Catholic Review of: No One Sees God

Michael Novak’s No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheist sand Believers brings a kinder and gentler approach to the often acrimonious and polemical debates between atheists and believers.

Novak reflects on God from the perspective of both faith and reason. He generously shares the faith while charitably responding to the objections of nonbelievers. In stark contrast to diatribes such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Novak appears to presume both good will and intellectual seriousness on the part of his opponents.

One important point Novak raises has to do with what he refers to as one’s "blick." A blick is the part of one’s intellectual habit that shapes one’s pattern of judgment concerning what is real or not real, true or false, credible or lacking in credibility. Atheists and theists, Novak points out, process information about themselves and the world around them in radically different ways. All parties to discussion and debate must realize and acknowledge this in order to speak constructively with one another.

One caution: Novak routinely makes casual references to material with which many readers may not be familiar, such as the philosophical ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas or the principle of "Ockham’s Razor." This may leave some readers feeling frustrated or left out of the conversation.

Overall, a refreshing book that brings gentleness and reverence to a dialogue too often marked by contentiousness.

--Pete Balbirnie (from Lay Witness magazine. www.cuf.org)

You can purchase this title here.