Summary
Title: God: A Guide for the Perplexed
Author: Keith Ward
Publisher: Oneworld
ISBN: 1851682848
Pro:
• Relatively easy to understand with a lot of information
• Explains an important and often under-represented perspective on theology
Con:
• Too little about non-Western traditions
• Disregards common perspective of God as personal and literal
Description:
• Survey of religious philosophy in the West since the ancient Greeks
• Primarily focused on perspective of non-personal, non-literal God
• Suggestions for further reading with every chapter
Book Review
This quest might be easier with a Guide — something to help inform people about the terrain already travelled and the insights already developed. This is the goal which Keith Ward has in his book, exploring the various manifestations “God” has taken through history.
This is certainly a daunting task, and Ward’s survey of theistic philosophy is influenced by two key premises which require examination because, at least at first glance, they seem contradictory. The first is that gods are “poetic, symbolic constructions of human imagination.” Thus, they are not “real persons, superhuman or otherwise.” This is an interesting position which many nonbelievers will readily agree with, but which is likely to infuriate many believers.
The second premise is that gods imbue nature with a personal aspect:
- “To see the world as ‘full of gods’, as the Greeks did, is to see the world as fundamentally personal in nature. Many of its active energies have or express something like purpose (will) and responsiveness to environment (consciousness). That sense has been completely lost to many in this modern world. If we see nature as the Great Machine, of which we are tiny computerised parts, then the personal aspects of nature will become invisible.”
Actually, the two premises seem contradictory on a second glance as well — and I don’t believe that Ward ever satisfactorily resolves this conflict. At best, it might be argued that our appreciation of the world is enhanced by the perception of personal elements, even if they aren’t there — but Ward doesn’t quite say that.
A more serious problem is the larger role which Ward’s first premise plays through the course of his book. He cites numerous theologians who have believed that God is not personal and insists so strongly that this must be the case that he actually argues that there is something wrong with a religion which doesn’t agree:
- “That is the trouble with much popular religion: it is so crude and literal. This is not a matter of high-browed intellectuals knowing better than the common herd. It is a failure of imagination, a loss of the sense of poetry, a crass materialisation of the imagery of mythology.”
Certainly Ward has a valid point: ignoring the poetic aspects of religion is a loss. However, it seems that Ward himself is making a parallel error. By ignoring the fact that literal beliefs do from an important aspect of many people’s religious beliefs and experiences, he also loses something. In a sense, it is a failure of imagination on his part when he simply dismisses concrete objects of religious devotion.
It doesn’t matter that his figurative perspective on religion may be preferable than the literal perspective of so many others — by denying that the literal perspective is worthy of serious consideration, he leaves himself unable to address or explain the religious feelings and beliefs of what is perhaps a majority, or at least a dominant minority, of today’s believers.
For example, how could Ward have anything to say about Mormonism — not only do Mormons believe that God is very personal, they believe that God is a literal person who used to be a man and who lives in the vicinity of a distant planet? In point of fact, Mormon beliefs and Mormon writings are never cited at all through his book, despite the fact that it is one of the fastest growing religious systems in the world.
