No one agrees about God.(letters to the editor)(No One Sees God)(Letter to the editor)

It was an honor to have a reviewer of the intellectual talent of John Wilson, the founding editor of a splendid bimonthly review of books, Books and Culture ("Out of Darkness," December 1). I appreciate the kind things he wrote about No One Sees God, as well as his severe criticism about what seem to him its three main "muddles." He thinks I mix up the Christian faith with philosophy, illicitly confuse the darkness of the atheist with the darkness of the theist (including Christians and Jews), and do not protect simple believers like our grandmothers from the demands rightly made upon philosophers.

Of course, it is easy to see how my rhythmic shifting of gears between one argument and another in No One Sees God could have been experienced by many readers as a series of "muddles." That shifting resulted from the difficulty of the task.

With more skill someone else might have better resolved those difficulties, but the difficulties themselves were unavoidable. It was crucial for No One Sees God to keep its central line of argument within the sphere of natural theology (the philosophy of God), even though this is a project that Protestant Christianity has often rejected, both traditionally and in modern times.

On the other hand, it was also crucial to rebut some of the "New Atheists'" attacks upon the Jewish and Christian God, attacks that are sometimes so naive that they threaten even the philosophical approaches to God. Jewish and Christian conceptions of God derive from God's own "pulling back the veils" (revelare) that hide his full nature from reason. But revelation depends on the possibility that the Author of all things can make known, to creatures capable of insight, reasoning, and judgment, truths addressed to their minds. He invites them to accept or to reject these truths, on grounds for which they are prepared to give an account. Thus, revelation implicitly affirms the legitimacy and necessity of the exercise of reason.

Add in the third difficulty. Even nonphilosophers--especially non-philosophers--usually have an obscure awareness of God's presence. That seems to be the default position of the human race, not only in the long-distant past but today. One does not expect non-philosophers to have much patience with the long arguments philosophers need to make. Still, one expects philosophy to give a good account of why ordinary, simple awareness of the presence of God is justifiable even to philosophers.

No One Sees God sets forth many road signs to guide the reader as to when the argument is philosophical, and when it must necessarily defend Christian accounts of God against unwarranted charges--unwarranted on purely philosophical grounds. I remind the reader often that the main purpose of the book is to give centrality to philosophy, not faith.

If I am allowed to live so long, perhaps I may later offer a fuller account of Christian faith. In any case, favorite authors of mine such as Romano Guardini have written such books far better than I can (see, especially, his The Lord). That is surely clear to readers of my earlier attempt to write such a book, Confession of a Catholic.