Thinking About Religion: A Philosophical Introduction to Religion by Richard Purtill (review)

316 BOOK REVIEWS Thinking About Religion: A Philosophical Introduction to Religion. By R1cHARD PURTILL. Englewood Cliffs, N. Y.: Prentice-Hall, 1978. Pp. 175. Richard Purtill's Thinking About Religion leaves the reader without the slightest doubt concerning its thrust. He attempts to defend, with the strongest arguments and best methods of justification, the crucial beliefs of Christian religion. Reacting to a current climate of everyday religious opinion which he perceives as"... a generally more emotional and less intellectual approach to religion in recent generations .. ," (p. xi) , his book is a challenge not only to skeptics but to believers who would hold that religious beliefs are not subject to rational scrutiny and who are wary of entertaining arguments offered by the agnostic or atheist. The book is especially directed towards students whose perplexity leads to the position that religious belief is, finally, an irrational " leap of faith." Purtill indicates that these students "need to understand why anyone holds any religious belief and to consider whether there are grounds for holding one set of religious beliefs rather than another" (p. xii). Therefore, I believe the central question which implicitly unifies his entire book is the following: "Is it 1·easonable to believe in God and an afterlife?", where "reasonable" suggests an appeal to proof, justification, reasoning, and evidence. His answer is an unqualified "yes." But the reader should not conclude that Purtill's text is merely an exercise in proselytizing. The structure of discussion in each chapter is always dialectical. Positions are met with objections; objections are met with counter-objections. Purtill attempts to be as fair as possible to each aspect of a dispute. Although Purtill indicates that his book covers " a somewhat different range of material than the usual introductory book " (p. xi) in either "Philosophy of Religion" or "Introduction to Religion," the range of topics is, for the most part, still rather standard. After an introductory chapter which describes " Religion Today " and " Why don't we believe anymore ...?," there are chapters on the problem of evil, arguments for the existence of God, miracles, the historical nature of the Bible, and life after death. Those topics discussed which Purtill conceives of as " different " from the normal range of material are, I suppose, those considered in chapters on eastern religion and " mysticism and drugs," chapters which, '.I might add, are the weakest parts of the book. There is little discussion of such standard topics as the nature of religious langauge and the relationship between faith and reason. As with Purtill's former book, Thinking About Ethics, each chapter begins with a story or parable " designed to arouse student interest and to raise questions which lead into the discussion of the topic of the chapter " BOOK REVIEWS 817 (p. xii) . I found these introductory parables for the most part satisfactory, and I do think that they might provide a helpful teaching instrument; but at least two of these stories reflected a lack of balance which would conflict with the pedagogical intentions of the author. The story introducing the chapter entitled " Knowledge of God: ls God Really Dead? " presents the " Death of God " theologian as a modish immature young man who could not stand up to a devastating attack authored by a more experienced critic, leaving the student with little doubt about who " won " the intellectual skirmish, while the story introducing the chapter on eastern religion is almost a parody of helpless young souls who mindlessly embrace a foreign tradition. While I cannot discuss the entire range of topics treated by Purtill, I will consider the two topics examined at greatest length by Purtill (he spends two chapters apiece on each) : the existence of God and life after death. He indicates that " Historically this describes the central core of belief in the two major Western religions, Judaism and Christianity, and in the Near Eastern religion which most resembles them, Islam" {p. 12-18). Additionally, I found Purtill's discussion of each topic to be the most interesting parts of his book. The introductory chapter provides a solid foundation for the later discussions . In a clear and nontechnical style (which is characteristic of the entire book) , Purtill wonders "Why Don't We Believe Anymore...