What's your opinion on how people of faith should respond to doubt?
I can't pretend to having a long history with the literature of theology, but in my time since starting at Luther, I've been engrossed in the various trends that I've noticed in these publications. One such is the large number of books recently published by atheists, by religious responders, or simply on the topic of the possibility and ramifications of belief in some type of divine being.
Before I observed this seeming trend, I had thought that a type of qualified agnosticism had sort of thrust both "militant" atheism and fundamentalist theism into the belligerent modernist past referenced in the term "post-modern." But since the publication in 2006 of Dawkins' God Delusion (BL2775.3.D38), the library has received a large number of books on atheism, ranging from Berlinski's Devil's Delusion (BL240.3.B466), a work by a secular writer who attempts to skewer atheists who exhibit scientific pretentiousness in discussion of religious belief, to Novak's No One Sees God (BT1212.N68), the product description for which suggests:
In No One Sees God, Novak brilliantly recasts the tired debate pitting faith against reason. Both the atheist and the believer experience the same “dark night” in which God’s presence seems absent, he argues, and the conflict between faith and doubt stems not from objective differences, but from divergent attitudes toward the unknown. (read more)
As can be seen from some other titles on our New Book Rack, the question of belief in God has also been of interest in the study of ethics (not that this is necessarily related to the books mentioned above). If you are interested in the intersection of ethics and religion/secularism, a few new titles you might want to look at are Society without God (BL2775.3.Z82), Ethics without God? (BJ37.E845), The Ethics of Deconstruction (B2430.D474.C74), Historical Dictionary of Ethics (BJ71.G46), and Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard (B4377.E84).
New Translations (and some MARTIN tips)
On a fairly unrelated note, I want to mention that we have recently ordered a number of translations of works by early Christian writers, many from the series Translated Texts for Historians. These include works on Genesis, Ezra, and Nehemiah by Bede; The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon; The Divine Institutes by Lactantius; and others, all of which can be found by searching for the series name in a "title search." While we're on the topic of using our catalog, MARTIN, I should mention that you can easily browse new acquisitions by clicking on the "New Books" tab above the search box. You can select a time period, or search based on an author if you want to keep up with their recent publications held by the library.
Will Keillor, Acquisitions Librarian
Will, thanks for the tip on "Translated Texts for Historians". I had not known about this series.
Posted by: Bruce Eldevik | November 13, 2008 at 04:56 PM