Deus: Um Guia Para os Perplexos

by Keith Ward

Deus: Um Guia para os Perplexos, de Keith Ward, conduz o leitor por uma viagem, com pitadas do característico humor britânico, pela história das religiões e da filosofia, desde as divindades gregas até chegar a Hegel e Marx. Também cita importantes pensadores da história, como Platão, Agostinho, Aristóteles, Tomás de Aquino, Kant, Heidegger, Schopenhauer e Nietzsche.

A erudição e preparo de Ward para desenvolver o tema fazem com que o texto adquira uma qualidade inquestionável e uma clareza fundamental para prender o leitor de forma definitiva, levando-o a um passeio esclarecedor pela história do pensamento humano.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Christianity, Christian

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2002

About the author

Keith Ward was formerly the Regius Professor of Divinity and Head of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford. A priest of the Church of England and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, he holds Doctor of Divinity degrees from Cambridge and Oxford Universities. He has lectured at the universities of Glasgow, St. Andrew's and Cambridge.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Updated with some insulting remarks deleted and new ones added.)


HE LOVES ME!

In the teeth of the hurricane that blows upon all humans, the storm of bedevilments great and small that murders our peace of mind, that bewilders us and makes us think this is a world of random cruelty where war is easy and peace too hard, where when we beat back death from our front door he quickly runs in through the back window to stare at our family and run his hands through their hair, a world where it seems only right and proper, most natural, most expected, that we dislike and even detest anyone unlike ourselves, this branded bum steer world, this pirate flag headlong disaster course vessel (as Don Van Vliet put it), in the middle of this fantastic circus of horror, human beings need to believe not only in a Creator, but in a Creator who cares for them, and not just in a nodding as you pass in the hall kind of way, but who loves them
It seems frankly pathological that anyone would draw this conclusion, given the evidence.

THEY JUST DON'T SEEM TO CARE

Early religious belief, what we now call pagan or animist, seems so much more logical than that. We can easily imagine Stone Age and Iron Age tribes concluding that they were living in a hostile world where they were permanently one woolly mammoth away from violent death. This world was clearly created by various forces entirely beyond human understanding and these forces, let’s call them gods, were experienced every day, there to be seen, to be lived through in the landscape, in the weather, in the good but mostly bad fortune of the tribe. These gods carried on their rambunctious affairs without reference to humans. It was their world, not ours. Occasionally a god would notice some poor idiot humans and it was never a good thing, as when a flock of silly sheep wander onto a battlefield, baaing and bleating with wild eyes. The god might be kindly and shoo the human sheep away, more likely he’d just murder them all without a second thought. You should steer well clear of them, they were lethal.
Eventually humans came up with the idea of propitiation – some actions we could take to calm these wild forces down a little, maybe make them look kindly upon us once in a while, so a system of ceremony and sacrifices was developed. Sacrifices were like throwing a pack of cigarettes and a box of McDonalds Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits into a room full of lunatics – everyone likes a smoke and a biscuit. One of the lunatics is going to stick his head out of the door and say “Yeah bud, whaddya want?” Then you can shove the priest forward and he can say “Please sir, can you not blight our kine and blast our crops for say maybe two three months?” And he’ll say “These are Lucky Strikes – you got any Marlboro? You got Diet Coke?” And your priest will say “Yes! We have Marlboro!” So you’ll slaughter a couple more lambs and throw them in and the Coke and the Marlboro (make that four cartons) and you have a deal.
So early religion was like a protection racket. This I could understand.

THE ORIGINAL REALITY TV

Time passed and some more intellectually inclined persons began to be uncomfortable with this undignified situation. (There’s always some bright spark who says “Why should we keep paying off these creeps?”)
So gradually they came up with some ideas and it’s these ideas I have problems with. The first was that there wasn’t many chaotic forces out there zinging around, no, there was only one and it didn’t zing, it was stationary, it was the One God. It was like the whole thing was too confusing and someone said “from now on we’re just going to deal with one guy. Forget the sons and daughters and aunts and cousins, we’re gonna deal with the big guy face to face”. (Later, the Gnostics realised that the Big Guy everyone was now dealing with was in reality merely a lowly accountant, he just seemed big to us, but that idea got only limited traction, so the Gnostics were just a botheration we can move around, otherwise we’ll be here forever.)

