Customer Reviews

The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (Trinity Forum Study Series)

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This book is the third recently read by this reviewer from the Os Guinness edited "Trinity Forum Study Series" that is intended "to help thoughtful people examine the foundational issues through with faith acts upon the public good of modern society". As explained by the editor, this entry in the series follows the four stages integral to the quest for meaning. The first stage is when awareness of a sense of questioning or need that brings focus to consider where we are in life arises. The second stage is when we actively seek answers to the specific questions and crises raised at the first stage, considering the available guides and maps and choosing the best based on where we are and where we wish to go. The third stage addresses whether the answers found during the second stage are viable. And the fourth stage is when we begin to reach conclusions that eventually bring us to commitment.

Personal favorites include passages from "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr, which addresses those in disagreement with his specific method of nonviolent civil disobedience, "The Joyful Wisdom" by Friedrich Nietzsche, which presents the "Parable of the Madman", "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin" edited by Francis Darwin, which walks through several letters that show his change in philosophy over time, "The Wager" by Blaise Pascal, the renowned seventeenth century mathematician and philosopher, which presents an argument for taking a step of faith, and "Surprised by Joy" by C. S. Lewis, which is an entertainingly frank logical conversion account that first takes place on a double-decker bus and later en route to Whipsnade Zoo.

As with the other texts in this series, what helps make this book work are the brief author biographies which introduce each reading, as well as the hundreds of sidebar quotes by a wide selection of individuals, from a broad spectrum of world views, conveniently inserted throughout. One such example is by Viktor Frankl, an internationally renowned psychiatrist, author, founder of "logotherapy", a school of psychiatric analysis and counseling, and celebrated concentration camp survivor. "The truth is that among those who actually went through the experience of Auschwitz - the number of those whose religious life was deepened - in spite of, not because of, this experience - by far exceeds the number of those who gave up their belief. To paraphrase what La Rochefoucauld once remarked with regard to love, one might say that just as the small fire is extinguished by the storm while a large fire is enhanced by it - likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes, whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them."