GOD: A Guide for the Perplexed

Professor of theology at Oxford University and no stranger to informed public debate on profound and controversial subjects, Ward offers a book that is witty and accessible, prodigiously erudite (quotes, textual references, a bibliography but no footnotes) and loaded with heavy ammunition to defend the existence of God. The author of 10 other books of theology, he cites and deftly arranges 3,000 years of arguments for, about and occasionally against God, drawn mostly but not exclusively from the Western tradition. A tour guide through the intellectual history of God-talk, Ward makes all the major stops—Plato, the Hebrew prophets, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Whitehead, etc.—with side trips to some lovely English classic poetry as well (Herbert, Spenser, Arnold). Even while he makes university don-ish jokes about philosophers, Ward takes seriously a topic that has engaged the elite and the common for hundreds of years. Like an old-fashioned, evenhanded teacher, he manages a tone of sympathetic analysis that steers clear of endorsement. This guide begs for comparison with fellow Briton Karen Armstrong's A History of God. Ward's is primarily Christian rather than Abrahamic in scope, but it is equally accessible and solidly learned. Wry but delightfully non-ironic, intelligent and clear, this book is a blessing for a theist camp that is sick of a postmodern universe empty of meaning but stuffed unto death with trivia. (May)