So – One God. Then the next idea is that this God is – wait for it – Good! man, if he’s good, what did those people think bad was? They must have come from some pretty grim families. Okay, One God, who is Good – and - and - and - who has a permanent and complete fascination with the human race – yes, that means you too! In fact, for this One Good God us humans are his television. He watches us night and day. He’s like this major insomniac.

So – One God who is Good who watches us all the time. This is creepy, not to say really far-out. Where did they get this stuff? mushrooms? I think so. But anyway, why would this One Good God be wanting to watch us all the time? Hasn’t he got other fish to fry? Nothing shaking on a Saturday night where he lives to like drag him away from the Human Box for a few hours? Well, since these ideas came about before the discovery of Shallow Space never mind Deep Space, people weren’t aware that there were any other places to be but here. This was it – the only planet. They didn’t know there were jillions of other planets rocketing around jillions of suns. By the time the astronomers figured out the real hugeness of outer space (1910s and 20s) it was too late, 2000 years of theology could not be rewritten just because some pests had discovered the Universe.

IT'S LIKE BEING STALKED

So – one God who is Very Good and watches us all the time and – is truly madly deeply involved with each and every one of us individuals, that means you – and you and you too hiding behind the dustbin, yes, every little bitty baby child, every doddery nonogenarian – he created the fiery sun and the wetness of all wet water and yet he takes an interest in everything everyone ever does, even in my life which let me say mostly I find fairly tedious and I’m at least living it – I mean he’s interested in Everything you do – know what I mean? It’s gross. If god was on that TV quiz mastermind and the chairman asked him “What’s your speciality subject?” God would say : “Everything.” (“Okay God, you have three minutes on Everything. Feeling confident? Okay, we’ll begin. What happened to Georgia Bryant on the 27th May 1997 which resulted in her being taken to Queen's Med A & E department?” “Whilst digging on his allotment she penetrated her right wellington boot with the large garden fork she was using and it nearly severed the third toe.” “Correct…”)

And if all that wasn’t enough to pile onto God, then came morality. But I’ll leave that for part two.


THE BIT WHERE I ACTUALLY ADDRESS THE TEXT INSTEAD OF JUST RAMBLING


WHY DID I WANT TO READ THIS ANYWAY?

Rather than reading "God is not Especially Bright" or "The Loathsome God Racket" or those other atheistic tracts I thought I'd come at the whole thing sideways and try and find out what in the name of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band do people actually *mean* when they use this three letter word? Or is the word shorthand for "my favourite anthropomorphic wish-fulfilment fantasy"?

THE USUAL INTEMPERATE COMMENTS

Pages and pages of this book is your actual dancing on the head of a pin. But that's what these theologicophilosophicologicalologians do for a living, or did for the first 2500 years of recorded time anyway.

Whereas for Plato necessity constrained the Demiurge from outside, and for Aristotle it prevented the material world from perfectly imitating its divine pattern, for Augustine necessity disappears into the mind of the divine being itself. God exists by necessity. God's nature is what it is by necessity. And so in God's creation of the cosmos there may be necessities grounded in the divine nature itself, which we cannot discern.

My eyes tend to bounce off sentences like these. Here Ward is trying to help us with the question : if God is the one perfect being who has existed forever and will exist forever, outside of time, and all that jazz, why whould God bother to create anything that was not-God, i.e. the Universe and our less than perfect selves within? I mean, WHY WOULD HE DO THAT? He just went and spoiled what was a perfect eternal day. Answer: er, hmmm (the theologian fiddles with her fingers and adjusts her collar) "there may be necessities...which we cannot discern".

