Book Review

Incomparable - Andrew Wilson

(Kingsway ISBN 978 184291 281 2)

Exploring the character of God.

This book has been getting plugged pretty regularly on the web, in the Christian press and during conferences recently. I was recently at a conference and it sold out, which was quite handy as I found it with free p&p on the Internet quite a bit cheaper (credit crunch, watching the pennies and all that..) I have only just read the very short introduction and a few of the very brief chapters and so far have been pretty impressed. It is a very accessible theology book which is written in a very easy to read style which you can either dip into or follow the chapters through. Will post back when I have finished it(might be some time!)

Here is a taster from the first chapter:

"...lots of people believe that non-belief in God is the default view, and science has removed the need to add God into the picture. People take it for granted that God doesn't exist, and if you say he does, they will want you to prove it scientifically. If you ask them to prove scientifically what they believe, of course, they are very unlikely to be able to - but, mostly, they will not see this as a problem, because the majority agree with them.

There are two problems with this. One, the majority is often dangerously wrong. The majority of German officers in the 1930's agreed with persecuting Jews; the majority of nineteenth- century Europeans thought black people were second class citizens; the majority of medieval scientists thought the world was flat. But also, lots of beliefs we hold - often, the most important ones! - are just not provable scientifically.

Take the statement.... 'does my daughter love me'? How can that very important statement ever be proved? The fact is, we believe things because they help us make sense of the world as we see it, not because some outside authority(like scientific proof) says that they are true. So the real question is: how does belief or non-belief in God make sense of the world around us?

You can buy it at http://www.kingsway.co.uk/