God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet

Nathan Schneider

Published by University of California Press 2013

God in Proof

The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet

Nathan Schneider

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520957565

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this tour of the history of arguments for and against the existence of God, Nathan Schneider embarks on a remarkable intellectual, historical, and theological journey through the centuries of believers and unbelievers—from ancient Greeks, to medieval Arabs, to today’s most eminent philosophers and the New Atheists. Framed by an account of Schneider’s own unique journey, God in Proof illuminates the great minds who wrestled with one of history’s biggest questions together with their arguments, bringing them to life in their time, and our own. Schneider’s sure-handed portrayal of the characters and ideas involved in the search for proof challenges how we normally think about doubt and faith while showing that, in their quest for certainty and the proofs to declare it, thinkers on either side of the God divide are often closer to one another than they would like to think.

Author / Editor information

SchneiderNathan:

Nathan Schneider’s writing about religion and reason has appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, and Religion Dispatches, among other publications. He is an editor of Killing the Buddha, an online magazine about religion and culture.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Sketches of Babel Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
ONE. First Causes. Ancient times and reasonable measures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
TWO. The Island. Muslims and Jews make proof safe for revelation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
THREE. Grammars of Assent. A Comeback in Christendom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
FOUR. On Certainty. Early modernity upends a familiar proof Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
FIVE. Coming of Age. From the all-destroyer to an absolute idea Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
SIX. Grandeur in This View of Life. Design and its discontents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
SEVEN. The Deaths of God. Human progress and Divine absence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
EIGHT. Not Dead Yet. Theism makes a comeback in philosophy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
NINE. God, Hypothesis. Proof sneaks into the latest science Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
TEN. The Proof Industry. Old proofs turn into viral movements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
God, Alone Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Acknowledgements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Timeline of Provers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Table of Proofs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	250