Overview
"In this book, Mark Johnston argues that God needs to be saved not only from the distortions of the "undergraduate atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris) but, more importantly, from the idolatrous tendencies of religion itself. Each monotheistic religion has its characteristic ways of domesticating True Divinity, of taming God's demands so that they do not radically threaten our self-love and false righteousness. Turning the monotheistic critique of idolatry on the monotheisms themselves, Johnston shows that much in these traditions must be condemned as false and spiritually debilitating." A central claim of the book is that supernaturalism is idolatry. If this is right, everything changes; we cannot place our salvation in jeopardy by tying it essentially to the supernatural cosmologies of the ancient Near East. Remarkably, Johnston rehabilitates the ideas of the Fall and of salvation within a naturalistic framework; he then presents a conception of God that both resists idolatry and is wholly consistent with the deliverances of the natural sciences.
Synopsis
"This book is a brilliantly conceived contribution to natural theology. Taken together with Johnston's forthcoming Surviving Death, it constitutes the most interesting and provocative elaboration of religious naturalism since Santayana."--Jeffrey Stout, author of Democracy and Tradition and Ethics after Babel
"This is a remarkable, fascinating, and important book, one that exhibits rich philosophical erudition--which it wears lightly--and startling philosophical insight. It is, at its core, a work of natural theology, a distinctly philosophical endeavor, but the book neatly sidesteps all the dead ends that such a project has created for itself in the last couple of centuries."--James C. Edwards, author of The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism
"This is one of those rare works in philosophical theology that presents a complex, novel view in a manner accessible to the general reader. This is an exciting book."--Andrew Chignell, Cornell University
James Wood - New Yorker
The non-fiction book I most enjoyed this year might be a stocking-stuffer for both atheists and believers (it is slightly more likely to appeal to the former, but would certainly intrigue believers willing to think about their belief). It is Saving God: Religion After Idolatry (Princeton University Press), by the Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston. This book demolishes, with far greater precision and elegance than anything by Richard Dawkins.
Editorials
New Yorker
The non-fiction book I most enjoyed this year might be a stocking-stuffer for both atheists and believers (it is slightly more likely to appeal to the former, but would certainly intrigue believers willing to think about their belief). It is Saving God: Religion After Idolatry (Princeton University Press), by the Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston. This book demolishes, with far greater precision and elegance than anything by Richard Dawkins.— James Wood
Choice
This accessible, sophisticated, and thoughtful work will be an important addition to collections of both philosophy and theology.Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Saving God is a rich and provocative book. . . . I found Saving God to be original, complex and insightful. However one reacts to Johnston's naturalistic reinterpretation of Christianity and the other monotheisms, one may still applaud his rejection of idolatrous uses of religion to serve human ends.— Mark Johnston
Jewish Review of Books
This witty and philosophically subtle book is . . . very Maimonidean in its thoroughgoing rejection of superstition and idolatry as an offense to true religion.— Menachem Kellner
Library Journal
In a well-wrought essay in natural theology that shows the influence of Heidegger and Spinoza while critiquing philosopher René Girard, Johnston examines religious truths from a purely philosophical perspective. Rejecting the arguments of Richard Dawkins and other recent writers advocating atheism, Johnston (philosophy, Princeton) makes the case for religious belief. His is not a religion that includes an afterlife, however. He argues that Jesus's life and, particularly, his crucifixion give us an example of agape, that is, unselfish love. The "other world" is actually meant to be a transformation of this world. VERDICT For a more direct, accessible critique of Dawkins, readers might try Alister E. McGrath and Joanna Collicut McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. Johnston's book, a reflection on the role of religion in leading a meaningful life, is not meant to be highly academic (as his forthcoming Surviving Death will be), but the average reader would need to put a lot of effort into reading it.—Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJNew Yorker
The non-fiction book I most enjoyed this year might be a stocking-stuffer for both atheists and believers (it is slightly more likely to appeal to the former, but would certainly intrigue believers willing to think about their belief). It is Saving God: Religion After Idolatry (Princeton University Press), by the Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston. This book demolishes, with far greater precision and elegance than anything by Richard Dawkins.— James Wood
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Saving God is a rich and provocative book. . . . I found Saving God to be original, complex and insightful. However one reacts to Johnston's naturalistic reinterpretation of Christianity and the other monotheisms, one may still applaud his rejection of idolatrous uses of religion to serve human ends.— Lynne Rudder Baker
Jewish Review of Books
This witty and philosophically subtle book is . . . very Maimonidean in its thoroughgoing rejection of superstition and idolatry as an offense to true religion.— Menachem Kellner
Choice
This accessible, sophisticated, and thoughtful work will be an important addition to collections of both philosophy and theology.National Interest
Outstanding.— Alan Wolfe
Australian Book Review
[A]n astonishing book. . . . [A] daring blend of human depth and philosophical originality.— Tony Coady
Commonweal
Surviving Death and Saving God both provided me with intellectual pleasure of a high order, even though I found many of the author's conclusions false and some morally repugnant. Johnston is the kind of atheist it's good for Christians to read, because he is intelligent, intellectually energetic, and serious about what he engages, and because he shows very clearly just where fastidiousness leads.— Paul J. Griffiths
Philosophy in Review
Saving God: Religion after Idolatry is a brilliant book: erudite, intriguing and inventive. Anyone interested in the concept of God and the relationship between religion and naturalism will want to read it.— Allen Stairs