People have written reams and talked unstoppably about God. Theology is, of course, a very wordy discipline. Many people in the premodern world went out of their way to show that it was very difficult indeed to speak about God. In some ways the modern God resembles the High God of remote antiquity, a theology that was unanimously either jettisoned or radically reinterpreted because it was found to be inept. But despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our religious thinking is sometimes remarkably undeveloped, even primitive. There is also a tendency to assume that, even though we now live in a totally transformed world and have an entirely different worldview, people have always thought about God in exactly the same way as we do today. We beg God to support 'our' side in an election or a war, even though our opponents are, presumably, also God's children and the object of his love and care. Politicians quote God to justify their policies, teachers use him to keep order in the classroom, and terrorists commit atrocities in his name. We remind God that he has created the world and that we are miserable sinners, as though this may have slipped his mind. We tend to tame and domesticate God's 'otherness.' We regularly ask God to bless our nation, save our queen, cure our sickness, or give us a fine day for the picnic. They look perplexed if you point out that it is inaccurate to call God the Supreme Being because God is not a being at all, and that we really don't understand what we mean when we say that he is 'good,' 'wise,' or 'intelligent.' People of faith admit in theory that God is utterly transcendent, but they seem sometimes to assume that they know exactly who 'he' is and what he thinks, loves, and expects. Surely everybody knows what God is: the Supreme Being, a divine Personality, who created the world and everything in it. 'It was about God.' But many find this puzzling. 'That book was really hard!' readers have told me reproachfully, shaking their heads in faint reproof. In our democratic society, we think that the concept of God should be easy and that religion ought to be readily accessible to anybody. Introduction We are talking far too much about God these days, and what we say is often facile. Paul's Impact on Christianity Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism,Ĭhristianity, and Islam Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis The Battle for God Islam: A Short History Buddha: A Penguin Life The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness A Short History of Myth The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions The Bible: A Biography For Joan Brown CampbellĬontents Introduction PART I The Unknown God (30,000 BCE TO 1500 CE) ONE Homo religiosus TWO God THREE Reason FOUR Faith FIVE Silence SIX Faith and Reason PART II The Modern God(1500 CE TO THE PRESENT) SEVEN Science and Religion EIGHT Scientific Religion NINE Enlightenment TEN Atheism ELEVEN Unknowing TWELVE Death of God? Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Glossary Selected Bibliography BL473.A75 2009 211 C2009-902600-7ĪLSO BY KAREN ARMSTRONG Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Life In and Out of the Convent Beginning the World The First Christian: St. BL473.A76 2009 211-dc22 2009014044 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Armstrong, Karen, The case for God / Karen Armstrong. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Armstrong, Karen, The case for God / Karen Armstrong.

Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks. Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Alfred A. Published in the United States by Alfred A. KNOPF CANADA Copyright © 2009 by Karen Armstrong All rights reserved. THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A.

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