In direct contrast to recent philosophical quarrels about the existence and nature of God, and human relationships with the divine, Kenny, a former Roman Catholic Priest and Master of Balliol College, Oxford, asks a few simple and startling questions: Is it possible, as humans, to prove the existence of God? Are such efforts merely exercises in painting God with an anthropomorphic image? In this collection of essays written over the last 15 years, Kenny describes how limited literal descriptions of God are, given the limits of theology and philosophy, and compares the efforts of poets working within agnosticism, Arthur Hugh Clough and Matthew Arnold. His final essays compare the thought of John Henry Newman with that of Leslie Stephen and explore the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein on the mind. ~ Book News

Table of Contents

• • Introduction    1
  • 1    The Ineffable Godhead    7
  • 2    Anselm on the Conceivability of God    25
  • 3    Metaphor, Analogy and Agnosticism    34
  • 4    God and Mind    46
  • 5    The Limits of Anthropomorphism    62
  • 6    The Problem of Evil and the Argument from Design    81
  • 7    Faith, Pride and Humility    101
  • 8    Two Agnostic Poets: Arthur Hugh Clough and Matthew Arnold    110
  • 9    John Henry Newman on the Justification of Faith    125
  • 10    Leslie Stephen and the Mountains of Truth    155
  • 11    Wittgenstein on Mind and Metaphysics    179
  • 12    Wittgenstein on Life, Death and Religion    197
  • Index    217