Insofar as the essence of this philosophical spirituality is continuous

with the essence of Christian spirituality, I am able to specify how … we can be

utterly confident that it is wholly reasonable and good to affirm, give thanks for,

live, and testify to faith in God. < br />from the

preface

While it’s clear that a lot of people believe in God,

whether they should is a matter of loud debate. Since the Enlightenment, and

especially in the last 150 years, a consensus has been building in Western

philosophy that belief in a transcendent orderand especially in a supreme

beingis unreasonable and should be abandoned. The result of this trend

has been to delegitimize religious belief, to claim that those who believe do so

against scientific evidence and rational thought.

In this

confident and sensitive book, William Greenway carefully guides the reader through

the developments in Western intellectual life that have led us to assume that belief

is irrational. He starts by demonstrating that, along with belief in God, modern

definitions of human rationality have also rejected free will and moral agency. He

then questions the Cartesian assumption that it is our ability to think that makes

us most human and most real. Instead, Greenway explains, it is our capacity to be

grasped by the lives and needs of others that forms the heart of who we are. From

that vantage point we can see that faith is not a choice we make in spite of

evidence to the contrary; it is, rather, wholly rational and in keeping with that

which makes us most human. Every person who either has faith or is contemplating

faith can be assured that belief in God is both reasonable and good. Greenway

embraces both contemporary philosophy and science, inviting readers into a more

confident experience of their faith.