The Case for God

by Karen Armstrong

  3. Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 114, 152: S. L. Schein, The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer’s Iliad (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1984), pp. 57–58.

  4. George Steiner, introduction to Is Science Nearing Its Limits? Conference Convened by George Steiner (Manchester, U.K., 2008), p. xvi.

  5. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 129–43; Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind, pp. 20–21; Charles Freeman, The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World (New York and London, 1999), pp. 154–55; Gottlieb, Dream of Reason, pp. 51–64; Vernant, Myth and Society, pp. 98–99; Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 310–11.

  6. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 242–89; Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind, pp. 21–22; Freeman, Greek Achievement, pp. 105–6.

  7. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 81–89; Gottlieb, Dream of Reason, pp. 23–40; Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 200–304.

  8. Gottlieb, Dream of Reason, pp. 123–25, 138–40; Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 134–35, 200.

  9. Walter Burket, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1986), pp. 7–9.

  10. Robert Parker, Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford and New York, 1996), pp. 97–100; Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, pp. 7–95; Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1983), pp. 248–97.

  11. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, p. 78.

  12. Demetrius, On Style 101, ibid., p. 79.

  13. Aristotle, fragment 15, ibid., p. 89.

  14. Dio of Prusa, Oration 12.33, ibid., pp. 89–90.

  15. Plutarch, fragment 168, ibid., pp. 91–92.

  16. Ibid., p. 90.

  17. Cited ibid., p. 114.

  18. Xenophanes B.14, B.12, B.15 in Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 95.

  19. Xenophanes B.23, B.26, B.25, ibid., pp. 95, 97.

  20. Protagoras, fragment 4, in Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind, p. 28.

  21. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 177–84 in Aeschylus: The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles (Harmondsworth, U.K., 1976).

  22. Euripides, Trojan Women 884–88 in John Davie, trans. and ed., Euripides: Electra and Other Plays (London and New York, 1998).

  23. Euripides, fragment 1018, in Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 319.

  24. Plato, Phaedrus 274e—275b. All quotations from Phaedrus are from “Phaedrus,” trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, in John M. Cooper, ed., Plato: The Complete Works (Indianapolis, 1997).

  25. Plato, Phaedrus 275d—e.

  26. Plato, Phaedrus 276e—277a.

  27. Plato, Apology 21 d. All quotations from the Apology are taken from “Apology,” trans. G. M. A. Grube, in Cooper, Plato.

  28. Plato, Phaedo 96a. All quotations from Phaedo are taken from “Phaedo,” trans. G. M. A. Grube, in Cooper, Plato.

  29. Plato, Phaedo 98b—d.

  30. Plato, Phaedo 98e—99a.

  31. Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, intro. and ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase (Oxford, 1995).

  32. Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.4.10, cited in Hadot, Philosophy, p. 23.

  33. P. Friedlander, Plato—an Introduction, 2 vols., trans. H. Meyenhoff (Princeton, N.J., 1969), 1:53.

  34. Plato, Symposium 175b. All quotations from the Symposium are taken from “Symposium,” trans. Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff, in Cooper, Plato.

  35. Plato, Symposium 220c.

  36. Plato, “Laches” 187e—188a in “Laches,” trans. Rosamund Kent Sprague, in Cooper, Plato.

  37. Plato, Apology 38a.

  38. Plato, Apology 30e—31 c, 29d, 31 b, 36c.

  39. Hadot, Philosophy, pp. 152–70.

  40. Ibid., pp. 91–93.

  41. Plato, Meno 75c—d in “Meno,” trans. G. M. A. Grube, in Cooper, Plato; my italics.

  42. Plato, Theatetus 149a.

  43. Plato, Symposium 211a.

  44. Plato, Symposium 211b.

  45. Plato, Symposium 212a.

  46. Plato, Symposium 212a—b.

  47. Plato, Symposium 216a.

  48. Plato, Symposium 216e—217a.

  49. Hadot, Philosophy, pp. 56–59.

  50. Plato, Apology 36c.

  51. Huston Smith, “Western Philosophy as a Great Religion,” in Essays on World Religion, pp. 215–16; Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (London, 1952), p. 77.

  52. Hadot, Philosophy, pp. 94–96; Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind, pp. 4–54; Bernard Williams, “Plato: The Invention of Philosophy,” in Frederic Raphael and Ray Monk, eds., The Great Philosophers (London, 2000), pp. 41–75; Gottlieb, Dream of Reason, pp. 169–219; Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 321–23.

