'Taking Religion Seriously' by Charles Murray

I have been dipping into a big recent French book that has been translated into English. It is called 'God - The Service - The Evidence' by Michel-Yves Bollore and Oliver Bonnaisses, and at great length it sets out an intellectual, philosophical and scientific argument for religious belief. It is 550 pages long and very wide-ranging in its content. Charles Murray's book is far briefer and much more personal, but covers quite similar ground.

It is essentially a slice of intellectual autobiography in which Charles Murray, now aged 82, sets out how after many years of scepticism about religion generally and the claims of Christianity in particular, he changed his mind. He first came to accept the possibility of God's existence and then to think it more likely than not.

What made this book really interesting for me personally, as its true of the Bollore and Bonnaisses book, is that the case made out is entirely intellectual in nature. Murray has no 'road to Damascus' moment and makes no appeal to leaps of faith or spiritual experience. He has read a great deal about physics, near death experiences and the history of early Christianity, as well as works of theology which are atheistical in nature as well as those which are religious. C S Lewis, as is the case for so many Christian men and women, was a particular influence. He summarises his thinking on each point of controversy and lists all the books he has read. He recommends a great deal of further reading too. The tone is humble, thoughtful and kindly. He does not hector or evangalise, but just explains how things seem for him personally, as well to an extent as for his wife Catherine.

He did not convince me that God exists. That will take some doing. But he did help persuade me that it is is very simplistic simply to dismiss the possibility out of hand as so many do.

A really interesting little book.