Customer Reviews

Does God Exist?: An Answer for Today

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kung takes the reader through the 'Modern Era's' most challenging intellects and prophetic voices as they wrestle with the 'Question of God'. Setting the stage with the duality of Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum' and Pascal's 'credo ergo sum', Kung charts a course between the intellect and the will, between emotion and reason, between the heart and the mind- and finds the core of 'Faith' in a 'radical trust' that is thoroughly rooted in reality, adressing what is most real, and in complete view of what is really urgent in the context of the hardcore reality of every day life- especially in the reality of life's often meaninglessness, hopelessness, empty, banal and valueless tragedies and crises.

Kung works through the lives and works of Hegel, Feuerbach, Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche and along the way identifies the key issues and challenges in their thought and action. Kung is completely open to what is valuable and reasonable in their critique of Theology, Religion, Culture, and Philosophy, yet sharply critical to what is irrational and pathological in their messages and praxis.

Kung reaches his climax following a brilliant and incisive analysis of Friedrich Nietzsche's radical critique of all things religious, and uses Nietzsche's struggle with 'nihilism' as his own foil against the response of atheism to the Modern Question of God. If Nietzsche is right, and nihilism is the case, then neither the atheist a la Feuerbach, Freud, Marx, or Nietzsche has a leg to stand on- nor does the theist. Rather, the human condition in the face of the threat of nihilism requires we all risk a choice of fundamental trust in the ultimate meaningfulness and value of life, reality, and existence. Radical trust in God as the ultimate source, foundation and goal of all reality is one response to the nihilistic threat, and Kung argues it is the best approach, for himself and many others.

A great and challenging read and truly a treasure chest of ideas, quotes, and often inspirational.

Hans Küng (b1928) is thorough to a fault. From reading this book, I get the impression he could spend all day telling me the sun is out. ;-) I learned a great deal from this book. Nearly every philosopher and theologian from the time of Descartes receives mention, if not a critical exposition. It is difficult for me to recall an influential thinker during the past four millennia who is yet to be considered by Küng. The irony of such thoroughness is that Kung, in fact, leaves his own question unanswered. He does not state that God Exists much less offer a convincing proof. In some sense, I pity those who naively pick up this heavy material expecting the answer to the title to leap leap from one of the pages. That is not the intent of this exhaustive study. On the other hand, my own faith was strengthened by Herr Kung's argument which I would suggest is that it is equally reasonable and rational to believe in GOD as it is to believe in no god. Hans Küng methodically develops the reasonableness of faithing in the GOD of Abraham, and the Christ, Jesus. Based on the finding that it is reasonable to believe in the LORD, my GOD, I found new confidence in my spiritual relationship. My relationship with the LORD is based on a "fundamental trust", as Herr Kung calls it. In this way, I have learned to experience my spiritual relationship in a similar fashion to my valued friendships. Both are based on a growing trust. Although, I cannot prove my friend exists, I can prove that the relationship I have affects my life. In the view of Hans Kung, the grace of GOD plays an important role in this "fundamental trust". He explains, "But also like fundamental trust, trust in God cannot simply be decided on, willed, extorted or produced. I cannot simply create or produce ultimate certainty, security, stability, for myself. God -- as we saw -- is not an object of immediate experience; he is not part of existing reality, he is not among the objects available to experience; no intuition or speculation, no direct experience or immediate perception, can provide a 'view' of him. It is just because of this that belief in God is seen as a gift." In my experience it has required a bit of courage to move from the known to the unknown, however, that courage has been rewarded, in my case, with a strong spiritual relationship. If you are interested in the development of critical thought since Descartes with regard to our relationship with a diety, or if you are interested in learning about the function of fundamental trust in a faith experience which enhances a spiritual relationship, this book will be interesting to you.

In this book, which is at once brilliant and incredibly pretentious, Hans Kung attempts to show that it is reasonable to believe in God, even and especially in light of the modern world. The book is essentially a book of doubts, in which virtually every conceivable modern complaint and doubt about the necessity of God's existence is expressed and countered. The book is long, hard, extremely taxing (especially if you engage it properly) and terrifically complicated, so I won't even attempt to do anything like summarize it here. If you truly engage this book, you may find yourself both profoundly troubled and even perhaps experiencing the phenomenon of conversion, e.g. as happened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus. These are profound questions which have troubled the mind of man since he became conscious of himself. They are all the more difficult because there can be no "fence sitting". As Pascal says, "You must wager!"

