Forgotten Truth [Paperback]

It is that "core" view which he presents here. Essentially it is this: there are "levels of being" such that the more real is also the more valuable; these levels appear in both the "external" and the "internal" worlds, "higher" levels of reality without corresponding to "deeper" levels of reality within. On the very lowest level is the material/physical world, which depends for its existence on the higher levels. On the very highest/deepest level is the Infinite or Absolute -- that is, God.

Basically this volume is an attempt to recover this view of reality from materialism, scientism, and "postmodernism." It does not attempt to adjudicate among religions (or philosophies), it does not spell out any of the important _differences_ between world faiths, and it is not intended to substitute a "new" religion for the specific faiths which already exist.

Nor should any such project be expected from a work that expressly focuses on what religions have in common. Far from showing that all religions are somehow "the same," Smith in fact shows that religions have a "common" core only at a sufficiently general level. What he shows, therefore, is not that there is really just one religion, but that the various religions of the world are actually agreeing _and_ disagreeing about something real, something about which there is an objective matter of fact, on the fundamentals of which most religions tend to concur while differing in numerous points of detail (including practice).

Of course any two religions therefore have much more in common than any single religion has with "materialism". In fact one way to state the "common core" of the world's religions is simply to say that they agree about the falsehood of "materialism."

The volume stands well enough in its own right, of course, but it also makes an excellent companion to _The World's Religions_. (And if you are looking for an introductory overview of what the great world religions believe and teach, that other work is highly recommended.)

It also contains a critique of Darwinism which, as Smith notes in his introduction, has since found some gratifying confirmation in the writings of others. Smith, writing in 1991, mentions Phillip Johnson's _Darwin On Trial_; since that time a number of other critiques have been published, including a few more by Johnson.

The reader of this book might therefore also wish to look into Johnson's books as well as some or all of the following: Lee Spetner's _Not By Chance!_, Michael Denton's _Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_ and _Nature's Destiny_, William Dembski's _Intelligent Design_ and _The Design Inference_, and Michael Behe's _Darwin's Black Box_. (On the "pro" side, one of the best positive accounts of Darwinian evolutionary theory is still John Maynard Smith's _The Theory of Evolution_.)