GOD

The Question of God: An Introduction and Sourcebook by Michael F. Palmer (Routledge) (PAPERBACK) This important new text by a well-known author provides a lively and approachable introduction to the six great arguments for the existence of God. Requiring no specialist knowledge of philosophy, an important feature of The Question of God is the inclusion of a wealth of primary sources drawn from both classic and contemporary texts. With its combination of critical analysis and extensive extracts, this book will be particularly attractive to students and teachers of philosophy, religious studies and theology, at school or university level, who are looking for a text that offers a detailed and authoritative account of these famous arguments.

The ease and utility of this text makes this work ideal as a reference to the central arguments for God with useful excerpts and  topical; bibliographies.

This important new text by a well‑known author provides a lively and approachable introduction to the six great arguments for the existence of God. Requiring no specialist knowledge of philosophy, an important feature of The Question of God is the inclusion of a wealth of primary sources drawn from both classic and contemporary texts. With its combination of critical analysis and extensive extracts, this book will be particularly attractive to students and teachers of philosophy, religious studies and theology, at school or university level, who are looking for a text that offers a detailed and authoritative account of these famous arguments.

 The Ontological Argument (sources: Anselm, Haight, Descartes, Kant, Findlay, Malcolm, Hick)
The Cosmological Argument (sources: Aquinas, Taylor, Hume, Kant)
The Argument from Design (sources: Paley, Hume, Darwin, Dawkins, Ward)
The Argument from Miracles (sources: Hume, Hambourger, Coleman, Flew, Swinburne, Diamond)
The Moral Argument (sources: Plato, Lewis, Kant, Rachels, Martin, Nielsen)
The Pragmatic Argument (sources: Pascal, Gracely, Stich, Penelhum, James, Moore).

 This user-friendly books also offers:  Revision questions to aid comprehension;  Key reading for each chapter and an extensive bibliography;  Illustrated biographies of key thinkers and their works; Marginal notes and summaries of arguments.

 Dr Michael Palmer was formerly a Teaching Fellow at McMaster University and Humbodlt Fellow at Marburg University. He has also taught at Marlborough College and Bristol University, and was for many years Head of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at The Manchester Grammar School. A widely read author, his Moral Problems (1991) has already established itself as a core text in schools and colleges. Other publications include Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Art (1984), the six‑volume Paul Tillich: Hauptwerke/Main Works (ed., 1990), Freud and Jung on Religion (Routledge, 1997) and Moral Problems in Medicine (1999).

Contents: Preface and general acknowledgements Using the Internet List of illustrations List of sources Chapter 1: The Ontological Argument Chapter 2: The Cosmological Argument Chapter 3: The Argument from Design Chapter 4: The Argument from Miracles Chapter 5: The Moral Argument Chapter 6: The Pragmatic Argument
Illustrations acknowledgements Sources acknowledgements Appendix: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online and The Question of God Index

THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith by Marcus J. Borg HarperSanFrancisco $18.00, hardcover, 182 pages, notes, index

0-06-061034-4

"I grew up with God. Ever since, the subject and question of God - devotionally, intellectually, and experientially - has been central. I have been praising God, thinking about God, and yearning for God all my life."

Faith in our times . . . the longing for spiritual wholeness - a sense of the sacred, a connection to something all-encompassing - has come into deep and troubled waters as the millennium draws to a close. Recent bestsellers such as Jack Miles' God: A Biography, a Pulitzer prizewinner, and Karen Armstrong's A History of God have proficiently charted these waters. But the question remains for contemporary, critically thinking adults... is it still possible to authentically believe in and relate to God?

The Sunday-school faith of childhood has, for so many, been turned on its head. The wake of the Enlightenment has turned most into "cultured despisers of religion." Sadly, many others simply retreat to commitment and the nearly blind faith that ends in fundamentalism. Others who manage to hold onto their faith often turn God into the Newtonian "watchmaker" who set the world in motion and now stands outside the process. And many, though they may vote for God's existence in the opinion polls, simply give up on practical faith altogether.

Delivering a timely and poignant response to this longing for spiritual satisfaction and reconciliation, Marcus J. Borg's THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Contemporary Faith renews hope and offers practical guidance for faith amidst the tremendous religious skepticism, pluralism and polarization of our day.

Borg, described by the New York Times as, "a leading figure among the new generation of Jesus scholars" follows his extremely well-received bestseller MEETING JESUS AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME by addressing what he believes to be one of the most penetrating issues for the church today - confusion about the notion of God. Growing out of his many years of study, teaching ("many of the questions I get about Jesus are really questions about God,") and personal wrestling with his faith, Borg revisions traditional faith and challenges his readers to an alternative image of God's presence.

Beginning with the premise that traditional ways of thinking about God - as a supernatural being "out there" - pose serious difficulties and have damaging consequences, Borg autobiographically describes his journey through traditional modes of faith. For many people both inside and outside the church today, traditional ways of thinking about God have made God unreal and incredible. Many others who have accepted this notion of God experience a nearly inaccessible God who is distant and remote.

Gently dismantling the image of a distant, monarchical God, Borg goes on to reconstruct an alternative way of faith. Arguing that when the Judeo-Christian tradition is understood correctly, God's being includes the whole world - a God who, though transcendent, is also "right here." Faith thus becomes a relationship of belonging to someone already present and a fundamental trust in our firsthand religious experiences in addition to ascribing to a set of beliefs. This understanding not only has good claim to being the dominant way of thinking about God in Christian theology and the biblical tradition, but better accounts for the whole variety of human religious experience - our experience of ultimate reality. THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW concludes with a suggested road map for entering into a relationship with the God that quenches the thirst for connection to the sacred and the longing for an authentic, contemporary faith.

Writing clearly, summarizing some of the best of popular contemporary theology in non-technical language, Borg continues suggest to us who God is in a way that is both authentically traditional and vividly contemporary, something no one has been able to do for a long time. The book will appeal to unbelieving seekers and faint-hearted believers, but it also has riches for those who think their faith is secure. Christianity here is not reduced to a private spirituality, but the God Borg would have us meet calls us to reorient the whole of our lives, not just as individuals but as a society as well.