Karen Armstrong: The Case for God. By Alfred A. Knopf. 406 pp. New York, 2009. Hardcover

Excerpt

How do we speak about God? Is it not an act of audacity to say anything about the Ultimate Reality, the Divine Mystery, what has been called “the Dazzling Darkness”? Yet to speak about God is something we humans have been doing for a very long time, perhaps since the beginning of language. All acts of naming limit what is named, and circumscribe what is known. Is it not therefore a paradox to name God and thereby set boundaries to that which is boundless? Yet as the story of Adam naming the animals suggests, we have a need to give names to all aspects of our reality. Names are powerful. Names matter. Each name for God is more than a sound, more than its written letters. Each name conveys a different concept of what is ultimately beyond all human understanding. …