  53. Plato, Phaedo 67e.

  54. Plato, The Republic 486a. Quotations from The Republic are taken from “The Republic,” trans. G. M. A. Grube and C. D. C. Reeve, in Cooper, Plato.

  55. Plato, The Republic 485d—486e.

  56. Plato, The Republic, 571b—d.

  57. Mark A. McIntosh, Mystical Theology, The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology (Oxford, 1998), p. 70.

  58. Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J., 1954), pp. 34–35.

  59. Plato, Phaedrus 250b.

  60. Plato, Seventh Letter 344, in Walter Hamilton, trans., Plato: Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII (London, 1973).

  61. Plato, Seventh Letter 341.

  62. Plato, The Republic, 504d—509d.

  63. Plato, The Laws 716bc in “The Laws,” trans. Trevor J. Saunders, in Cooper, Plato; my italics.

  64. Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 333–34.

  65. Plato, The Laws 907d, 909d.

  66. Plato, Timaeus 28c in “Timaeus,” trans. Donald J. Zeyl, in Cooper, Plato.

  67. Plato, Timaeus 90a.

  68. Hadot, Philosophy, pp. 29, 68.

  69. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 1178a. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Aristotle’s works are taken from Richard McKeon, ed. and trans., The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York, 2001); italics in original.

  70. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 1177b.

  71. Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals 645a.

  72. Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 331.

  73. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1072, 20–30; italics in original.

  74. Hadot, Philosophy, pp. 60–65.

  75. Freeman, Greek Achievement, pp. 362–65.

  76. Gottlieb, Dream of Reason, pp. 283–345; Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind, pp. 73–85; Hadot, Philosophy, pp. 57–60, 80–89, 103–4.

  77. Epicurus, letter to Pythoclus 85 in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedely, The Hellenistic Philosophers: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary, 2 vols., (Cambridge, U.K., 1987), 1:91–92.

  78. Epicurus, Letter to Menoecius 125, ibid., 1:149–50.

  79. Hadot, Philosophy, p. 266.

  80. Proverbs 8:30–31.

  81. Ben Sirah 24:3–6.

  82. The Wisdom of Solomon 7:25–26.

  83. Philo, The Special Laws 1.43.

  FOUR Faith

  1. Douglas Harman Akenson, Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (New York, San Diego, and London, 1998), pp. 19–209.

  2. Ibid., pp. 319–25.

  3. B. Shabbat 31a in A. Cohen, ed., Everyman’s Talmud (New York, 1975), p. 65. Some authorities attribute this story to another rabbi.

  4. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan I. N, 11a in C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, eds., A Rabbinic Anthology (New York, 1976), pp. 430–31.

  5. Sifra on Leviticus 19:11 in Samuel Belkin, In His Image: The Jewish Philosophy of Man as Expressed in Rabbinic Tradition (London, 1960), p. 241.

  6. Genesis 5:1 in Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, p. xl.

  7. Mekhilta on Exodus 20.13 in Belkin, In His Image, p. 50.

  8. B. Sanhedrin 4:5.

  9. Baba Metziah 58b.

  10. Arakim 15b.

  11. M. Avoth 6:1; Michael Fishbane, The G
arments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989), p. 77.

  12. M. Pirke Avoth 3:3 in Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, p. 23.

  13. J. Hagigah 2.1.

  14. Midrash Rabbah 1.10.2 in Gerald Bruns, “Midrash and Allegory: The Beginnings of Scriptural Interpretation,” in Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, eds., The Literary Guide to the Bible (London, 1987), p. 627.

  15. Matthew 5:39–48; 26:53; Luke 22:34.

  16. 1 Corinthians 15:3–8.

  17. Acts 4:32–5; Matthew 5:3–12; Luke 6:20–23; Matthew 5:38–48; Luke 6:27–38; Romans 12:9–13, 14; 1 Corinthians 6:7; Akenson, Surpassing Wonder, p. 102; Paula Fredricksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (London, 2000), p. 243.

  18. Matthew 5:17–19; Luke 16:17; 23:56; Galatians 2:11–12.

  19. Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31; see Romans 13:10.

  20. Acts 2:1–13.

  21. Acts 8:1, 18; 9:2; 11:19.

  22. Isaiah 2:2–3; Zephaniah 3:9; Tobit 14:6; Zechariah 8:23.

  23. Romans 8:9; Galatians 4:16; Fredricksen, Jesus, pp. 133–35.

  24. i Corinthians 1:22.

