A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc FerryMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ferry is an insightful and honest philosopher who sees the beauty of Christianity while remaining an atheist. He realizes that the most important question in philosophy concerns human salvation. He acknowledges the debt of the world to the Greeks and especially to Christianity and its commitment to equality based in humankind made in the image of God. He notes how the Enlightenment undermined confidence in religious authority and made man the center giving us secular humanism.
Then came Nietzsche and the postmodern, which declared the death of God and smashed confidence in human reason and science. Nietzsche replaced the "idols" of Christianity and humanism with power and the deconstruction of power. But Ferry understands that even Nietzsche couldn't live consistently with materialism because he couldn't resist value judgments and denunciations.
This leads Ferry to abandon materialism and propose a humanism without transcendence or a transcendence within immanence. This is where Ferry is the least convincing. How can you salvage transcendence if there's nothing "above our heads?" He tries to say that since death will separate us from our loved ones we must keep our relationships in good repair. Fair enough, but I'm not sure how this recaptures transcendence in anyway that can account for our value judgments.
He admits that his version of transcendence is "small beer" compared to Christianity, which teaches that salvation means victory over death through the resurrection and an everlasting life of love with God and other humans. He says he prefers Christianity over every other doctrine of salvation but can't bring himself to believe. Ferry quotes Pascal approvingly but doesn't take his wager seriously.
Pascal says if you want to believe then wager that he is, and do the things that lead to faith like attending divine worship, prayer, and reading Scripture. Ferry also dismisses the argument for God's existence from human desire. He says the fact that we want to believe something is not evidence for its existence but shows the likelihood that we will make it up. But as C. S. Lewis pointed out, the presence of a desire is "usually" evidence for the thing that fulfills that desire. We long for beauty and there are beautiful things that satisfy that desire. Plus if we are nothing more than chemical circuitry then why do we "rage against the dying of light?" If we're temporary why do we fear death and long for the eternal? I recommend reading Tim Keller's Making Sense of God along with A Brief History of Thought. Both are great but Keller rings truer.
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