Remi Brague little book, On the God of the Christians, offers a startling and fresh presentation on the identity, being, and actions of God

Who Is God?

by Thomas P. Harmon

Remi Brague begins his lovely little book by stating: “What is truly interesting is that the images and concepts that have been made of God (which concepts are themselves, at bottom, but images) differ among men and among the associations that bring men together, whether it be philosophical schools or religions.” The garden variety religious pluralist does not take the differences of these images and concepts of God seriously as expressions of differing judgments about the divine. As a result, clarity about the differing judgments about the divine and the distinctiveness of the religious ways of life following upon them elude us.

Into the breach steps Brague, who wields his pen like a scalpel in service of clarity in understanding the difference our ideas about God make for the ways we live our lives. Because Brague is so good at making distinctions, he is able to show marvelously well the coherence of Christianity while at the same time engaging some of the thorniest and most persistent modern objections against it. He does so explicitly, as when he directly counters Nietzsche’s complaint against a God who bargains with man by offering love in return for faith, and also implicitly, for example, in his running dialectic with modernity on the true character of human freedom.

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