Or check out this stunning passage :

But what about when we pray for something to happen? Does that not suggest that God waits to see what we pray for before deciding what to do next? Not at all. God creates the prayer at the same time as creating the future which is the answer, either yes or no. So God does answer prayers, in that God makes our will, in praying, one of the causes of the event that is the future to us, but not to God.

In the words of John McEnroe : Are you SERIOUS? The implication of that is that everything you or I do is authored by God, including this review. Well, I know that's not what he really thinks, but language seems to falter into Becketlike inadequacy thoughout this often flippantly expressed book. It's like tapdancing with someone who thinks it's a waltz.

I think I'd better think it out again.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever finished a book and thought to yourself, "Does this guy know everything?"

That's the feeling I ended up with at the conclusion of Keith Ward's magisterial tour of theology and philosophy from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present.

This was not a quick read, mainly because Ward is exploring difficult and profound ideas -- Does God exist? If so, what is God's nature? Does God have a plan for the universe, and what is it? How does one explain the existence of evil? Can God be omniscient and still not know the future? And many more.

He also shows, in clear and compelling language, how much the great religious thinkers influenced each other, and how much they influenced and were influenced by philosophers, many of whom were not religious in a conventional sense. (Read his summary of Hegel and you will see today's standard theology on creation, the fall, and redemption).

After witnessing the dreary progression of "God is dead" books over the past couple of years, it was refreshing to take this trip with Ward, an Oxford theologian and philosopher, who in effect says that trying to prove the existence of God through scientific principles is not only a futile exercise, but misses the point.

Religious faith is not a matter of producing verifiable proofs, he says, nor is it a matter of simply holding certain opinions. Instead, it is a way of life, a belief in a creator who ultimaately wishes good for the universe, and an intentional effort to determine how our lives can reflect and enact that wish.

"The only thing," he writes at one point, "is not to confuse believing in God -- a passionate, self-transforming, existential commitment -- with believing that there are chairs in the next room."

The book is also enhanced by Victorian-style chapter subheads, such as this one before the last chapter. "In which the reader will find that God is not a person without a body, and may wonder if God can ride a bicycle or whether God knows if humans will ever land on Mars. The reader will discover why nineteenth-century Germans became more and more depressed, and that the Trinity, though it is indeed three persons in one substance, is not three people sitting in a bowl of soup. Finally the reader will find that evolution need not be the desperate struggle for existence that some pessimistic souls suggest, but may be seen as a striving for higher life and consciousness. God may not ride a bicycle, but God knows plenty of people who can, and will ensure that in the end they do so exceedingly well."

If you ever needed a quirky 3X5 theology, it would be hard to top that one.

Highly recommended.

[Bronwyn Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. Very comprehensive and open-minded approach. I also learnt a lot which is always good !

[Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of if not the best book for learning about God and perspectives from many faiths and philosophies (of course, more time spent on the Judeo-Christian view of God, seeing as the author is an Anglican Priest). THis book literally changed my life.

[Fran · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately I am more perplexed than I was before reading. The book did little more for me than fly through over 2,000 years of the Western philosophical canon, giving an extremely vague account of what each of the philosophers thought without much attempt to reconcile them with each other. It felt very fragmented and was somehow dense but surface-level at the same time. Women were practically non-existent in this massive sweep of history besides literally 2 or 3 footnotes despite their many contributions to theology. It also marketed itself as delving into non-Western traditions, but it didn’t explore them at all apart from as a quick counterpoint to some Western theological ideas.

However, I enjoyed the colloquial tone and I thought it was written with a good blend of accessibility and depth.

[Lone Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Religion does not provide answers to life's questions; it puts our lives in question."

Religion always seems very difficult to comprehend in ordinary people's lives. I remember when I was a child. I raised a lot of questions about the existence of God, and it seems the adults can't be able to give me an accurate answer. What they reply to me is: "Just follow the tradition as we did, don't ask so many questions about God. Just pray."

