Review
"This book, along with the others in the trilogy, are well worth reading for those who are interested in the complexities of the relationship between a theoretical defense of Christianity and an equally theoretical criticismm of the modern state."--
Journal of Church and State"Clark has some very important things to say, and he says them eloquently. He draws from a fascinating range of sources, literary, religious, and philosophical. His discursive and allusive style is vital and engaging....This volume is one of the more constructive critiques of liberal culture in recent years. [It] will richly reward the attention of anyone who cares about the current plight of liberal society and who is prepared to consider how (a certain kind of) religion might help to renew it."--
Religious Studies Review
Book Description
In God's World and the Great Awakening, Professor Clark's main concern is with the way we can `turn aside' to the Truth from the normal delusions of self-concern. He restates a traditional, Neoplatonic metaphysics as the proper context for scientific and religious practice, and defends a serious Platonic realism against both scientism and anti-realism. Neither scientism, which identifies Truth with what can be revealed to the objectifying gaze, nor fashionable anti-realism, which equates Truth simply with what `we' choose to take seriously, offer an adequate ground for our scientific or religious faith. The primary faith of humankind is that there is a real world which is more than an obsequious shadow of our desires and fancies, and this real world can be discovered through right reason. The defence of this faith requires a properly worked, Platonic metaphysic of just the kind discernible in Christian orthodoxy. The other two volumes are: Civil Peace and Sacred Order (1989) and A Parliament of Souls (1990).
