I just finished reading the above-titled novel by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. If I were still teaching undergraduates, I would immediately adopt it for … well any of my courses, I suppose. It’s witty, intelligent, and addresses interesting questions.

It’s worth it, if only for the appendix (which lists the 36 arguments for the existence of God and offers refutations for them).

If I get a chance, I might write more about this, but I’m taken, not only by the arguments, but by the story, which in the end seems to argue for the existence of God, or, if not for the existence of God, then for the reality of religious experience and for the significance of religious community and religious tradition.

It’s been many years since I’ve read the novels of Chaim Potok (The Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev), but as I was reading 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, I felt I had traversed this journey before, changed only by the cultural changes of the last forty years.

I’m not a philosopher, never have been one, but I taught several times Intro to Philosophy and dealt with arguments for the existence of God both in my training and in my teaching. While I don’t find philosophical arguments convincing for faith, I do find them, as Newberger Goldstein has her main character argue, a helpful rationalization for those whose faith precedes philosophical argument, and for whom philosophical argument helps give them rational arguments for their faith.

And the Cambridge stuff was just fun!