From Atheism to Catholicism: How Scientists and Philosophers Led Me to Truth by Kevin Vost gives an overview of one man's intellectual conversion from cradle Catholic to atheist and back to Catholicism. Vost was raised Catholic but became an atheist, in part because of the writings of well known atheist thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Ellis. Part I of his book is dedicated to these atheists. Vost summarizes their positions and discusses his opinion on them, then and now. This was my favorite part of the book, because while I had heard of these men (and one woman, Ayn Rand) and knew that they were atheists, beyond that I was pretty clueless. I especially enjoyed the chapter on current atheist demigod Richard Dawkins. Vost pretty easily stomps all over Dawkins' terribly immature (in more ways than one) "philosophy" of modern atheism. Part II shows Vost's shifting from atheism back towards God, reflected in the writings of Alfred Adler, Mortimer Adler, and three prominent ancient Stoics. Part III highlights some of the great defenders of Christianity, such as CS Lewis and GK Chesterton. The personal story of the author seemed more of a side issue than a focal point to me, but I didn't have a problem with that.
I'm not sure that people who are well versed in philosophy would get much out of the book, but I think it's great for the average lay person.
This review was written as part of the Catholic books reviewer program from The Catholic Company.
2 comments:
Sounds very interesting, especially since I am definitely not schooled in philosophy.
Can you tell I wrote this over a period of like a week, with screaming kids all over me? LOL!
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