Understanding Faith

Religious Belief and Its Place in Society

Militant atheists often mirror the worst kind of ignorance and hostility that they condemn in traditional believers. Writing both as a philosopher and an Anglican Christian, Professor Clark explores this initial perception, considering such topics as the alleged openness of ‘scientists’ compared with the ‘dogmatism’ of ‘believers’; the difficulty of reading ‘scripture’ outside ‘the community of faith’ that has selected and elaborated it; the problems of moral realism (and the problem with abandoning it); why Darwinian and neo-Darwinian Theory has been unpopular with some believers, and what if anything can still be affirmed from it; what can be learnt from modern biology (especially) about our relations with other creatures; the nature of God; the metaphor of ‘waking up’ as applied to our hopes of heaven; the varieties of possible world orders founded on differing religious schemata (including some atheistical ones); and the place of religion in the State. He concludes, appropriately, with some remarks about the End.