36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction [Hardcover]

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 12, 2010

After Cass Seltzer’s book becomes a surprise best seller, he’s dubbed “the atheist with a soul” and becomes a celebrity. He wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum, “the goddess of game theory,” and loses himself in a spiritually expansive infatuation. A former girlfriend appears: an anthropologist who invites him to join in her quest for immortality through biochemistry. And he is haunted by reminders of the two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his mentor and professor—a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism—and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius who is heir to the leadership of a Hasidic sect. Each encounter reinforces Cass’s theory that the religious impulse spills over into life at large.
 
36 Arguments for the Existence of God plunges into the great debate of our day: the clash between faith and reason. World events are being shaped by fervent believers at home and abroad, while a new atheism is asserting itself in the public sphere. On purely intellectual grounds the skeptics would seem to have everything on their side. Yet people refuse to accept their seemingly irrefutable arguments and continue to embrace faith in God as their source of meaning, purpose, and comfort.
 
Through the enchantment of fiction, award-winning novelist and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein shows that the tension between religion and doubt cannot be understood through rational argument alone. It also must be explored from the point of view of individual people caught in the raptures and torments of religious experience in all their variety.
 
Using her gifts in fiction and philosophy, Goldstein has produced a true crossover novel, complete with a nail-biting debate (“Resolved: God Exists”) and a stand-alone appendix with the thirty-six arguments (and responses) that propelled Seltzer to stardom.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Exclusive: Rebecca Goldstein on 36 Arguments for the Existence of God

Dinner party hostesses used to be warned to steer the conversation away from politics and religion. I used to wonder why, but I don’t anymore. There are some differences that reveal rifts so deep that dialogue breaks down. Among these are the current debates that have been raging between God-believers and the so-called new atheists. It often seems that people on one side can’t begin to grasp what the world is like, what it feels like, for those on the other side. When the person with whom one is conversing appears utterly opaque, then mistrust and contempt are easily aroused: How can he be saying that when the opposite seems so obvious to me? Is he stupid, dishonest, maybe just a touch evil? These are not the sort of suspicions that the gracious hostess wants intruding at her candle-lit dinner table.

But for me, as a novelist, it’s differences like these, indicating entirely different orientations toward the world, which are the most tantalizing to explore. Arguments alone can’t capture all that is at stake for people when they argue about issues of reason and faith. In the end, I place my faith in fiction, in its power to make vividly present how different the world feels to each of us and how these differences are sometimes what is really being expressed in the great debates of our day on the existence of God.

The title of the book is 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. I meant the subtitle to be understood as a sort of joke, but as a serious one, too. --Rebecca Goldstein

(Photo © Stephen Pinker)

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From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. An atheist with a soul is in for a lot of soul-searching in MacArthur genius Goldstein's rollicking latest (Mazel). Cass Seltzer, a university professor specializing in the psychology of religion, hits the big time with a bestselling book and an offer to teach at Harvard—quite a step up from his current position at Frankfurter University. While waiting for his girlfriend to return from a conference, Cass receives an unexpected visit from Roz Margolis, whom he dated 20 years earlier and who looks as good now as she ever did. Her secret: dedicating her substantial smarts to unlocking the secrets of immortality. Cass's recent success and Roz's sudden appearance send him into contemplation of the tumultuous events of his past, involving his former mentor, his failed first marriage and a young mathematical prodigy whose talent may go unrealized, culminating in a standing-room-only debate with a formidable opponent where Cass must reconcile his new, unfamiliar life with his experience of himself. Irreverent and witty, Goldstein seamlessly weaves philosophy into this lively and colorful chronicle of intellectual and emotional struggles. (Jan.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (January 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307378187
• ISBN-13: 978-0307378187
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #373,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rebecca Goldstein is a MacArthur Fellow, a professor of philosophy, and the author of five novels and a collection of short stories. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 104 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars almost persuaded by a marvelous read January 17, 2010

By Martin Chandler VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Having taught a boy genius the fundamentals of musical composition, I found the descriptions of Azarya both accurate and inspiring. Goldstein's latest is one of the most enjoyable books I've read on the recent faith and reason discussions. It is also a splendid satire on academe, a fun novel with engaging characters (who are defined as much by the complexity of their ideas as by their personality traits), and a passionate defense of secular humanism, with excursions into such areas as Hasidic culture and the seductions of number theory (why 36? read the book!) The appendix alone is worth the price of the book: the clear deductive presentation of the 36 arguments allows theists, agnostics, and atheists many opportunities to clarify and organize their thought. (It should stimulate believers, especially, to seek "flaws in the flaws," assuming there are ones). These arguments are in splendid counterpoint to the more tumultuous "arguments" that constitute the main body of the novel.

Cass Seltzer's moving discussion of moral progress and the View from Nowhere almost persuades me. But in this pleasure-dome of the Golden Rule, I still hear "ancestral voices prophesying war." Beethoven wrote to someone: "I don't want to know anything about your system of ethics. Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine." Could those terrifying words overwhelm Cass? Should he have debated Beethoven rather than the trendy neoconservative Findley?

