In his Introduction Fr. Delhaye tells us that the present work has its origin in two modern movements, the one theological, the other philosophical.

The following essay is an attempt at bringing together two conceptions, the one theological and ascetical, the other philos–ophical. This confrontation may be attempted either from the point of view of theology, using revealed premises, or from the point of view of philosophy using the methods of purely rational analysis. It is the latter task I am undertaking here. I do not argue from revealed premises, but I do take account of the mighty phenomenon of the Christian revelation. It is, (...) as I see it, absolutely essential to keep theology and philosophy distinct as methods, but this does not prevent the one from providing useful material and suggestive hypotheses for the other. (shrink)

The predicament with which Professor Paton is concerned is that of religion in an intellectual climate in which its continued survival is becoming more and more difficult, the climate of modern science. The seventh chapter entitled “Intellectual Impediments” states the difficulty very strongly: religion is under fire from physics, biology, i.e., evolution, psychology, history. Professor Paton is concerned with what is left of religion after these partial defeats and he hopes, with a modesty which does not succeed in hiding itself, (...) to “induce some of the indifferent to consider the possibility that religion may not be all nonsense, but may contain something precious without which life may be incomplete”. (shrink)

EXISTENCE EXISTS. I imagine that this statement will seem to many people to be either meaningless or false or pointless. In what follows I shall try to show that the statement is meaningful, true, important.