Why I Believe in a Personal God: The Credibility of Faith in a Doubting Culture

by George Carey

Book Overview

Is the Universe on our side?

"My own investigations over a period of many years have given me a quiet assurance that there is a God who has given us sufficient clues in life, nature, human thought, beauty and art to satisfy the genuine inquirer that he exists, and that he has expressed himself most meaningfully in Jesus Christ. However, you may come to a different conclusion at the end of this book and that is your right as a thinking...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877889473
• ISBN13: 9780877889472
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Big Questions

George Carey wrote this book about two years prior to enthronement as the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury. It recaps the basic timeless Christian truths. In doing so it addresses some of the BIG QUESTIONS: Was God needed to get the Universe started? What is the case against the God hypothesis? With so much wrong in the world how can there be a personal and loving God? If God exists, how can we find him? Carey discusses the Greek philosophical approach of trying to reason one's way to a knowledge of God. Toward the end he recommends the advantages of the Hebraic tradition of obediently following "the one who goes before" to find the Almighty. The Archbishop suggests this more practical approach of following is more fruitful. As Carey puts it : "This Jesus, we say, is worth following. He is the human face of God. Follow him and you will find God."

Doubt and belief...

The current Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is noted for being a scholar and theologian. The prior Archbishop, George Carey, was not heralded as an academic of the same nature (which is somewhat surprising, given that he was a professor of theology), but was nonetheless a practical theologian of some skill, as this text, `Why I Believe in a Personal God: The Credibility of Faith in a Doubting Culture', written at the beginning of Carey's tenure as Cantaur, proves.Carey starts out by asking the big question - is it even possible for intelligent people in the modern world to believe in God, any god? Carey confesses, for the comfort of his readers, something that might be rather shocking at first glance to many - he himself never found it easy to believe in God. His life is one of faith in the face of doubt and struggle, and he shares much of this struggle and process toward God in the text. Some of the pieces that make belief in God less accessible than in previous times (perhaps) is the increasing isolation of the individual and secularisation of society. There is also the multiplicity of value systems, with no solid foundation for all of society to hold to with regard to belief in the divine. Carey looks at science, sociology, and psychology as well as theology in developing the case first against God and then for recognition of God who remains a personal and companion God even in the face of paradox and difficult questioning. Carey develops a case against secular materialism (not quite the same thing as secular humanism, but a close companion) as being too limiting and itself grounded in nothing more substantial than circular observations and reasoning; this does not in and of itself make a convincing argument for religion and faith (or Christianity in particular), but it does serve to level the playing field a bit.Carey writes in accessible and interesting language. He doesn't give great detail about the pieces of his argument, which might disappoint the more scholarly, but this is intentional. The average reader, seeking the mind of the archbishop on matters of faith and doubt, need not concern herself or himself with all the intricacies of modern physics and psychological theory to get a reasonable grasp on Carey's line of thought.