Also, I am "almost persuaded" about the potential depth and vitality of a "third culture." As the humanities become increasingly absorbed into the necessary world of science, can they retain their traditional richness and vitality? This novel and other work of Goldstein encourage this hope.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The View from Nowhere April 16, 2010

By Roger Brunyate TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

With a doctorate in philosophy from Princeton, Guggenheim and MacArthur (genius) awards, several novels, and non-fiction studies of Gödel and Spinoza under her belt, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is nobody's fool. But I can't decide whether her decision to populate her latest novel exclusively with people like herself is good or bad. Set in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts, partly at Harvard but mainly at another elite university which might be a fictionalized Brandeis, the entire cast of characters seems to consist of academic philosophers, psychologists, mathematicians, or theologians, all determined to prove that they are smarter than anybody else. Readers who enjoyed the intellectual name-dropping of Muriel Barbery's THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG might well enjoy this, but it can be hard going. I soon began to wish for at least one character who did not know the Wittgenstein Paradox or Heideggerian Hermeneutics inside out. After about 80 pages, however, I found myself drawn into the strange world of the book, for three main reasons. I list them in increasing order of importance.

1. Goldstein can be very funny. There is splendid scene when the great professor Jonas Elijah Klapper (think Harold Bloom) makes a state visit to the Valdener Rebbe, head of a Hasidic sect headquartered in a building described as "A Costco that had found God." In the ensuing dialogue, the professor tries hard to impress with obscure references to early Jewish mystics, while the Rebbe merely wants to discuss how best to secure federal matching funds. Nevertheless Klapper treats this as deep rabbinical wisdom expressed in parables, silencing a doubter with the words: "You are the sort who, should she witness the Messiah walking on water, would be impressed that his socks had not shrunk."

2. The chief character, Cass Selzer, is the least pretentious of the lot and really very likeable. A psychologist, he has recently published VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS ILLUSION, vaulting him to the New York Times bestseller list and a Time Magazine feature as "The atheist with a soul." The 36 Arguments of the book's title form the appendix to Selzer's book, reprinted as a 50-page appendix to the novel. Each argument is laid out in clear syllogistic form only to be dismissed by equally clear analysis of its flaws. But for the most part, Cass leaves the logical legerdemain to the appendix. As a character in the story, he speaks normal conversational English, and is really quite sympathetic as he moves from hero-worship to rejection of the monstrous Klapper, and tries to find a life partner among a sequence of dauntingly brilliant women.

3. The book does indeed have a soul. The visit to the Valdener Rebbe (a distant relative of Cass) is more than a comic tour-de-force. Cass also meets the Rebbe's son, Azarya, clearly a mathematical genius and as lovable for his personality as amazing in his desire for knowledge. At the age of only six, he explains discoveries in number theory that he has made by himself, describing the various classes of primes as orders of angels as real to him as Cherubim and Seraphim. Uniquely, he unites religion and science, not as opposites, but in a single world view. There is a great set-piece (pages 214-222) which is an ecstatic description of a "shabbes tish" or ceremonial meal, which draws me further into the spirit of Hasidic life than anything I have read before, including Chaim Potok's THE CHOSEN. Towards the end of the book, Cass argues against the existence of God in a public debate at Harvard. But the last chapter is not left to the arguments of philosophers but to another celebration at the Valdener shul, a glowing scene that somehow makes the entire debate almost irrelevant.

112 of 132 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars As is suggested of Cass's book, Couldn't the book be the appendix? February 4, 2010

By Greg TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

First the good news: The appendix, which includes the actual arguments for the existence of a god, is everything that the rest of the book is not: pithy, direct, accessible, amusing. I would love for that section of the book to stand alone. Alone and far away from the laborious, pretentious mess that comprises the body of the work.

As an atheist--a New Atheist, even--I went in to this work of fiction with the highest of hopes. After battering my head against pages of vapid, indulgent narrative, practically unbroken by anything like dialog, plot, or characterization, I gave up. How, you ask, can I judge a book that I did not finish? That is my judgment--it is unreadable (again, except for the excellent appendix).

I feel like a traitor writing this, but if you to want to read a book set in similar environs, centering on a similar topic, try John Updike's "Roger's Version." With its vivid characters, lush descriptions and lively dialog, it is a far more interesting and entertaining read (even though I profoundly disagree with Updike's theistic leanings).

And if you want to read great atheist writers, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan are among our finest contemporary novelists, and both are outspoken atheists. But their fiction does not often address atheist themes directly (nor should it--propaganda makes shoddy art).

What I await is a work of popular fiction with atheist themes that sparks and moves. So far the closest thing I know of to a contemporary example is Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials." Surely now that the best-seller lists have been conquered by atheist nonfiction writers, atheistic fiction page-turners cannot be far behind?

I give Ms. Newberger Goldstein a great deal of credit for the work she put into this novel, for the courage it took to write it, and for her obvious intelligence and ability. But what ultimately results, for an average reader like me, are sentences so pregnant with apparent meaning that each must be tediously midwived. Without attractive characters to invite me in, a compelling plot to push me ahead, or intriguing dialog to pull me along, I just can't be bothered.