrible results. A couple of the hazards of ignoring the complex relationships include the assumptions in the Bush administration used in the nation building efforts in the Middle East which argued that one could equate modernization and democratic institutions.
Gregg does a good exposition of the development of faith traditions. He also demonstrates the deep part of the founding which relied an a balance between reason and faith. He also presents quite well the risks of ignoring faith - he does a good review of the thinking of Nietzsche. The over reliance on reason has the demonstrated evil of excesses of political regimes from the Nazis to both the Russian and Chinese communists. Soon the accepted range of reason becomes a dogmatic acceptance of something akin to religious fanaticism. Today's WOKE adherents have those same tendencies with their "the science is settled" memes. But he also does a good defense of the great contribution that Judeo-Christian thinking had on forming the limits of our government. The first progressives and indeed the current ones have tried to ignore those base principles.
One other caution about delving into Gregg's wonderful book. In the GoodReads comments there are a couple of snarky reviews which dismiss the role of faith in human potential. It is almost as if the reviews were written before the book was read. Ignore those reviews.
There is a good video from the Acton Institute where Gregg introduces Vernon Smith (Nobel winner who is now a professor at Chapman - https://rlo.acton.org/archives/87586-...)
Gregg's book takes some time to work through because the arguments are subtle. But it is worth the investment.
July 6, 2019
Lectura obligada para entender el mundo contemporáneo. Este libro es un "tour de force" de las corrientes filosóficas que definen a la civilización occidental, la cual, como ninguna otra, ha basado su esplendor en un delicado balance entre la razón y la fe. No se entiende Occidente sin este balance, producto en gran medida del cristianismo. A través de sus páginas, el autor nos alerta ante los peligros de perder este equilibrio, en lo que llama patologías de la fe o de la razón; por ejemplo, fe sin razón es una de las causas principales del terrorismo islámico, razón sin fe lleva a los extremos brutales del comunismo y el fascismo o a la nueva tiranía de nuestros días, claramente identificada ya por Bendedicto XVI: la tiranía del relativismo.
Es interesante leer cómo la Iglesia Católica nos invita a una fe razonada y razonable, como dice San Pedro: hay que saber dar las razones de nuestra fe. Para un cristiano, en su condición de imagen de un Dios bueno y razonable, tanto la fe como la razón son fundamentales. El cristianismo no se opone a la ciencia, al revés, la promueve como resultado de la capacidad maravillosa del ser humano de conocer la verdad acerca de un mundo ordenado, creado por Dios en su infinita bondad. Pero, al mismo tiempo, nos previene de un cientificismo burdo y materialista que afirma que sólo existe lo material y que el método científico es el único medio válido para entender la realidad (lo cual, por cierto, es imposible probar a través del mismo método). Para la Iglesia misma, el perder este balance entre razón y fe puede ser muy peligroso y llevarla a un fideísmo que desconfía de la razón o a un sentimentalismo vacío y autodestructivo (vienen a la mente afirmaciones desafortunadas recientes de algunos altos prelados que afirman que ahora en la Iglesia, dos más dos puede ser igual a cinco, o que el Santo Padre no está sujeto a los dictados de la tradición y el magisterio).
Sin duda, Gregg es uno de los pensadores más profundos, claros e interesantes de nuestros días y ha escrito un excelente libro, al alcance de todos, no sólo de un grupo especializado de filósofos o historiadores. Muy recomendable.
Es interesante leer cómo la Iglesia Católica nos invita a una fe razonada y razonable, como dice San Pedro: hay que saber dar las razones de nuestra fe. Para un cristiano, en su condición de imagen de un Dios bueno y razonable, tanto la fe como la razón son fundamentales. El cristianismo no se opone a la ciencia, al revés, la promueve como resultado de la capacidad maravillosa del ser humano de conocer la verdad acerca de un mundo ordenado, creado por Dios en su infinita bondad. Pero, al mismo tiempo, nos previene de un cientificismo burdo y materialista que afirma que sólo existe lo material y que el método científico es el único medio válido para entender la realidad (lo cual, por cierto, es imposible probar a través del mismo método). Para la Iglesia misma, el perder este balance entre razón y fe puede ser muy peligroso y llevarla a un fideísmo que desconfía de la razón o a un sentimentalismo vacío y autodestructivo (vienen a la mente afirmaciones desafortunadas recientes de algunos altos prelados que afirman que ahora en la Iglesia, dos más dos puede ser igual a cinco, o que el Santo Padre no está sujeto a los dictados de la tradición y el magisterio).
