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No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers
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Average Rating:  out of 13 Reviews
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Price: $23.95
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Sale: $13.45
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Manufacturer: Doubleday
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780385526104
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Michael Novak
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Publisher: Doubleday
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Dewey Decimal Number: 261.21
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Publication Date: 2008-08-05
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Reading Level: 336
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Description: Surveying the contemporary religious landscape, the division between atheist and believer seems stark. However, having long struggled to understand the purpose of life and the meaning of suffering, Michael Novak finds the reality of spiritual life far different from the rhetorical war presented by bestselling atheists and the defenders of the faith who oppose them.
In No One Sees God, Novak brilliantly recasts the tired debate pitting faith against reason. Both the atheist and the believer experience the same “dark night” in which God’s presence seems absent, he argues, and the conflict between faith and doubt stems not from objective differences, but from divergent attitudes toward the unknown. Drawing from his lifelong passion for philosophy and his personal struggles with belief, he shows that, far from being irrational, the spiritual perspective actually provides the most satisfying answers to the eternal questions of meaning. Faith is a challenge at times, but it nonetheless offers the only fully coherent response to the human experience.
Ultimately, No One Sees God offers believers and unbelievers the opportunity to find common ground by acknowledging the complicated reality of the human struggle with doubt. Novak provides a stirring defense of the Christian worldview, while sidestepping the shrill tone that so often characterizes the discussion of faith, and given the challenges faced in the present age, all who value liberty will find hope in his new way of conversing.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: No One Sees God by M. Novak |
Date: 2008-10-31 |
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Details: I have admired Michael Novak's philosophical insights since the original publication of "The Experience of Nothingness" almost 40 years ago. His latest work, "No One Sees God" excels all of his previous works. "N.O.S.G" is so well structured and logical in its reasoning that the atheist authors Novak confronts should either elevate their future writing to Novak's level or keep silent from now on. Gonzalo Palacios, Ph.D. |
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Review Summary: A brilliant book |
Date: 2008-10-29 |
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Details: Hitchens is a great writer and Dawkins is a brilliant biologist, but neither are well-schooled in philosophy of religion. In this piece, Michael Novak extends his hand to the neo-secularists and at the same time he dismantled their arguments. |
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Review Summary: Interesting but flawed |
Date: 2008-10-20 |
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Details: "No One Sees God" is a thoughtful and daring defense of Christianity, but it has some annoying flaws, and even its best arguments will probably sway few nonbelievers.
For my money, the most interesting part of the book is Novak's answer to the perennial "problem of evil": how can there be an omnipotent, loving God when so many innocents suffer? Novak's answer is to assert that yes, everything that happens is God's will, but in the grand scheme of things, even the apparent evils are blessings, if well disguised. Novak explicitly reiterates God's response to Job: men are not equipped to judge God.
Novak's argument did not hit home with me, although I respect the view that God's will for you and me may not be pleasant in the short run (along with Job, witness Jeremiah, Jonah, Stephen, Paul, and, of course, Jesus). The logical problem with Novak's argument is that if God's ways are beyond the comprehension of man, then belief that God is working out things for the best is strictly an article of faith. It's great if you have this faith, but not a compelling argument if you don't.
The most annoying aspect of the book is Novak's repeated assertions to the effect that without God, there is no basis for ethical behavior. He hauls in Dostoevsky's quote, "without God... anything goes". This seems to be a contention made more often by theists, such as Dostoevsky, rather than atheists, and in fact is just not so. In philosophy, there is not much study of systems of ethics are based on divine revelation. As for cultures, Confucianism is an ethical system that has guided billions of people, with no reference to God or religion. For that matter, the Christian existentialist Kierkegaard, who coined the expression "leap of faith", argued in "Fear and Trembling" that at times obedience to God's will could be contrary to any objective system of ethics, as, for example, when Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac. I am sure that most Christians disagree with Kierkegaard on this, but the point is that ethics and moral behavior can exist outside of the framework of religion.
Despite the above criticisms, it is a pleasure and something of a relief to read a reasoned discussion of religious issues. |
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Review Summary: The role of metaphor... |
Date: 2008-10-12 |
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Details: Mr. Novak (in his own 5-star review) soft-peddles his views by defining "natural theology," as "...the study of all those things we can learn about God based solely on reason alone and our experience of ourselves and the world around us." Oddly enough, he fails to recognize the obvious result of such an examination: gods as metaphor. Reasoning persons eventually dismiss the dogma of religion and other superstitions once they understand the psychological import and sociological context of such beliefs, and embrace a common, reasoned ethics. Religious conflict arises not between peaceful, loving peoples who find comfort and community in such beliefs; conflict rears its ugly head when the religiose act out of the fear, ignorance and prejudice that make them easy prey for authoritarian personalities and organizations. Civilization may not be able to progress until a quorum agree to relegate at least uncivil doctrines to the historical dustbin. A giant step toward that end is the recognition of the real risks of conflating metaphorical gods and natural forces - something Dawkins and others boldly advance. |
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Review Summary: excellent gift for seekers/doubters/waverers in your life |
Date: 2008-10-09 |
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Details: My title says it all for me; just a few other points, not to duplicate the other positive reviews.
1) Being gentle and kind to one's interlocutors is generally a good rhetorical tactic, especially when dealing with such a sensitive topic as belief in God, but I thought Novak went a little overboard in this regard, a little too much flattery, which with the entrenched like Dawkins, Harris, Dennett et alia, will get Novak nowhere.
2) He is correct to focus on the fact that 'God does not exist" is no more a scientific claim/fact than "God exists," and to wonder why the professional hitmen/atheists spend so much of their time and energy chasing One who does not exist, that they engage in 'scientism,' not science, which would take a more agnostic attitude.
3) Novak points out that the professional atheists love to psychologize believers, based on Freud and Marx, that faith is a comfort in a scary world, but that we believers should turn this psych weapon back on its owners: psychologize the psychologizers, debunk the debunkers.
The professional atheists do not seem to realize that they are the sweepers at the end of the elephant's parade, that the modern era after the so-called enlightenment is over, that we are into the post-modern era, when we take the good insights from rationalism, and combine them with the wisdom of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. These so called enlighteners have had believers/conservatives on the run for 300 years, and its past time to tell the sons and daughters of Spinoza that they're not wearing any clothes, and for believers to reclaim our cultural confidence. We need to make them feel embarrassed of their unbelief, as they have convinced so many over the years to be embarrassed by faith.
These recent jokers are the death rattle of modernism, still given 'credence' only in western europe and the 2 coasts of the USA. Novak points to one reason for this recent spate: anti-God folk are always pro-free love, anti-any sexual restrictions, do anything with anyone i want, or i will pout like an adolescent.
I think it's more than coincidental that Dawkins et. al. came out during the GWBush administration. They, like all liberals, hated him and the values he stands for, and wanted to try to destablize the conservative movement at its foundation, which is the Judaeo-Christian ethic. |
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