The Case for God is a 2009 book by Karen Armstrong. It covers the history of religion, from the paleolithic age to the present day, with a focus on the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and on apophatic theology in various religions.
Another theme is intellectual beliefs versus practice. Armstrong claims that the fundamental reality, later called God, Brahman, nirvana or Tao, transcends human concepts and thoughts, and can only be known through devoted religious practice.In 2009, the book was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen in recognition of its contribution to the fields of theology, philosophy and intellectual history, and for improving international understanding and tolerance among faiths.
Enjoyed this book as an experience, although my expectation of a title like "Case for God" is a "logos" argument. What Armstrong delivers instead is an history of the mythos of religion: that only recently has religion made literalism an idol, and that our current over-logos-ization is the result of an adversarial cycle between fundamentalists and critics. It was gratifying to see her sketch the outlines of modern American fundamentalism, which is often obscured by the groups' own origin myths and our temporal proximity.
I think Armstrong misses an opportunity to connect the reactive wave of "spiritual, but not religious" to a return of people's desire for mythos in modern life. She doesn't make an explicit altar call back to mythos and kenosis-driven religious experience, but the implication is there.
'The Case for God' is a case not made, from my Examiner column.
Few religious thinkers have eased the consciences of spiritual liberals, anti-fundamentalist religious moderates, and functional nonbelievers unwilling to stake any affirmatively atheistic ground than Karen Armstrong. For years she has been making the assertion that her scholarship proves that the "great" monotheisms ought not be associated with the fear, xenophobia, irrational faith in the absurd, violence, or misogyny that so they so often encourage, but that they have their "true" foundations in love and tolerance--and anyone who doesn't think so hasn't been doing it right. As much as that assertion causes many skeptics to arch their eyebrows, it at least sounds like a good thing to which the faiths could aspire if they were so inclined. Alas.
Her latest book, The Case for God, is not meant to explain the various faiths' dispositions or ideological …
'The Case for God' is a case not made, from my Examiner column.
Few religious thinkers have eased the consciences of spiritual liberals, anti-fundamentalist religious moderates, and functional nonbelievers unwilling to stake any affirmatively atheistic ground than Karen Armstrong. For years she has been making the assertion that her scholarship proves that the "great" monotheisms ought not be associated with the fear, xenophobia, irrational faith in the absurd, violence, or misogyny that so they so often encourage, but that they have their "true" foundations in love and tolerance--and anyone who doesn't think so hasn't been doing it right. As much as that assertion causes many skeptics to arch their eyebrows, it at least sounds like a good thing to which the faiths could aspire if they were so inclined. Alas.
Her latest book, The Case for God, is not meant to explain the various faiths' dispositions or ideological foundations, but to convince the reader that the most commonly held notions of God, those of a being that created the universe and "exists," are false, and that in actuality, God is an unknowable, unfathomable concept for which the very term "existence" is too limited. If you think that sounds like a pretty weak basis for an argument when dealing with such a grand concept's veracity, you're right. And despite Armstrong's impressive breadth of knowledge and her nuanced grasp of various thinkers' positions throughout the generations, her case never adds up.
Part of the trouble, of course, is that her book's premise is challenged by her own explanation of what God is. It is nigh impossible for me to understand how someone can build a case for God if the central thesis is that God is an unknowable pseudo-entity-but-not-really, something that mere humans are wholly incapable of defining. Where does that leave your book?
I was expecting arguments on whether there was a God or not, and Karen Armstrong gave them to me. But what she gave me was the history of arguments for or against God, which was much more interesting than what I expected. I found the relationship between Protestant Christianity and science to be particularly interesting, and left the book feeling that my expectation that someone would prove to me, logically, that there was a God was itself an artifact of Enlightenment-era Protestantism's relationship to science. I also ended up feeling that yes, there should be reason in religion, but expecting scientific proof of God is expecting chocolate in your peanut butter. The Enlightenment may have felt that science and religion are two great tastes that taste great together, but not every jar of peanut butter is a Reese's cup.
