Tomáš Halík has produced one of the best and most beautiful responses to the new atheism, in his recent book Patience with God. His argument is that the real difference between faith and atheism is patience. Atheists are not wrong, only impatient. They want to resolve doubt instead of enduring it. Their insistence that the natural world doesn't point to God (or to any necessary meaning) is correct. Their experience of God's absence is a truthful experience, shared also by believers. Faith is not a denial of all this: it is a patient endurance of the ambiguity of the world and the experience of God's absence. Faith is patience with God. Or as Adel Bestavros puts it (in the book's epigraph): patience with others is love, patience with self is hope, patience with God is faith.The subtitle of the book is Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism). I haven't read the book but the Introduction is available on Amazon and it alone is well worth taking some time to explore.
[EDIT: Got two different books mixed up here with similar titles. Sorry for the confusion. ]
Sounds like an interesting book.I disagree with the assumption that the natural doesn't' point to God. Everything points to God if you are turned on to God.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot more going on with atheism that that, he's trying to put a happy face on it, he's probably not wrong to approach atheists that away.
I agree with that premise about the natural world in terms of design arguments. Then this thing called "nature mysticism" which I find pretty powerful and I think atheists do too. They do have a sort of halo over Sagan's Cosmos becuase one get's that quasi religious sense from that show.
What I'm talking about is more in the vain of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, or Walden's Pond, rather than Paley.
In the Intro as I recall the author doesn't dispute that reason and nature can point to God, but that it isn't blatantly obvious or must require God -- so it might be worth checking that out to see if you might want to check that out to see if it matches your thinking.
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