God: The Oldest Question: A Fresh Look at Belief and Unbelief - And Why the Choice Matters Paperback - 2000

From the rear cover

Does God exist? Is belief reasonable? Do the answers to these questions make any practical difference in the way we live? These questions-asked by religious seekers for countless millennia-can be answered in the affirmative, says William O'Malley, Jesuit priest and prolific writer. In God: The Oldest Question, O'Malley shows readers why with a careful argument that comvines irreverent wit, high intellectual seriousness, and personal confession.

O'Malley ranges widely through modern science, classical philosophy, literature and art, and the religious traditions of East and West. Yet he also probes his own heart. In part, God: The Oldest Question is an account of O'Malley's own intellectual and spiritual journey, which included a shattering crisis of faith only a yer before he was to be ordained a priest-a crisis that a careful study of the arguments of atheist thinkers helped him later resolve. This painfully honest and intellectually inspiring book enlists both the mind and the heart in an ultimately staisfying quest for God.

"This book belongs in the hands of anyone interested in a serious search for ultimate meaning." - William J. Byron, S.J., author of Jesuit Saturdays: Sharing the Ignatian Spirit with Lay Colleagues and Friends

"Fr. Bill O'Malley is one of today's most insightful, honest, and articulate writers on things spiritual and religious. This is, unquestionably, the book fo read on the most basic question of faith if what you want is a book that respects your (individual) spiritual quest.... This book is both informative and fun to read." - Mitch Finley, author of The Seeker's Guide to Being Catholic