  25. Mark 13:14; Daniel 9:27.

  26. Mark 11:15–19; Isaiah 56:7; Jeremiah 7:11.

  27. Matthew 18:20.

  28. I have discussed this more fully in The Bible: A Biography (London, 2007), pp. 55–78.

  29. Luke is traditionally held to be a gentile, but there is no hard evidence for this, and his gospel gives a more positive account of Judaism than any of the others.

  30. Luke 24:13–35; Julia Galambush, The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (San Francisco, 2005), pp. 67–68; Gabriel Josipovici, “The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles,” in Alter and Kermode, The Literary Guide to the Bible, pp. 506–7.

  31. Philippians 2:6–11.

  32. Philippians 2:2–4.

  33. Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1; see Romans 8:14–17; Galatians 4:4–7.

  34. Matthew 7:11.

  35. Mark 6:3.

  36. Mark 6:4; see Luke 24:19.

  37. Romans 1:4.

  38. Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; see Psalm 2:7.

  39. Matthew 17:5.

  40. See, for example, Luke 8:25; Matthew 8:10; 13:58; 15:28.

  41. Mark 9:24–25.

  42. This has been explored exhaustively by Wilfred Cantwell Smith in Belief and History (Charlottesville, Va., 1977) and Faith and Belief (Princeton, N.J., 1979), and I rely greatly on his thesis in these pages.

  43. Mark 11:22–23.

  44. Oxford English Dictionary, 1888; Smith, Belief in History, p. 110.

  45. Smith, Belief in History, pp. 41–44.

  46. All’s Well That Ends Well, act 2, scene 3, line 59.

  47. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London, 1993), pp. 133–68; Fredricksen, Jesus, pp. 110–17; John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (San Francisco, 1998), pp. 302–4.

  48. Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London, 1973), pp. 69–78.

  49. Matthew 17:20.

  50. Mark 1.44; 8:26; 7:36.

  51. Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4.

  52. Luke 7:11–17; see 1 Kings 17:9, 17–24.

  53. Mark 6:52.

  54. Matthew 14:33.

  55. Matthew 14:27–31; 16:21–33; 26:46.

  56. Matthew 12:28; Luke 10:17.

  57. Deuteronomy 30:12.

  58. Baba Metziah 59b in Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, pp. 340–41.

  59. Fishbane, Garments of Torah, pp. 64–65.

  60. B. Menahoth 29b.

  61. Midrash Rabbah on Numbers 19:6, in Bruns, “Midrash and Allegory,” p. 632.

  62. Eliyahu Zatta 2.

  63. Bruns, “Midrash and Allegory,” p. 629.

  64. Fishbane, Garments of Torah, p. 37.

  65. Ibid., pp. 22–32.

  66. Jacob Neusner, Medium and Message in Judaism (Atlanta, 1989), p. 3; Jacob Neusner, “The Mishnah in Philosophical Context and Out of Canonical Bounds,” Journal of Biblical Literature II (Summer 1993); Akenson, Surpassing Wonder, pp. 305–20.

  67. Louis Jacobs, The Talmudic Argument: A Study in Talmudic Reasoning and Methodology (Cambridge, U.K., 1983), pp. 20–23, 203–13.

  68. B. Baba Batara 12a.

  69. Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages (New York, 2005), pp. 67–68.

  70. Akenson, Surpassing Wonder, p. 379.

  71. B. Qedoshim 49b; Smith, What Is Scripture? A Comparative Approach (London, 1993), pp. 116–17.

  72. John 1:1.

  73. Origen, On First Principles 4.2.9, in G. W. Butterworth, trans., Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester, Mass., 1973).

  74. Origen, On First Principles 4.2.7.

  75. Origen, (On First Principles 4.1.6.

  76. Origen, On First Principles preface, 8.

  77. Mark A. McIntosh, Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology (Oxford, 1998), pp. 42–43.

  78. Origen, commentary on John 6:1, in R. R. Reno, “Origen,” in Justin S. Holcomb, ed., Christian Theologies of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction (New York and London, 2006), p. 28.

  79. Smith, What Is Scripture?, p. 19.

  80. F. L. Cross, ed. and trans., St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Lectures on the Christian Sacraments: The Procatechesis and the Five Mystagogical Cathecheses (London, 1951).

  81. John Meyendorff, “Eastern Liturgical Theology,” in Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff, eds., Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century (London, 1986), pp. 353–56.