In this book, Keith Ward is not a radical advocate of God's disciple to assert the existence of God but pose a lot of questions and theological investigation of human faith and epistemological of human knowledge about the nature of being. He shares a lot of profound ideas and many eminent middle ages theology-philosopher ideas about the existence of God. After all, it seems he trying to advocate some kind of mysticism–a sort of erotic love–affair with the God.

Wittgenstein suggested that the best way to find out what the word "God" means is to try to understand such activities.....When you fall in love, you see something new and different in a person, but you cannot grasp that by giving a descriptive list of the persons' characteristics, and saying exactly which ones are the ones that have caused you to fall in love. Whatever it is, falling in love is just feeling an irresistible attraction to another person, and it is connected with seeing them in a way, and communicating yourself to them in a new way, and committing yourself to them with total intensity.

From the notion of the sentences, I remember I read some articles about how the knowledge of western civilization is instead contributing as a footnote to Plato. It seems Platonism already infiltrated into every aspect of human lives even in the realm of Religion. As the author put it:

"Well, in a sense there is. It called Christianity. Or at least Christianity took from Plato many of the most important aspects of his thought and attached them to its own central teaching that Jesus was the supreme manifestation of God......The world of sense is the world of unreality, and major virtue is apatheia, freedom from passion, a main aim of Greek monastic life. The real world is a world of Essences, flowing from the Good, which is the object of monastic contemplation. The Guardian of truth are the bishops, who censor all artistic works which might mislead the populace under their care. And the spiritual quest is the flight from desire and sensuality to the unchanging and eternal source of all goodness, 'beyond being itself'. Platonism lived on, while the gods, who were never very important to it, faded away, becoming angels, messengers of the higher reality. It is Platonism that has been modified by its contact with the Hebrew religion."

I believe that the author would wanna bring the same teaching as St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica and how to reconcile the human understanding together with Faith in this age of skepticism about the existence of God. As he puts it this way:"Some will say, let science do its job as well as it can, and seek to explain the causes of things according to laws in the physical universe. But let religion remain in the realm of faith, of trust in the God revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of loyalty to revelation and hope in redemption. For them, the voice of the Academy. We must speak of God, the creator of all things, but we can speak only in stories, remembering how far from reality all our thought must be but trusting God has given stories that will not finally mislead us." And he spoke of Augustine as a great example of people who are precisely want to do that, because he did not first have a philosophy, and then construct a faith which followed from it. Augustine first had faith, based firmly on a response of the heart to the revelation of the nature of God in the person of Jesus. But he was driven to try to make sense of that faith in the context of the best understanding of the natural world available in his day, however provisional that understanding was. At last, Keith quoted a beautiful sentence from one of the greatest rationalists in the history of religious thought, Anslem, to put it:

I do not try, Lord, to attain your lofty heights because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand.

At last, I admit that I'm not a theist person nor atheist. But I believe in some sort of powerful energy beyond our human imagination that created the cosmo where we only live in a tiny fraction of the creation of the "God", Earth. Keith believes that everyone can be able to get closer to "God". In this process of self-formation, the word "God" is used in many ways, he says, but primarily to evoke a various general response to human experiences, responses of adoration, thanksgiving, penitence, and concern for the needs of others. If "God" bothers you, forget the "God", and think of adopting a way of self-formation which human life in the light of values that are eternal worth.

Metaphysics, consisting of a speculative theory about the nature of ultimate reality, was not just dead, it had never really existed. Its theories were just not testable by experiment. Therefore they were not really theories at all. They were strictly nonsense, without meaning.

