Paul J. Griffiths

Dimensions of the Sacred:An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs By Ninian Smart University of California Press, 331 pages, $29.95 The modern study of religion is about a century old. It has a longer lineage, of course: Hume’s Natural History of Religion and Spinoza’s Tractatus . . . . Continue Reading »

God’s Chinese Son: The Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan By Jonathon D. Spence Norton, 400 pages, $27.50 China in the first half of the nineteenth century faced unusually complex problems. The ruling Qing (Manchu) dynasty was weak and internally divided. Trade contacts with the West were . . . . Continue Reading »

Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion By S. Mark Heim Orbis, 248 pages, $19.95 Christians have always been interested in the fact that there are many faithful practitioners of religions other than Christianity. Some are ignorant of Christianity; others prefer to remain non-Christian even . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Christianity True? by Hugo A. Meynell University of America Press, 149 pages, $24.95 Apologetics-the traditional intellectual exercise of defense of Christian belief against attacks from rivals and the attempt to show the superiority of Christian belief-has seen something of a revival among . . . . Continue Reading »

The intellectual life is essentially and constitutively agonistic. It progresses almost entirely by struggle, by challenge and response, by thesis and antithesis, by getting it wrong and then moving, always asymptotically, toward getting it right. Hegel was wrong, so far as I can tell, about most . . . . Continue Reading »