By Karen Armstrong
A nuanced exploration of the half that faith performs in human existence, drawing at the insights of the prior so as to construct a religion that speaks to the wishes of our dangerously polarized age.
Moving from the Paleolithic age to the current, Karen Armstrong information the nice lengths to which humankind has long past which will adventure a sacred fact that it known as via many names, comparable to God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing in particular on Christianity yet together with Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and chinese language spiritualities, Armstrong examines the lowered impulse towards faith in our personal time, whilst an important variety of humans both wish not anything to do with God or query the efficacy of religion. Why has God turn into incredible? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now imagine and talk about God in a fashion that veers so profoundly from the deliberating our ancestors?
Answering those questions with an identical intensity of information and profound perception that experience marked all her acclaimed books, Armstrong makes transparent how the altering face of the area has unavoidably replaced the significance of faith at either the societal and the person level. but she cautions us that faith used to be by no means imagined to supply solutions that lie in the competence of human cause; that, she says, is the function of logos. the duty of faith is “to aid us reside creatively, peacefully, or even joyously with realities for which there are not any effortless explanations.” She emphasizes, too, that faith won't paintings immediately. it truly is, she says, a realistic self-discipline: its insights are derived now not from summary hypothesis yet from “dedicated highbrow pastime” and a “compassionate way of life that allows us to wreck out of the prism of selfhood.”
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Additional info for The Case for God
Our writer spoke back: “I can't resolution you, other than to claim ‘I don't know! ’ For with this question you could have introduced me into a similar darkness, an analogous cloud of unknowing the place i would like you to be! ”98 we will be able to take into consideration all types of items, yet “of God himself can no guy imagine. ”99 This kingdom of “unknowing” used to be no longer a defeat yet an success; we arrived at this aspect through ruthlessly paring down all our God speak, till prayer used to be lowered to a unmarried syllable: “God! ” or “Love! ” It used to be challenging. The brain rushed to fill the vacuum we have been attempting to create inside ourselves with “wonderful ideas of [God’s] kindness” and reminded us “of God’s sweetness and love, his grace and mercy. ” yet until we grew to become a deaf ear to this pious clamor, we might be again the place we begun. a hundred meanwhile, the apprentice needs to proceed together with his prayers, liturgy, and lectio divina like every body else. This used to be no longer what Eckhart might have referred to as a unique religious “way” yet used to be a tradition that are meant to tell the entire regimen devotions and non secular workouts of the Christian existence. If we persevere, the mind will finally abdicate and make allowance like to take over. the following we see the recent separation of information from the affections: “Therefore i'll depart on one part every little thing i will imagine, and select for my love that which i can't imagine! ” the writer exclaims. “Why? simply because [God] might be enjoyed yet now not inspiration. via love he can be stuck and held yet by way of considering by no means. ”101 however the apophatic behavior continues to be so powerful that the writer instantly begins to deconstruct the idea of “love” and clarify what it isn't. there isn't any glow, no heavenly tune, or inside sweetness within the Cloud. in reality the writer turns out to have Rolle in brain while he comes out strongly opposed to the assumption of an excessive adventure of God’s love. He warns newcomers to be on their safeguard opposed to the absurd literalism of this new spirituality. newcomers pay attention speak of all types of particular emotions— “how a guy shall raise up his middle to God and always lengthy to think his love. And instantly of their foolish minds they comprehend those phrases now not within the meant religious experience yet in a actual and fabric, and so they pressure their ordinary hearts outrageously inside their breasts! ” a few even consider an “unnatural glow. ”102 it truly is very unlikely to consider for God the affection we suppose for creatures; the “God” with whom those so-called mystics are infatuated is just the manufactured from their unhinged mind's eye. truly this “sham spirituality”103 was once turning into an issue. while beginners are informed to prevent all “exterior” psychological task, the writer explains, they don’t comprehend what “interior” paintings ability, so “they do it fallacious. For they flip their real actual minds inwards to their our bodies, that's an unnatural factor, and so they pressure as though to work out spiritually with their actual eyes. ”104 Their antics are painful to behold. They stare into area, having a look particularly deranged, squat “as in the event that they have been foolish sheep,” and “hang their heads to at least one part as though that they had a malicious program of their ear.