Sin duda, Gregg es uno de los pensadores más profundos, claros e interesantes de nuestros días y ha escrito un excelente libro, al alcance de todos, no sólo de un grupo especializado de filósofos o historiadores. Muy recomendable.
December 8, 2019
The posture of Western Civilization's legacy, impacts, and need for preservation evokes many perspectives, particularly in recent years. Dr. Gregg's recent work therefore presents few novel questions, but a distinct framing of the Western experience between the extremes of fideism and scientism. This reason alone propels the reader through a quick treatment of WC, along with a final argument on the need and methods of preserving WC.
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization succeeds in identifying the beauty and contribution of WC, but its true value lies in how it strikes down the common polar objections to WC - namely, from "conservatives" that a faith without intellectual honesty limits the human experience, and from "liberals" that the lens of science (and by extension, the social sciences) provide sufficient answers for the human condition.
The book lags in its shorthand development of the Enlightenment, which can be forgiven given the brevity. However, the ideas and persons the author selects for his anecdotes strays from the traditional heavy hitters. While this may indicate instead the author's academic specialty and personal leanings, it seems that in a work so short that such a tact would warrant more development.
In all, this was an enjoyable read on a contemporary matter that is on the hearts of minds of nearly everyone - even if only the implications that WC has wrought on how we approach epistemology and being.
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization succeeds in identifying the beauty and contribution of WC, but its true value lies in how it strikes down the common polar objections to WC - namely, from "conservatives" that a faith without intellectual honesty limits the human experience, and from "liberals" that the lens of science (and by extension, the social sciences) provide sufficient answers for the human condition.
The book lags in its shorthand development of the Enlightenment, which can be forgiven given the brevity. However, the ideas and persons the author selects for his anecdotes strays from the traditional heavy hitters. While this may indicate instead the author's academic specialty and personal leanings, it seems that in a work so short that such a tact would warrant more development.
In all, this was an enjoyable read on a contemporary matter that is on the hearts of minds of nearly everyone - even if only the implications that WC has wrought on how we approach epistemology and being.
July 10, 2019
Realmente un gran libro. Bien escrito, claro, razonado y bien argumentado. Todo en una obra breve que va al grano. Y ese es, sospecho, un asunto de supervivencia de la civilización occidental. Si no sobrevive, las cosas que sucedieron en el siglo XX regresarán (sí, Nazismo y la barbarie de la URSS, Pol-Pot y similares).
Ese asunto es la compatibilidad entre razón y fe. Entre ciencia y religión. Cuando no se acompañan una a la otra, malas cosas pasan. La fe sola, sin razón, lleva a patologías como el terrorismo religioso. La ciencia, sin fe, produce horrores, como el Holocausto. Ese es el drama en el fondo de la tragedia de nuestros días.
Ha sido una opinión mía, durante ya algún tiempo, que eso que describe S. Gregg es real. El espíritu de nuestros tiempos que limita a la razón al campo de la ciencia experimental y que piensa que la fe es nada mejor que superstición, es el mismo error que comete quien piensa que todo lo que existe es la fe en dictados divinos que no admiten examen.
S. Gregg toma como base intelectual de su obra ideas que provienen de Benedicto XVI, las que tratan este tema. A ello adiciona multitud de fuentes y evidencias que presentan a sus ideas como algo razonable y justificado. Y apunta algo que yo desconocía, el «Böckenförde Dilemma»... fascinante.
En fin, una gran lectura. Importante y de consecuencias graves.
Ese asunto es la compatibilidad entre razón y fe. Entre ciencia y religión. Cuando no se acompañan una a la otra, malas cosas pasan. La fe sola, sin razón, lleva a patologías como el terrorismo religioso. La ciencia, sin fe, produce horrores, como el Holocausto. Ese es el drama en el fondo de la tragedia de nuestros días.
