In Store Now - A Place for Truth

I've been reading bits and pieces of a new book from IVP called A Place for Truth edited by Dallas Willard and it is very good.  Here's the catalog description:

Many today pursue knowledge and even wisdom. But what about truth? In an age that disputes whether truth can be universalized beyond one's own personal experience, it seems quaint to speak of finding truth. But whether in the ivory towers of the academy or in the midst of our everyday lives, we continue to seek after the true, the beautiful and the good.

Since its founding at Harvard in 1992, The Veritas Forum has provided a place for the university world to explore the deepest questions of truth and life. What does it mean to be human? Does history have a purpose? Is life meaningful? Can rational people believe in God? Now gathered in one volume are some of The Veritas Forum's most notable presentations, with contributions from Francis Collins, Tim Keller, N. T. Wright, Mary Poplin and more. Volume editor Dallas Willard introduces each presentation, highlighting its significance and putting it in context for us today. Also included are selected question and answer sessions with the speakers from the original forum experiences.

Come eavesdrop on some of today's leading Christian thinkers and their dialogue partners. And consider how truth might find a place in your own life.

I enjoyed this snippet from the life of Os Guiness

When I was a student, my own field was the social sciences, but as an undergraduate one of the things I was very interested in was philosophy.  And back in the early 1960s, the influence of the Vienna Circle and logical positivism was still enormously powerful in the British universities, particularly the thought of A. J. Ayer, who extolled the verification principle: we have to judge types of claims.  Analytical claims, for instance, 'All bachelors are male,' were accepted automatically because the end of the conclusion was written into the assumption.  But other claims had to be verified through the five senses, or they were dismissed as nonsense. . . those who know philosophy know well what happened.  His verification principle itself could not be verified through the five senses.  In other words, the principle itself was nonsense! 

Years later, when I was at Oxford and A. J. had retired, I found myself on the train with him for an hour one day.  We were chatting over his life, and he said to me, 'That whole verification principle of skepticism was a blind alley.'  Then he said, 'Any debunker ought to be force in public to wield his own debunking sword over his own cherished beliefs.

That's exactly right.  He wielded a sword and wiped out all sorts of things.  And then someone returned the favor, and his principle collapsed overnight." (50)

Beautiful! 

Here's the table of contents:

Foreword By Harry Lewis, Harvard University
Preface By Daniel Cho, Executive Director, The Veritas Forum
Introduction By Dallas Willard

Truth
1 Is There Life After Truth?
Richard John Neuhaus
2 Time For Truth
Os Guinness
3 Reason for God: The Exclusivity of Truth
Timothy J. Keller

Faith and Science
4 The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
Francis S. Collins
5 The New Atheists and the Meaning of Life
Alister McGrath and David J. Helfand
6 A Scientist Who Looked and Was Found
Hugh Ross

Atheism
7 The Psychology of Atheism
Paul C. Vitz
8 Nietzsche Versus Jesus Christ
Dallas Willard

Meaning and Humanity
9 Moral Mammals: Does Atheism or Theism Provide the Best Foundation for Human Worth and Morality?
Peter Singer and John Hare
10 Living Machines: Can Robots Become Human?
Rodney Brooks and Rosalind Picard
11 The Sense of an Ending
Jeremy S. Begbie

Christian Worldview
12 Simply Christian
N. T. Wright

Social Justice
13 Why Human Rights Are Impossible Without Religion
John Warwick Montgomery
15 Radical Marxist, Radical Womanist, Radical Love: What Mother Teresa Taught Me about Social Justice
Mary Poplin
15 The Whole Gospel for the Whole Person
Ronald J. Sider

The book is a paperback with 323 pages and sells for $20.00.