This is a revised edition of a book originally written in 1974 by Professor Geisler alone. The authors cover four main topics: the nature of religious experience, the possibility of theistic proofs, religious language, and the problem of evil. There is thus no discussion of such topics as miracle or the nature of the soul.

The authors cover the ground with thoroughness, giving a large number of references. Probably a lot of students will find their practice of stating an argument (whether their own or someone else’s) in a series of brief, numbered sentences helpful for clarity, though at times, I think, it makes for over-simplification.

There are three noteworthy sections where the authors cease simply to compile a basic textbook for students and set out at length a particular view of their own. These are the chapters dealing with the cosmological argument, with the theory of analogy in the section on religious language, and with the problem of evil. In dealing with the cosmological argument, Geisler and Corduan reject the form in which it has perhaps most often been stated, at least since Leibniz—in terms of reasons for the existence of things—and revert to an earlier pattern: finite, compound things require causes for their existence, and there cannot be an endless regress of causes (this claim is not based on empirical observation but on ‘meta-physical necessity’), so there must be an infinite First Cause, who is to be identified with the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

On analogy, they agree with Scotus that our concepts of the divine qualities must be univocal, but add that they must be predicated analogically. Their examples to illustrate this idea are not all helpful: some seem indistinguishable from univocality (Socrates and Fido both being animals), while others suggest that a difference in degree is involved (flowers and God both being beautiful).

On evil they argue, not that this is the best of all possible worlds, but that it is the best of all possible ways to achieve the best of all possible (moral) worlds. This means that in a sense it is the worst of all possible (though not of all conceivable) worlds: for God will allow all the evil that is necessary to achieve his goal, and not a bit less. This section is in some ways the most interesting part of the book.

There are, indeed, real difficulties in the details of their argument, and I think it will not really do as it stands; but its interest is still considerable.

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