The Existence of God and the Faith-Instinct by Howard P. Kainz (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 485 exposition of the main arguments and analyzing the significance of almost all Blondel’s works, generally solicitous to use as much of his language and vocabulary as possible (in fact, those familiar with Blondel’s works will recognize that certain passages from his writings have been only lightly paraphrased for inclusion in the book). Yet the book not only examines Blondel’s philosophical ideas, it examines these ideas in the context of his life. Thanks to what he has learned from Blondel’s personal correspondence and journals, but most importantly from Mlle. Panis, Blanchette is able fill in the biographical and historical context in which Blondel wrote his various works. Blanchette observes that his book “is in many ways the story of Blondel’s life as told by Blondel himself to Mlle. Panis during these many years of working together on a personal as well as an intellectual level” (ibid.). Maurice Blondel: A Philosophical Life certainly stands as a milestone in Blondel scholarship. There is nothing comparable in scope and erudition. It allows one to view Blondel’s long career in its entirety. It will help clear up various misconceptions about the man whose intellectual life was often marked by battles on two fronts. Most importantly, it will help introduce people to “a religious man who had to think his religious life philosophically,” a man who at the same time was “a philosopher for whom religion, even in its supernatural aspect, had to be seen as a necessary part, not only of human life itself, but also of philosophical reflection on that life” (1). JAMES LE GRYS United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Washington, D.C. The Existence of God and the Faith-Instinct. By HOWARD P. KAINZ. Cranbury, N.J.: Susquehanna University Press, 2010. Pp. 152. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-1-57591-143-4. For Catholics at least, proofs for the existence of God entail a paradox. In its decree Dei Filius (1870), the First Vatican Council decreed as a matter of faith that the existence of God could be proved by reason: “If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason, let him be anathema” (DS 3026; emphases added). At first glance, one would think that if God’s existence can really be proved by reason operating on its own resources, then the task at hand for the council fathers would be, not to order the faithful (on pain of excommunication!) to believe that God’s existence can be proved by reason, but to provide the demonstration—and then let the individual reasoner BOOK REVIEWS 486 find that proof convincing by his own powers of reason, such as they are. Catholics, after all, don’t “believe” the Pythagorean theorem; like everyone else, they either see or don’t see its entailment from prior agreed-upon Euclidian axioms, with no bearing on their salvation one way or the other. But of course the bishops of Vatican I were not trying to define what specific proof(s) might avail with any particular reasoner; nor were they adjudicating the various proposed demonstrations then being mooted in the nineteenth century. Rather, they were insisting, against the so-called fideists, that faith in God is eminently rational. Scripture too—it ought to go without saying—teaches the same (Rom 1:20). So the paradox is not in fact of purely Catholic provenance but is located in the Bible: revelation tells us that we can rely on reason to bring us to an acknowledgment of God’s existence, however inchoate our initial idea of that “God of reason” might be. Of course this is not to say that proofs for God’s existence by strict logical entailment will do much good psychologically, especially for those who do not already have the gift of faith. As Blaise Pascal pointed out: “The metaphysical proofs of God are so far removed from man’s reasoning, and so complicated, that they have little force. When they do help some people, it is only at the moment when they see the demonstration. An...