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 PrintableVersion Faith lost: faith regainedRediscovering a transforming Christian beliefToo many reductions?FAITH LOST: FAITH REGAINED This book, written by a respected Reformation scholar, has three parts. Part One seeks to provide an analysis of modern thought from the Renaissance to the present day. It consists of a survey of the transition from the medieval to the modern mind by considering the rise of reason and modern science, culminating in the 18th century enlightenment and current secularisation. Part Two offers an account of the problems this period of human history caused for Christian faith and Atkinson responds to modernity’s distaste for the supernatural. Surfacing clearly here is a repeated argument of the book: modernity has attempted to provide a coherent basis for knowledge by prioritising reason within a scientific framework yet this is a form of reductionism which cannot account for all aspects of human knowing, such as aesthetics. This point is well taken. However, despite re-reading many times, I could not work out exactly what I thought of the following section (pages126-148), where Atkinson argues for how the aesthetic mode of human experience opens the mind to the possibility of a religious dimension to life. His argument ironically borders on a form of reductionism itself by suggesting that religious epistemology is most like the experience of music, literature, poetry and art than other forms of knowing. He does not really deal with postmodernity at all and this would be necessary to give a proper account of how the openings aesthetics clearly have given to religion are not value neutral and in contemporary society encourage use of crystals as much as a reading of John’s Gospel. The issue for us today is not so much the credibility of religious experience as the exclusivity of Christian faith and these kinds of issues are not really dealt with. Part Three is Atkinson’s argument for a way out of liberalism’s capitulation to modernity by outlining the shape and content of biblically grounded Christian orthodoxy. This section suggests that the greatest need for moderns is to be presented with a clear understanding of the person of Christ and both here and throughout the whole book Atkinson argues for the credibility of taking what Scripture says about Jesus to be truthful and reliable. Love for ChristI have to confess that this was a slightly odd book to read and review and I can’t help wondering if the little known publisher reflects the fact that this noted academic was branching out from the norm in his writing pursuits? It reveals an astonishing breadth of knowledge across a vast range of intellectual disciplines and yet learned and very helpful treatment of these topics is intermingled at certain points with a curious style of direct address to the reader in the second person (on one occasion we are exhorted to stay with him because the time it takes to read the book is only the time it would take to go to the theatre and the book could change our entire lives). One paragraph sparkles with clear biblical insight; another requires re-reading a few times to see the main point. The book is a cross between an impassioned, highly personal plea and an exercise in potted intellectual history. Atkinson’s love for Christ is heart-warming and exemplary and he offers a number of really excellent ripostes to liberal modernity. Overall, his analysis is probably too simplistic in defining the modern period as a rejection of the Christian view of God and revelation; it does not say enough about the corresponding rejection of the Christian view of humanity and redemption. The discussion focuses too much on epistemology and not enough on reconciliation. Don Carson’s The Gagging of God or David Wells’s Above all Earthly Pow’rs will prove substantially more helpful in all of the areas that this book deals with. David Gibson,
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