Reason to believe - Maurice F. Wiles

For many people, believer and non-believer alike, Christian belief poses a host of perplexing questions. Can its claims be true? Can one accept them with integrity? Is it reasonable to believe? Maurice Wiles is a distinguished theologian who has written many pioneering and radical books in the area of Christian doctrine. Here his aim is to explain Christian belief as simply as possible. Avoiding all technical terms and using no footnotes, he looks at some of the most basic difficulties and suggests ways in which Christian belief can be understood and believed in the light of them. The questions are about God, Jesus, the Trinity, salvation, other faiths, the past record of the church, morality, evil and death. Interspersed between them are 'interludes' which provide background information to some of the key issues: factual information on topics such as the Bible and the creeds, current thinking about matters such as language and symbolism in general and in relation to God. It is the account of a continuing search. Neither Christian faith nor the new insights from modern discoveries can lay claim to certain knowledge. The apparent conflicts between them must constantly be investigated, with proponents on both sides always open to the need for change. MAURICE WILES was Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus in the University of Oxford.