A History of God; Karen Armstrong

BOOK REVIEW

Introduction

1.             The interaction with the God has always involved rigid adventures like mountain tops, earthquake, darkness, delusion and danger. Despite the subject being more a philosophy, history of God is very interesting, passionate and intense. The historians always had the metaphors to describe it in a threatening way and the creator and creation could never have a relationship of understanding and love.

 2.            About the Book

a.            Name                              :                  A History of God

b.            Written by                       :                  Karen Armstrong

c.            Printed by                       :                  Mandarin Publication 

d.            No of Pages                    :                  511

e.            No of Chapters                :                   11

f.             Title Pages                     :                  Contains the views by the                                                                   worldwide journals and critics

g.           Quality of Paper              :                  Good

h.            Paper back / Hard bound :                  Hard bound

About the Author

3.            Karen Armstrong started her life as a nun. After few years at church in renunciation, she turned to study divinity. The book speaks of her extensive research carried out under acute intellectual honesty. This account, which is basically the development of a faith, elaborates West’s absolute faithlessness for one God and the contradicting convictions it envelopes. The quest of 4000 years is covered by her in an impeccable way which reflects here ardour with spirituality.

4.            Summary of the Book

a.            One God.    Over the years, the society derived God from gods. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha was a prince of Kapilvasto a state some 80 miles from Benares, India. At the age of 29, he left everything in the quest of contentment. According to him, sufferings originated from desire and desire should be shunned away to have a smooth life. 

b.            A Light to Gentiles.       The phases that intervened were of unique nature, people stated to consider martyrdom as a radical dislocation which would bridge the gap between the God and the world.

c.            “Trinity” the God of Christians.       The question of trinity faced the initial resistance by the Arius, a young presbyter, who claimed that the three angels of trinity were not equally divine, quoting Jesus Christ from Gospel of St Mathew’s “My father is greater than me”. Aligned with this dark patch is the widely criticized aspect of Christian manuscripts, which terms woman as evil temptresses. To the horror of masses, St Augustine agreed to it declaring women as a creed to be aware of. 

d.            Unit : The God of Islam.          This chapter deals with Islam as seen a reformist movement or for that matter a clear and a distinct approach towards the issue. She marks Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as the most phenomenal man of our time.

e.            The God of Philosophers.       Philosophy is a derivative from the word “Falsafah” of Arabic origin which means reason. Al-Kindi, the famous Muslim scholar was the first man to correlate it with the divinity.  

f.             The God of the Mystics. All the three main religions have developed the idea of personal God, so we also take as this idea represents the religion at its best. God is so active in History that Prophets waged war on mythology.  

g.           God for Reformers.       Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries were a bad period for the Muslims, Jews and Christian. Jews were expelled from Spain, Christian were being altered in their tradition by the renaissance movement. This movement took the entire Europe by storm. Muslims lost Spain which was their last stronghold in Europe. They were asked to move out like Jews were ordered either to Baptize or get deported form Spain.

h.            Enlightement.       With all the industry building up awareness as disseminate to the lower tiers of the society, the disintegration of religion spirits kicked off. Kant, Liscartes and almost all renowned scientists of this period less Newton happily announced that as machines take over, God is finally dead.

j.             The Death of God.         Monotheism, though widely practised suddenly saw itself an out of place thing. Scholars like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche were the new demigods of civilization, who thought that God, if not dead, should be now killed by some notables decently and should be mourned for some time.  

k.            Future of God.      When it comes to the future of the world, she seems to be desolate and says that religious ideas have ceased to be effective for people and soon they will turn to a Godless society. Human beings won’t take it for long. They will devise something new.

5.            Recommendations.        The book contains on interesting philosophical and analytical study of the basic instinct of human being i.e the faith in God. It is an informative and thought provoking study of the subject, therefore, recommended for YO’s to be studied.

6.            Conclusion.          The book is indeed an eye opener for all those who are glittered by the shine of west God, the most absolute reality, makes the thing happen and facilitates the course that we follow. Non-believers, as the Quran say, will be dealt severely. Sodom and Gomorra are the examples.