I was very hopeful of liking this book through the first few chapters, but the further I read, the less I could agree with Clark's arguments. He doesn't just argue against the 'militant atheists', he has to show that anything they say is wrong. ( )

A hidden gem

Amazon's sales figures indicate that practically no one is buying this book, and the social cataloging website I belong to indicates that I'm the only one of its 700,000 members who owns a copy. In my opinion, people are missing out: This is the richest, most satisfying response to the New Atheists that I've read so far.

The author, Stephen R. L. Clark, is a prolific philosopher who has published on a wide variety of topics, and he draws upon this broad knowledge in _Understanding Faith_. Thankfully, he doesn't write in a pedantic, overly-philosophical way in this volume, which I found to be very accessible. Clark says that he began this book as an attempt to write his way out of post-operative depression. What a great way to turn lemons into lemonade!

In a review of another book responding to the New Atheists, I said that C. S. Lewis presciently provided about all the response they really needed. Well, Clark makes heavy use of the writings of G. K. Chesterton (one of Lewis's "mentors") as well as the ancient Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. To be honest, I'd never heard of Plotinus before reading Clark, and my experience with Chesterton had been a mixed-bag, but Clark makes me want to give the latter a closer look. In the passages quoted by Clark, Chesterton comes across as remarkably lucid!

My image of God seems to be more personal (and many would say more primitive) than the author's, but Clark's approach in _Understanding Faith_ is broad enough that I felt that my faith was included among those being defended by him. I thank him for writing this book. ( )