Customer Reviews

The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value

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I have read most of this book, and as I read, I repeatedly ask myself: "Is this the most important book I have ever read?" I bow to the Bible. There was "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" when I was ten, and my college text on British Literature when I was 18. Now this.

My forty-year career in psychiatry would have been radically illumined if I had had this book. My fairly lonely (Christian) hesitation about CS Lewis has been explained to me as avoidance of the trap of accepting only the rational as scientifically reasonable discourse, without the "humane."

Perhaps the limits in my worldview make me inordinately grateful, but this book feels like a miracle.

I found this to be a very well written and engaging defense of religion from someone who is an authority in modern philosophical academic debates. It expands on his shorter book "The Meaning of Life." For those with an interest and preferably some background in philosophy, Cottingham leads one through what I assume are the best or latest responses of a Christian believer to a variety of critiques that seek to "defeat" the religious viewpoint. The arguments are not only applicable to Christian religion but to all Abrahamic religions (I think).

One of Cottingham's main points, which I found persuasive, is to stress that the validity of the religious perspective is less about intellectual proofs and logical rigor in argumentation and more about what he calls "praxis" by which he means the practice of living a spiritual life. It is more about the heart than about the mind. He draws on Pascal's idea that "belief" comes from practicing a form of life as if it were true. This seems right - also about some other aspects of life, such as marriage is which one learns (hopefully) to love your partner in deeper and profound ways. Faith is to bet on the validity of hope and trust in a ultimately good future and universe.

Cottingham also makes a strong case for the non incompatibility of faith and reason, religion and science. But he could have explained (for us non-academics) a little bit more his claim that the standard scientific philosophies (verificationism, empiricism etc) have "self-destructed" and therefore are no longer as authoritative as the popular culture seems still to believe. Also he could have given more everyday examples of why "evidence" is not always necessary for belief since it is counter-intuitive.

At points I felt his (Roman Catholic?) philosophical leanings tend to an overly rationalistic formulation obscuring the element of mystery and paradox involved in knowing God's truth. ("My thoughts are not your thoughts"). There is a lot more to this wide-ranging and humble book than I have touched on here. I would highly recommend it.