Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World

we saw in an earlier chapter, Christians believe that Jesus is the Logos that the Greeks intuited—the meaning behind the universe, the reason for life. But unlike the philosophers, Christians believe that the Logos is not a concept to be learned but a person to be known. And therefore we don’t believe in a meaning we must go out and discover but in

In short, don’t try to fulfill your desires; rather, control and manage them. To avoid having our inner contentment overthrown by the inevitable loss of things, do not become too emotionally attached to anything.

As one writer puts it, “The fact of death is the great human repression, the universal ‘complex.’ . . . Death is muffled up in illusions.”38 To insist that death is nothing to be frightened of is simply another illusion muffling the obscenity of death. We live in denial of it, but like all repressed facts, it keeps disturbing us, haunting us, and q

Religion also makes sense to many people because of a direct experience of the transcendent that goes beyond the fainter intuitions of the aesthetic experience.

Therefore, the unhappiness and disorder of our lives are caused by the disorder of our loves. A just and good person “is also a person who has [rightly] ordered his love, so that he does not love what it is wrong to love, or fail to love what should be loved, or love too much what should be loved less (or love too little what should be loved more).

The ephemeral nature of all satisfaction makes us long for something we can keep, but we look in vain. However, this is not the whole problem. We do not only want a satisfaction that lasts longer but also one that goes much deeper.

Secular reason, all by itself, cannot give us a basis for “sacrifice, redemption, and forgiveness,” as Paul Kalanithi concluded in his final months.

In hospitals the seriously ill are, not surprisingly, quite willing to talk to the clergy. Even those who have no belief in God or the afterlife feel compelled to examine themselves, to ask, “Have I been loving enough to my friends and family? Have I been generous enough with my money? Have I continually postponed changes I knew should be made in m

Social capital lowers the cost of economic transactions and fosters social ties that lower crime rates, homelessness, and school dropout rates. Government policy and programs cannot create social capital.

“It is true I do not have an absolute purpose in life—I am not dedicated to ‘glorifying God’ anymore. But I find creating my own purpose thrilling. I am the author of a novel, and the book is my life. The freedom is exhilarating. . . . Life is as happy and meaningful as you make it.”25 Is it? There are two questions to ask those who take this remar