Zeal For Truth

Subtitle: A Self-discovery Guide for your Spiritual Quest 

By Brian McLaren

McLaren writes that the purpose of the book is not to give dogmatic answers or to tell us what to believe, but rather to help us find answers for ourselves and to help show us how to believe.

The main topics McLaren writes about in the book:

1. Why belief matters.
2. Difference between good faith and bad faith.
3. You can’t just think about faith, at some point you have to jump in and try it to understand it.
4. Scientific inquiry and logic cannot produce an absolute certain knowledge since the rules of logic etc.
5. Complete relativism is unworkable.
6. Revelation cannot produce absolute certainty.
7. Atheism cannot be proven.
8. An honest and inquisitive agnostic must give faith a try.
9. Pantheism, Polytheism, and Dualism cannot give an adequate basis for a solid ethical system like Monotheism can.
10. Addresses misconceptions about how a Monotheistic God must be like.
11. Addresses why all religions don’t lead to the same place.
12. Suggests ways to experience God.
13. How doubt can be a way to experience God and produce a stronger faith, that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s indifference.
14. Explains some of what it will cost to honestly peruse a deep faith, and what you might gain.
15. Says that a hope for reward or fear of punishment in the afterlife should not be factor in the quest for faith.
16. His personal experience of faith.

My favorite part of the book is a chapter called, “How Does Faith Grow.” In it, McLaren comes up with a system that labels the stages of faith a person might go through (and it fits fairly well with my experience).

Stage 1 - Simplicity
Stage 2 - Complexity
Stage 3 - Perplexity
Stage 4 - Humility

Simplicity - Being right means belonging to the right group, everything can be known, the group’s authorities know everything.

Complexity - Truth is found by using the right methods. Most everything can be known, but it sometimes takes a lot of work to find. Authorities are coaches that can help you grow.

Perplexity - Everything is uncertain, except uncertainty. Truth may be impossible to find. Authorities are of little or no help and may be purposefully manipulative for the sake of their power.

Humility - Truth can be understood to various degrees, there’s a lot of mystery. People should practice the saying, “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, diversity; in all things, charity.” Authorities are people like ourselves.

The various stages have different strengths and weaknesses (and views on things of course); Stage 4 has the strengths of the previous 3 stages but also risks having the weaknesses of the previous 3 stages. People often leave a stage (many times unwillingly) for the next higher numbered one by the way of a faith crisis. This leads some to think that they’re losing their faith (except the ones going from stage 3 to 4).

These stages won’t cover everyone of course, but it provides a helpful framework. I think unreflective people may stay in stage 1, but that many people stay in stage 2 (maybe after a brief foray into stage 3, that is solved by finding better experts or authorities). Unfortunately, people in stage 3 may give up on their faith. McLaren suggests though that it’s sometimes a necessary thing to go though to get to stage 4.

Other than that chapter, I’m not sure that there is anything that unqiue in this book. However, it did make me feel better about not having as much certainty as I would like. I don’t know how this book would do with non-believers (especially those with no Christian background), but I would very highly recommend it for people from Christian backgrounds who are in stage 3.

Whatever else you say about Brian McLaren, and some people have said a alot, it has to be admitted that he is a highly skilled writer.  Of the handful of books of his I’ve read, Finding Faith is my favorite.