Does God Exist?

...For what beforehand is not subject to proof of our experience . . . I experience in the act of trust itself...

...Hence, our difficulty can be properly understood and responded to only when analyzed within the matrix...

...The problem of theism and atheism is not simply that of a set of abstract questions and answers which would occur to any reflective human being...

...Ku'ng's fundamental trust is not some sort of fideism or irrationalism, but rather, as he writes: If I in a consistent manner do not close myself to reality...

...He states: Nihilism is possible...

...This fundamental trust is first given in the meaningfulness of reality, thereby turning away from Nietzschean nihilism...

...Most major American Commonweal: 626 publishing houses have long since produced non- sexist language guidelines which reject such usage...

...However, in Ku'ng the reader has a guide not only of complete integrity, but also of extraordinary breadth and depth of knowledge and great clarity of expression...

...With Ku'ng, everyone must struggle, constantly, for her or his own answers...

...At the same time Ku'ng takes Nietzsche seriously (Ku'ng is obviously very partial toward Nietzsche and devotes over eighty pages directly to his thought) and also the fundamental option of nihilism...

...The introduction tells us Ku'ng's answer to the question, Does God exist...

...There follows a critique of those portions of the subject's thought that Kung finds unsatisfactory, and why...

...It is even at least possible that this human life is ultimately meaningless, that accident, a blind fate, chaos, absurdity and illusion rules the world, that everything ultimately is ambiguous, meaningless, worthless, nothing . . . [but Ku'ng adds that ] nihilism is not provable...

...One of the great strengths of Ku'ng's book is the clarity and flowing style he attains (at the pain of an immense amount of labor...

...As with the meaningfulness of reality, one affirms the existence of God by a free act of reasonable trust and in the very act itself perceives "that I am doing the right thing, indeed at bottom 'the most rational thing...

...Ku'ng admirably provides that necessary setting and within it proceeds masterfully to the analysis of the thinker's ideas...

...with the constant sexist translation of the unobjeetionably generic Mensch by the objectionably generic "man...

...Nihilism is not disprovable...

...There is no necessarily convincing argument against the possibility of nihilism...

...Why, oh why, does the Vatican attack him now...

...Here is intellectual history at its best...

...No, it is clear that Ku'ng has taken atheism and nihilism utterly seriously, has said yes to many of their claims, has contemplated the abysses to which they point as real human options...

...God's existence can be neither proved nor disproved, but "the no to God means an ultimately ungrounded basic trust in reality...

...Ku'ng finds Feuerbach's atheistic analysis the more fundamental of the two by far...

...The arguments for and against the existence of God are dealt with in similar fashion...

...7 November 1980: 627...

...Leonard Swidler but by no means uncritically...

...After providing the overall setting for each and as sympathetic a presentation from within as possible, Kung proceeds with an analysis which states clearly and fearlessly the positive elements of appreciation for his subject's position...

...is to date Kiing's best and most helpful book...

...His translator Edward Quinn is to be congratulated for his fluent English translation, but he is to be severely criticized for unwarrantedly burdening Does God Exist...

...For some the experience of reading this book might be scary as hell, for they will learn there are no easy, once and for all answers to the final questions of human existence...

...Kung spends a good deal of time analyzing Hegel's thought (for which he is amply prepared, having written a 704page book on Hegel— Menschwerdung Gottes, Herder, 1970) because it was so transformative of the notion of God and because this God concept provided the basis for Feuerbach's and Marx's modern presentation of atheism...

...The book analyzes thoroughly and sympathetically many of the pertinent thinkers from Descartes to the present...

...Books: TAKING ATHEISM SERIOUSLY THIS is a passionate book, passionately researched, reasoned, and almost reckless in its daring to probe ultimate questions for their ultimate consequences, whatever they might be...

...AN ANSWER FOR TODAY Hans Kung Translated by Edward Quinn Doubleday, $17.50, 839 pp...

...As noted, each thinker is taken seriously and understood sympathetically, DOES GOD EXIST...

...Whoever denies God does not know why ultimately he trusts reality...

...Along with Bernard Haring, I would say that Does God Exist...

...That leads Kung to his basic notion in this whole problematic: fundamental trust...

...The pervasive questionableness of reality itself makes nihilism possible...

...even Freud's psychological projection theory was basically anticipated by Feuerbach...

...A firm ' 'yes.'' But the reader discovers that this answer was not a pat solution known beforehand, so that the charade of the arguments for and against could be run through with great show but no risk...

...There is no rational argument for the necessity of accepting nihilism...

...For Western humanity the problem is something that grew up in a particular historical, social, and ideological context that both brought it into existence and gave it the particular shape it has...

...The reader comes to understand the thought of the thinker from within—but more, comes to know something of the person of the thinker...

...I will thus perceive—neither before, nor only afterwards, but in the very act itself—that I am doing the right thing, indeed, "the most rational" thing...

...In the end, Ku'ng grants that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated in a rationally compelling way, but also insists that the arguments against the existence of God cannot be rationally demonstrated either...