After setting out in detail the limitations and constricting consequences of the modern western mindset--or higher education in general, for the humanities in particular, and for the relations between science and theology--professor Smith points the way out of our narrow worldview,“our dark wood,” via an affirmation of the incredible assumption on which religion is grounded.

What would our lives be like if our deepest unconscious were directly available to us? What would a supremely "realized" being be like? [249]

You gotta love these questions. Are we the Darwinian more derived from the less? Or are we the less derived from the more of an undeconstructible divine?

Smith, as a historian of Religion, notes the "postmodern" fellowship between Religion and Science, with each seeking Truth. And while admitting the previous battle lines have closed, he demurs.[258] He badly wants Religion to win, and he does it by hiding the Ace up his seive: Sift as he will through the philosophers, he never seems to understand them. He communicates their words without the epistemology, which he declares not to have survived the practitioners.

Smith equates the annihilating Scientific "facts" -- the speed of the sun (160 miles per second), the number of molecules in a dram of water (billions) -- to the annihilating "values" which are also invisible to our perceptions, but announced by Isaiah, Christ, Buddha. That Love is at the core of the universe. He sees these BOTH as "incredible". [261]

Just when most people have given up on Love and purity of hearts, and it does seem obvious that "secular" has monopolized all forms of action, Smith turns the Science into the theory and finds "the fact" in our thoughts which drive in a particular direction, and that direction is divine! [263] He concludes with the "White Heron" of John Ciardi, the last line of which:

"And doubt all else. But praise."