Review by Choice Review
This is a chatty, illustrated overview of some history on proofs of God, written by a nonspecialist for nonspecialists. Journalist Schneider includes summaries of interviews with a number of people who have written on proofs of God. The tone is captured by this line: "We talked for two breathless hours over our coffees." The book ends with indecision: "I remain, thank God, no less than ever a question to myself, and God remains a question for me." Schneider seems to be saying that God's existence remains a question for him. Nonetheless, he proposes that the proofs are "a way of knowing something about what it is we mean by God." That claim concerns knowledge about the meaning of a term, not knowledge of God's existence. The previous autobiographical remark emerges after ten speedy chapters on some of the ancient, medieval, classical, modern, and recent discussions of proofs of God. The book's passing attention to the crucially relevant contemporary discussion of divine hiddenness is inadequate. In addition, the author would have done well to attend to the contemporary classic on proofs of God by George Mavrodes, Belief in God (1970). Summing Up: Not recommended. P. K. Moser Loyola University Chicago
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Philosophy is hardly everybody's cup, but by adding dollops of memoir and first-person reportage to a history of attempts to prove that God exists, Schneider makes an often dry subject quite companionable. Not that any of the proofs forged by thinkers from Plato to Alvin Plantinga rises any more convincingly from Schneider's pages than from the sages' own. Rather, by tethering the proofs to his own quest for them from age 17 on, Schneider enlivens them. He discloses that he's Jewish, raised by nonobservant, secular, but not antireligious parents who allowed him his own choices in spirituality (he's now a Catholic). They also divorced, which one would think gave great impetus to his quest, though he doesn't make a big thing of it because he's careful never to give too much personal information and distract from the proofs. Besides the classical Greeks, he draws the proofs he discusses from the great medieval Catholic philosophers, those of Muslim Spain, foundational Enlightenment thinkers, and later and contemporary figures, especially those who have brought about a rebirth of Christian philosophy since the 1980s. Of course, he also notes disprovers ever more of them as the narrative approaches the present, concluding with the New Atheists and their disputers, for both of whom he turns from historian-memoirist into reporter. A book that starts attractively and gets more enjoyable by the page.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Schneider (editor, killingthebuddha.com), a freelance writer on religion, tells a story that is at once the narration of a lifelong quest (perhaps obsession) and an intellectual history. Bewitched by the idea of proving the existence of God, Schneider skates through the likes of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Bertrand Russell, and philosopher Antony Flew, in a dizzying ride through Western intellectual history. It is not the proof that sticks but the quest for the proof, which unites all sides of the argument. VERDICT A philosophically engaging and challenging work, accessible enough for the nonacademic reader as well as specialists. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