For what it's worth, which likely isn't much, here's what I get out of the book. The atheist position, which is the doubt of God's existence or even the actual denial thereof, has a certain instability to it. The problem with this position is that while the Christian may be wrong in saying that the life of the atheist is intolerable, there is a tendency in fact for the tolerable to become "unbearably tolerable" - i.e. meaningless. The atheist can easily slide into nihilism - extinction into boredom (nothingness). It is against this tendency that the atheist is constantly at odds. On the other hand, the theist position runs into problems in that the theist is perpetually confronting the potential of doubt and to overcompensate for this, he runs the risk of retreating into fanaticism. Obviously despite all the atheist "disproofs" to the contrary, belief in God's existence lives on. So we have reached an impasse. We might ask the question, Is fanaticism bad? Yes and no. As politically incorrect as this statement may be, I contend that fanaticism is not nearly as bad as the alternative. If nothing else it shows that one has indeed something to live for. If one considers the Socratic dictum, "Know thyself!" as a guiding principle to living one's life, then in fact isn't fanaticism precisely this knowing of one's self? Or put another way, fanaticism is the conscious recognition of what one does in fact believe and the upholding of that belief in the face of skepticism. It is for this reason, however that a return to the traditional Thomistic proofs for the existence of God may be necessary. While a confrontation with modernity need not be taken to absurd extremes, the alternative of being assimilated into a meaningless existence is far worse than any reaction to it. Fortunately, Kung does not fall into a naive pluralism but asserts the exclusivity of the Christian revelation. (This of course is a difficult, troubling, and even painful question in the light of other faiths, but one that must nevertheless be answered.) Where Kung does err, he errs on the side of not being dogmatic enough. (As an aside his capitulation to certain feminist beliefs about the "goddess" and a primitive matriarchy, which virtually all experts now claim did not exist, is appalling. But, I won't hold it too much against him.) Nevertheless the book is good, and it will provide countless arguments for apologists to use against the fans of Nietzsche or Freud for example.

This book of Kung's, which are really part of a trilogy-[the other two books being On Being a Christian and The Incarnation of God], is one of the best treatments of the question of God's existence in light of the philosophical, political and religious debates and ideas that have been going on since the time of Descartes. Kung takes us into not only the thought, but also the life of various philosophers and the impact that their life had on their philosophical ideas. The question of what questions are open as a result of the undecidability theorem of Godel on one hand, and the questions raised about physical reality by quantum mechanics on the other, provide a critical crucible to reexamine the question of God's existence. Having read the other responses however, one is reminded of the statement of Augustine-to he who believes no argument is necessary, and to he who does not, no argument is sufficient. I suspect, that aside from claims to the contrary, that there are leaps that we can not avoid making, and that we are indeed caught up in the hermenutical circle described by Heiddegger. It provides a great basis for begginning dialog.

This is a very thorough, comprehensive book. It is at times prolix - but this usually only serves to help you remember most of what he says. He does not however say that atheists tend towards nihilism. He is very liberal and completely unbiased, being careful to always give both sides of the argument even when one side seems rediculous. Perhaps mr mcduffie was reading the wrong book. If you want to acquire a thorough understanding of the evolution of modern thought, the basic histroy of the theology of the church and the arguments for and against God, i do not know of a better book to read than this one.

This is probaly the best book I have ever read. The scholarship is peerless. Important thinkers from Nietzsche to Einstein are explicated.It is an exhuative anlysis combining theology, psychology and theology. After reading it and understanding it one has a new context and breadth of understanding to exameine the question proposed. Agnostic, believer alike will benefit from this book that every intellectual should read.

Kung's scholarship is good. In particular, the account of Hegelianism was fascinating. Also, Kung is a good writer and the book is definitely stimulating. However, three of his points are not persuasive at all, these being:

1. we cannot go behind the "progress" made by the enlightenment to "outdated" concepts of God.

2. That we cannot turn to the traditional proofs for God's existence, since they have been demolished by modern philosophers. 3. that the only alternatives are nihilism and theism and since theism is more "meaningful" we should embrace theism.

I do not see in this book a real argument and defense of these assertions. Nevertheless, a worthwile read.

JC

In this work, Hans Kung attacks people and philosophies associated with atheism, including such crackpots as Marx, Neitsche (or however its spelled), Freud, and Feuerbach; but fails to address such fundamental questions as "Why should we believe in God at all?" I give him two stars for his scholarship, but I am disturbed that he failed to address this central issue. He seems to think that he has destroied atheism by destroing Marxism, nillism, and other philosophies which are atheistic but upon which atheism itself is not dependant. I would recommend any atheists persuaded by this work to read Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith.

The question, actually, is not if God exists, but if you exist,---and you don't! Good luck!

Kung's theistic diatribe is typical of most polemics against Atheism I have read in the last 42 years, in that, as per usual, its central thesis comes to no conclusion, and its answer is just another illogical, unverified "assertion". Meanwhile, the reader is forced to wade through 800 pages of logical fallacies, didactic circles, and flagrant contradictions; only to end up with, either god exists or nihilism. Bull! But, on the other hand, in perusing those circles, and dodging the fallacies the consummate god-head is in some of the best cherry picking territory I have seen since David Hume blew creationism out of the water more than 200 years ago.