  82. Mystagogical Cathechesis 3:1. Cross translation.

  83. Theodore, Ad Baptizandos, Homily 13:14 in Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief (Princeton, N.J., 1979), p. 259.

  84. Smith, Faith and Belief, pp. 37–47.

  85. The Message of the Qur’an, trans. Muhammad Asad (Gibraltar, 1980), 3:64–68; 10:36;41:23.

  86. Qur’an 92:18; 9:103; 63:9; 102:1.

  87. Qur’an 90:13–20.

  88. Toshiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur’an (Montreal and Kingston, Ont., 2002), pp. 127–57.

  89. Qur’an 29:61–63; 2:89; 27:14.

  90. Qur’an 7:75–76; 39:59; 31:17–18; 23:4547; 38:71–75.

  91. Qur’an 15:94–96; 21:36; 18:106; 40:4–5; 68:56; 22:8–9.

  92. Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts, pp. 28–45.

  93. Ibid., 68–69; Qur’an 14:47; 39:37; 15:79; 30:47; 44:16.

  94. Qur’an 25:63.

  95. Qur’an 2:89; 16:33; 27:14; 2:34; 2:146. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford, 1953), p. 68.

  96. Qur’an 3:84.

  97. Qur’an 12:11; 5:69.

  98. Qur’an 5:48.

  99. Qur’an 24:35.

  100. Qur’an 29:46.

  101. Qur’an, 22:36–40; 2:190.

  102. I have discussed this at length in my biography Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (London and New York, 2006), pp. 163–80.

  FIVE Silence

  1. Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks 4.63.6; Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols. (Chicago and London, 1971–89), 1:36.

  2. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 30.9.

  3. John 1.14.

  4. John 1.3.

  5. John 1.1.

  6. Proverbs 8:22.

  7. Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism—a View of Salvation (London, 1981), pp. 20–28.

  8. G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London, 1952), pp. 146–56, 197–223; Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1:194–210; Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism; Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London, 1987); Andrew Louth, The Origins of Christian Mysticism: From Plato to Denys (Oxford, 1981), pp. 76–77.

  9. David Christie Murray, A History of Heresy (Oxford and New York, 1976), p. 46.
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  10. John Meyendorff, “Eastern Liturgical Theology,” in Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff, eds., Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century (London, 1986), p. 354.

  11. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1:200.

  12. Arius, Epistle to Alexander 2; Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1:194.

  13. Athanasius, On the Decrees of the Synod of Nicaea 8.1; Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1:195.

  14. Athanasius, Against the Arians 2.23–24.

  15. Ralph Norman, “Rediscovery of Mysticism,” in Gareth Jones, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology (Oxford, 2004), pp. 456–58.

  16. Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.18 in W. G. Rusch, ed., The Trinitarian Controversy (Philadelphia, 1980), p. 78.

  17. Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.28, ibid., p. 84.

  18. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54; Louth, Origins of Christian Mysticism, p. 78.

  19. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1:201–4.

  20. The so-called Nicene Creed was not written at Nicaea but at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

  21. Maximus, Ambigua 42 in Andrew Louth, trans., Maximus the Confessor (London, 1996).

  22. Maximus, Ambigua 5.

  23. Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, intro. and ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase (Oxford, 1995), pp. 129–32.

  24. Kallistos Ware, “Ways of Prayer and Contemplation: Eastern,” in McGinn and Meyendorff, Christian Spirituality, pp. 395–401.

  25. Evagrius, On Prayer 67, 71 in G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware, eds. and trans., The Philokalia (London, 1979).

  26. Evagrius, On Prayer 120.

  27. A. J. Moore, Fifty Spiritual Homilies of St Macarius the Egyptian (London, 1921), pp. 116, 122.

  28. Louis Bouyer, “Mysticism: An Essay on the History of the Word,” in Richard Woods, ed., Understanding Mysticism (New York, 1980), pp. 42–44.

  29. Sarah Coakley, ed., Rethinking Gregory of Nyssa (Oxford, 2003); Louth, Origins of Christian Mysticism, pp. 80–95.

  30. Gregory, Commentary on the Song of Songs 12.1037, trans. C. McCambley (Brookline, Mass., 1987).

  31. Gregory, Commentary on the Song of Songs 11.1000–1001.

  32. Gregory, The Life of Moses 2.24, trans. A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (New York, 1978).

  33. Gregory, The Life of Moses 2.165.

  34. John 1.1; Basil, On the Holy Spirit, ed. and trans. C. F. H. Johnston (Oxford, 1892), pp. 8–9.