Keith wrote this in his book describes that when he was young, his philosophy teacher who was well known for declaring metaphysic is dead and metaphysics had never existed. It deluded people's mind, confuse others in some very profound obscure way. For I felt the same as Keith's teacher, and I remember my favorite stoic philosopher, Seneca put it: "Philosophy is not an occupation of a popular nature, nor is it pursued for the sake of self-advertisement. Its concern is not with words, but with facts. It is not carried on with the object of passing the day in an entertaining sort of way and taking the boredom out leisure. It molds and builds the personality, orders one's life, regulates one's conduct, shows one what should do and one what should leave undone, sits at the helm and keeps one on the correct course as one is tossed about in perilous seas. I think the study of metaphysics does give some benefit to the human deep understanding about their lives. I believe it is a matter of the way we relate ourselves to the cosmo, at the deepest level, to whatever meet us in experience. It is a way in which we see all things in the face of eternity. It is a matter of how we understand our own being on the world. It sees each moment as an encounter with challenges and possibilities for deepening our understanding, in relation to what comes to be seen as eternal values. After all, I believe we are parts of the divine, but we exist in estrangement from the source of divinity. It is our duty to realize our unique purposes in the path of the process of the divine nature flow.

[Michaelo El Grando · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book alongside a university course in philosophy of religion, hoping it would deepen my understanding of philosophico-theological perspectives. While it certainly provides a broad overview, I found myself increasingly puzzled by the author’s tone and direction.

Keith Ward sets out to offer a comparative tour of ideas about God, drawing from a wide range of traditions: Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, mostly seen through the lens of european philosophical perspectives of thinkers like Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, etc. His goal seems to be to map the religious imagination across history rather than defend a single doctrinal view. But in doing so, he makes some strange compromises.

Let’s start with the good: the prose flows really well, is engaging and accessible. Ward is a skilled writer, and some passages, especially in the final chapters, are quite beautiful and insightful. Every once in a while, he manages to express something genuinely profound or explain a theological mystery in an illuminating way. His treatment of the problem of evil, and parts of his reflection on the Trinity, for example, stand out as thoughtful and well-articulated. Also very helpful are the recommended readings at the end of each chapter, which can guide curious readers to more serious literature that goes beyond the scope of this book.

However, this accessibility comes at a cost. Ward’s constant casually jokey tone and anecdotal comedic skits which range from randomly recommending an ice-cream place in Oxford to describing the Trinity as “three people in a bowl of soup,” quickly becomes very tiring. What begins as lightheartedness eventually waters down the profundity of the covered themes. For readers sincerely seeking God or wrestling with existential questions or simply trying to deepen their philosophical understanding, this tone may quickly become annoying. It certainly did for me at least.

More concerning is Ward’s theological ambiguity. Though he is an Anglican priest, he rarely speaks from within the Christian tradition. Instead, he floats between religious philosophies as if they were interchangeable and essentially saying the same thing. Oftentimes it seemed like the author was projecting his own liberal speculations onto the different concepts and traditions.

Moreover, he avoids doctrinal commitments and downplays serious differences between traditions, often reducing theological claims to poetic metaphors or symbolic ideals. His portrayal of Christianity in particular suffers from this vagueness. Central concepts are either skipped over, oversimplified, or treated with a kind of distant amusement.

In one section, he encourages readers who are "bothered by God" to simply forget God and instead focus on forming values of “eternal worth”, whatever that might mean... That kind of advice might appeal to readers of self-help new age spirituality, but it hardly does justice to the seriousness of Christian theology. Ward’s God ends up sounding more like a metaphor for human flourishing than the living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

At one point, Ward even claims that ideas like development and transformation did not appear in the biblical tradition until the Enlightenment. This is not only inaccurate but reveals a strange blind spot. The biblical narrative is deeply historical and dynamic, centered on creation, covenant, prophecy, incarnation, and renewal. To describe Yahweh as merely a tribal deity whose image “evolved” over time, while ignoring the prophetic vision of a God who becomes a “light to all nations” through Jesus Christ is to miss the theological message of the Bible entirely... which is a particularly strange move coming from a priest...