Ha sido una opinión mía, durante ya algún tiempo, que eso que describe S. Gregg es real. El espíritu de nuestros tiempos que limita a la razón al campo de la ciencia experimental y que piensa que la fe es nada mejor que superstición, es el mismo error que comete quien piensa que todo lo que existe es la fe en dictados divinos que no admiten examen.
S. Gregg toma como base intelectual de su obra ideas que provienen de Benedicto XVI, las que tratan este tema. A ello adiciona multitud de fuentes y evidencias que presentan a sus ideas como algo razonable y justificado. Y apunta algo que yo desconocía, el «Böckenförde Dilemma»... fascinante.
En fin, una gran lectura. Importante y de consecuencias graves.
March 19, 2021
A great survey of the development, angst, and disillusionment of the West. What events and thinkers caused us to murder deity in our minds, while trying our best to do it in our hearts? What results come from such a rebellion of soul? Himself a committed Catholic, Gregg does not use his own belief as a club, beating the reader with dogma and scare tactics. He instead presents various systems of thought such as what he calls "Prometheanism" and "Utopianism", with sympathy and balance. Believers are bound to find this book to confirm some of their greatest temporal fears. Atheists are asked to look at the reality of that divine divorce and ask themselves, was it worth it?
Want to read
May 31, 2020The author pins the Western civilization's particular balancing of reason and faith at its Christian root.
According to him the "faith" above anything characterizes Jewish theological pursuits: God is ultimately free and creative, whereas the Greek way is all about "reasoning" with the divine Logos. Christianity that embeds the Western civilization lives on both heritages until the enlightenment has leaned too much onto one extreme.
According to him the "faith" above anything characterizes Jewish theological pursuits: God is ultimately free and creative, whereas the Greek way is all about "reasoning" with the divine Logos. Christianity that embeds the Western civilization lives on both heritages until the enlightenment has leaned too much onto one extreme.
May 11, 2022
Part polemic, part history, part manifesto but all moaning. I don't even know what the author is trying to convince me of, other than that the world was built by Christians. I think it's telling how far back he has to reach for examples and the only modern people he keeps quoting are the popes. Still what does that prove? It's like saying the world was created by humans who believed in the theory of 4 humours.
October 4, 2020
Dr. Gregg does an incredible job of summarizing the history of faith and the history of science and the illusion of a war between the two. His understanding of the cultural underpinnings of conflicting philosophies truly enlightens the mind to know where we are today and how faith and reason can work together.
March 11, 2024
My initial gut reaction to finishing this book was that it was above my reading comprehension level. lol
I set out this year to read more about how Christianity and world religions became what they are today, and this look was very enlightening. I would recommend it to anyone willing to embark on the same journey. HIGHLY informative.
I set out this year to read more about how Christianity and world religions became what they are today, and this look was very enlightening. I would recommend it to anyone willing to embark on the same journey. HIGHLY informative.
June 25, 2019
Another argument for yet another Crusade. And Gregg will use whatever argument might motivate you. Do you see yourself as a reasonable person? Well, you have to die for the reason. Are you a religious person? Well, you will have to die for faith.
November 14, 2020
Good but I wish it was more inclusive of Protestantism, the title doesn’t give any reason to believe that he is going to lean heavily on Ratzinger. Especially as many people with an anti-intellectual bias against Christianity are likely not think primarily about Catholics.
Read
January 13, 2023Solid well-thought out, well researched book. I'm not the biggest fan of the writing style. It felt pretty dry, which made it hard for me to keep moving but I'm glad I did. A lot of new ways of looking at things.
July 27, 2023
Short but deep book. Half a discussion about Reason vs Faith and half apologia for Christianity. Although I agree with the author's characterization of Islam, the same could be said of medieval Christianity, with pogroms, Inquisition, Jew burning and the like.
September 14, 2019
Clear, concise, and compelling.
February 7, 2021
Good Read
The author did an excellent job in showing how the West was built on the fusion of faith and reason.
The author did an excellent job in showing how the West was built on the fusion of faith and reason.
May 15, 2021
Very good, well-written survey of Enlightenment thought and it's impact on divisions between faith and reason.
December 28, 2021
A look at the influence of Christianity on our civilization, what it will look like if we abandon Christianity and can the current abandonment be avoided.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews