Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan

In this passionate and searching book, Anthony Kronman offers a third way-beyond atheism and religion-to the God of the modern world "An astonishing, . . . epically ambitious book. . . . An intellectual adventure story based on the notion that ideas drive history, and that to dedicate yourself to them is to live a bigger, more intense life."-David Brooks, New York Times We live in an age of disenchantment. The number of self-professed "atheists" continues to grow. Yet many still feel an intense spiritual longing for a connection to what Aristotle called the "eternal and divine." For those who do, but demand a God that is compatible with their modern ideals, a new theology is required. This is what Anthony Kronman offers here, in a book that leads its readers away from the inscrutable Creator of the Abrahamic religions toward a God whose inexhaustible and everlasting presence is that of the world itself. Kronman defends an ancient conception of God, deepened and transformed by Christian belief-the born-again paganism on which modern science, art, and politics all vitally depend. Brilliantly surveying centuries of Western thought-from Plato to Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant, from Spinoza to Nietzsche, Darwin, and Freud-Kronman recovers and reclaims the God we need today.