In the beginning chapters I was especially annoyed by Ward's tendency to move seemingly in a random way between the words “gods” and “God” without making clear distinctions. This blurring of polytheistic and monotheistic concepts often made it sound like all religious systems are essentially interchangeable, which undermines the unique theological claims of traditions like Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. After having done some research on the author's very liberal and universalist theological background I finally understood why he writes this way.

Ward clearly argues for some form of theism, and he does offer a thoughtful defence of the idea of a personal, transcendent ground of being which is expressed in God. But the way he presents it often sounds like poetic secular humanism dressed in spiritual vocabulary. In this way, religion becomes a mere lifestyle based on individual preferences of cultivating values and meanings, which may be beautiful, yes, but also a bit hollow if you were hoping for something more than refined moral sentiments.

To be fair, the final chapters are among the strongest. Ward outlines seven ways of thinking about God in a more structured and sober tone. It’s here that his depth as a scholar and his gift for summarizing diverse traditions come to shine the most. Had the rest of the book matched this clarity and tone, my experience of it might have been very different, perhaps a more positive one.

In the end, it's not a bad book. But it is not one I’d recommend to anyone seeking a serious encounter with philosophy of religion or the exploration of theology. Perhaps, it might serve as a gentle introduction for casual readers, or as a starting point for someone new to this field. But for those looking for more substance, or especially anyone who takes the Christian faith seriously, it will likely feel shallow and tainted by the author's too many speculative musings.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have opted for more theologically grounded thinkers like Richard Swinburne, David Bentley Hart, or even Mircea Eliade. Ward’s book is a nice literary ride, full of interesting bits, but in the end it feels like a museum tour of religion which opens many doors without going too much into depth. It is engaging, at times deep and reflective but nothing awesome or life-changing. A mixed bowl, I'd say. Personally, I wasn't satisfied, but I guess someone with a different background and expectations might be.

[Steve Morley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The opening chapters are quite promising, but when he comes to discussing particular philosophers it becomes very superficial, and he presents gross misreadings of Nietzsche and Hegel especially. It ends up being rather repetitive with a lame conclusion. I realise that none of this criticism is backed up with argument and examples,perhaps when I have more time.

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book if you want to understand God based thought set in Europe. The book does resemble a collection of lectures though, lacks a single thread throughout. It is more of a reference book then a theme.

[Jason , etc. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A explanation of who and what God has philosophically represented to generations of humanity, told with the tongue-in-cheek dry humor of an Englishman. THAT'S why it's so good.

[Sam Eccleston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Ward at his best; witty and somewhat informal throughout, and yet full of penetrating insight and subtly original phraseology which casts new light on old arguments, or explains with renewed clarity the work of less fluent stylists (particularly Hegel, Whitehead, Fichte...). Ward's summaries of different theological perspectives is scrupulously fair, often bringing out strengths of each account that even the original proponents of each position were unable to make fully clear. He also manages to show how in some senses the different accounts are more compatible than they might at first appear, without his account collapsing into the usual bland insistence that religions are all somehow the same, despite having utterly different doctrine across a wide range of areas.

In some of his other works, you feel as if Ward hasn't quite dedicated the time he could have done to what he is trying to say, and so you miss out on the full force of his intellect and the breadth of his understanding. By contrast, in this book you are exposed to a much stronger sense of how he came to be a Professor at a world-leading University.

Even if you don't believe in God, this book is worth reading, as Ward shows that in some senses even disbelief in God is not a barrier to a religious apprehension of the world.

[James Kinsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't profess to being less perplexed than when I started, but if you're looking for a discussion of what various big thinkers across the centuries have made of the ideas of the Divine, and how these are dead have progressed and responded to each other, that acknowledges and indeed stresses how little we can honestly claim to really know, and does all this with a healthy helping of humour and honesty, this hits the mark. Ward's a great writer, and this comes across as an exercise in striving to make sense of ideas that our minds aren't built to comprehend, which is after all the essence of faith.

[Johnsonk5 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like a history of religious philosophy. Ward writes in a highly readable fashion about a variety of different ideas about God and who (or what?) God is. For someone who is often repulsed by philosophy, this was a pretty good read for people who are not big fans of philosophers.

[Robert Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always kinda thought that God was God and that the concept of God didn't start at any particular time or has changed at any time since ... never; but this book has really opened my eyes.

It seems that through the years, different people have had different ideas about God and that these ideas have then been used by (I was going to say 'the major religions', but actually, this is pretty much all about one religion) Christians to define God.

Christians picked up the Jewish God, inserted a bit of Platonism, then a bit of Aristotleness, popped bits of various religious and philosophical heavyweights into the mix and finally arrived at something so contrived and made up that the only recourse we have, if we're to carry this God forward, is faith.

Of course, there's more to it than that - there's a heck of a lot detail, as you would expect from so many pages of closely written text, but that's the essence.

I enjoyed having my eyes opened. I mostly like how the author expresses himself. I probably won't read any more books by this author and I probably don't need to read any more books about God (so a plus point to the author for that). I want to read something more comfortable now.

Next!

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ward is an entertaining and fair writer, who discusses seven ways of thinking about God: as (1) the powers of being, (2) the one beyond speech, (3) the perfect good, (4) the self-existent creator, (5) the self-realizing spirit, (6) the ultimate goodness of being, and (7) the personal ground of being. All along the way Ward draws on such diverse thinkers as the ancient Greeks, Hebrew prophets, Descartes, Otto, Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Augustine, Aristotle, Anselm, Hegel, Whitehead, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Nietzsche, Hume, Pascal, Leibniz, Marx, Calvin, and many others. It is a very readable introduction to centuries of thought on this often perplexing topic, and the treatment is both fairly critical as well as evidence for the remarkable diversity of views that can be taken on the concept of God. Recently, one article claimed that David Bentley Hart's book "The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, and Bliss" should be read by every atheist, and while I certainly enjoyed that book, most of its main points *and more* are covered in this one (which was originally published in 2002).

[Derek Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating reading which addresses primarily the nature of God from an anthropological and philosophical viewpoint. Mr. Ward is an Anglican Priest, a Regius (crown appointed) Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, canon of Christ Church, and Fellow of the British Academy...in other words, he's got some theological and academic chops. The First two chapters look at the idea of the Divine through history and various cultures. The remainder of the book marches through Western Philosophy and how these philosophers envisioned God and in turn how their thoughts influenced the general public's view of God. Two things that were pleasantly surprising: firstly the book is highly readable which some philosophy books aren't. Secondly Mr. Ward has a rather funny sense of humor which is welcome when bogged down in Kant or Kierkegaard.

I typically don't write reviews so take this, if nothing more, as a sign of my recommendation.

[Ronald Tardelly,s.x.]

Bagaimana mempertanggungjawabkan iman akan Allah dalam ladang luas pemikiran filsafat sekular saat ini. Keith Ward dengan menarik berusaha mempertanggungjawabkan itu dengan menelusuri sejara filsafat antik hingga kontemporer. Apakah dia berhasil mengatasi kebingungan kita atau...? bacalah lebih lanjut. Saya copy buku ini di perpustakaan STF Driyarkara - Jakarta

[David Mortimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those like me whose knowledge of the development of religious thought is sketchy this is a very good read. Also helpful in explaining the thinking that led to each new stage of belief. At times challenging but overall a book that helped me enormously in understanding and working with the ideas involved. Well written and refreshingly humorous in places.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superb summary of the history of religious thought. Has the best, most understandable summaries I've seen of the philosophies of Hegel, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, and others. Ward is superb writer. This is the third or fourth book of his I've read, and I've benefitted from every one.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Writing, seems to focus mostly on a Christians God

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A blend of philosophy and theology that paints a picture of what humans have said about the nature of God throughout history. Anything by Dr. Ward is recommended.