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 enlarge | Author: Mark Lilla
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 24122
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400079136
Dewey Decimal Number: 201.72
EAN: 9781400079131
ASIN: 1400079136
Publication Date: September 23, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent Summary of Political Theology and Theological Philosophy November 18, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'll admit straight away that I'm not formally trained in philosophy or theology. I would've liked to have at least minored in the former, but life had other plans. I absorbed what I could, at any rate.
That being said, I had very little trouble following the flow of Lilla's narrative. He was dead-on in his assessment that we in the West have made the common (and often fatal) error of forgetting where we came from and how we got here. We needed this reminder. It was quite enlightening to read his analysis of the progression of political theological thought over the course of 400 years. For such a dense subject, it's remarkable that he was able to condense it down to only 300 pages. I'm sure a great deal of nuance was lost along the way, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that he showed how people took the ideas of reasonable, intelligent men and twisted them into things that those men would be disgusted by.
I devoured this book the first time I read it. The consequences of the contradictions inherent in Christianity, as well as the history of the Great Separation itself, are fascinating to me. I'll have to read it again in order to pick up what I missed before. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of philosophy, as well as the history of religious thought.
TRACING THE INTRINSIC CONTRADICTION November 7, 2007
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
There are many excellent books exploring the internal flaws of organized religion, but "The Stillborn God" steps outside those problems and delineates the way in which the tenets of Christian and Jewish faith contradict and impede humanity's progress towards the rule of law. Lilla surveys the philosophical innovation of Hobbes and the later contortions of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and others' attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable, ultimately leading European thought up to the marvel known colloquially as "World War II". Less sensational than recent books by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, Lilla adds the historical and philosophical ballast the others lack. An excellent and demanding read, Mr. Lilla should now be encouraged to produce an executive summary of his latest book for our government's current administration.
Timely book explores unholy marriage of religion and politics October 21, 2007
57 out of 60 found this review helpful
In The Stillborn God, Mark Lilla, Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, has written a cogent history of "political theology" (the unholy marriage of church and state, religion and politics).
Although Lilla deals briefly with Judaism, and mentions Islam (just barely), he concentrates on Christendom and its conflicted theology, which has often led to heated controversies, doctrinal schisms, and religious wars.
Here a puzzling paradox emerges: why does a Christian doctrine that blesses the peacemakers and considers the lilies of the field too often inspire racism, intolerance, fanatical hatred, and violence?
At the heart of Christianity, Lilla explains, there is a conceptual confusion, an ambiguity found in dogmas such as the Trinity, which leads to a bifurcation of Christian perspectives between "already" and "not yet." While some theologians emphasize the "there and then" (a transcendent God and a future redemption in heaven), others emphasize the "here and now" (an immanent God and a present redemption on earth).
Such conceptual divergence has important implications for political theology. While some believers advocate an ascetic withdrawal from the mundane world by retreat into monasticism, passively and patiently awaiting the Second Coming of Jesus, other believers call for political activism, faith initiatives, militant resistant against an evil empire, or a longing for an apocalyptic Armageddon. Such a mentality may advocate and welcome a Christian theocracy--an abolition of the "misguided" separation of church and state.
For the philosophically minded, The Stillborn God is a rare treat. Lilla gives a lucid analysis of the religious, moral, and political thinking of philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel.
Lilla's explication of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) stands at the epicenter of The Stillborn God. Indeed, asserts Lilla, Hobbes's "great treatise Leviathan (1651) contains the most devastating attack on Christian political theology ever undertaken," and established the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy.
Hobbes's "godless, atheistic materialism" argued for "The Great Separation"--the complete separation of church and state, and favored the steady withering away of the church. His radical proposal caused a storm of protest and subsequent thinkers sought to undo or minimize the "damage" he had wrought.
Lilla's portrayal of Immanuel Kant is also intriguing. Kant, the author of Critique of Pure Reason, is often considered to be the paragon of philosophical rationality. However, Kant wrote, "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge [that is, to show the limits of reason] in order to make room for faith." By doing so, he smuggled the concepts of God, the soul, and immortality back into philosophical discourse. Kant was, in effect, a covert theologian who "legitimatized" Christian dogma, sneaking it in by philosophical hocus-pocus.
Secular humanists (or simply humanists, for all true humanists are secular) believe with the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras that "man is the measure of all things" and that when religion seeks to "call the shots" in political life, it becomes, in the words of John Calvin, "a plant so corrupt that it is only capable of producing the worst of fruit."
Lilla, therefore, praises the wisdom of our founding fathers who created a government based on a balance of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and on a separation of church and state. He warns, however, that our felicitous experiment in democracy will not inevitably survive, but is continually threatened by an insidious political theology.
Sinclair Lewis warned, "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." The whole tenor of Lilla's work is in agreement with such an assessment; it is a cautionary tale warning us that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
The Stillborn God is an impressive and powerful volume that should be read by every intelligent, thinking person. It's a timely work with important lessons for our 21-century world.
Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. He was previously Professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. A noted intellectual historian and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, he is the author of The Restless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and G. B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern. He lives in New York City.
Clearly written, original ideas. October 18, 2007
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Mark Lilla had me at his previous book, The Reckless Mind. Lilla is the first philosopher I've read to review the works of past thinkers, and attach their thoughts with their actions.
I find Lilla's writing energetic, strong and opinionated. He's clear in his ideas, and he knows he's taking a position. "Opinionated" has negative connotations, but I mean it in a masculine way, one who's sure of himself, one who's thought it through for a few months, maybe longer.
This is a short book, written in plain sentences, everyday words. Yet the ideas are unique. And the thoughts require some background in philosophical thought. Not deep, not profound, but some understanding of the writings of those who wrote before any of us were born.
And that's all good to me. Lilla assumes those who wrote before him were intelligent, sincere, and wanted to have The Right Answer. To review the past masters in hindsight, to critique the philosophy superstars of yesterday with the facts of history takes courage. If you know some history, this book won't bore you. It takes a stand, it has an opinion. But philosophy is opinion, unless you're osama bin laden, who believes in only one way.
Lilla compares current approaches of Democracy or Controlled Society to against those ideas of past generations. This is as far as a person can apply the scientific method to the construction of a society.
He teaches us that truth was found in previous generations, only to be laughed at by the next generation.
I enjoyed every minute i read this book. Highly recommended.
A Succinct and Rugged Framework for Understanding Western Philosophy and Theology October 4, 2007
19 out of 28 found this review helpful
As a prof. at the University of Michigan, I am always looking for works to improve my thinking and writing. Many authors I read can create beautiful prose but their arguments can be weak; others are insightful but clunky. Lilla is the rare author who can both think clearly and write beautifully. It is always a pleasure to witness his solid and deeply knowledgeable argument take shape in the cadences and the rhythms of his writing. His pacing, his pauses, and his periodic recapitulations make his books an effortless read.
The Stillborn God is no exception. If you are interested in an overall framework of Western political philosophy and theology, one that is structurally sound and can accommodate philosophers ranging from Hobbes to Hegel, drawing out in 300 pages these guys' individual philosophies and their conceptual and historical interrelations, then this is the book for you. Of course, as with any framework, there will be gaps. It is in these gaps where Lilla's critics roost. But laymen like me are like students: we don't care about these critics' "technical details", we just want no confusion. An efficient and methodical mastication of Hegel that we can swallow in the first read is all we desire.
Lilla's book ends in early 20th century Germany. A worthy follow-up is Keynes's succinct economic masterpiece "Economic Consequences of Peace" (thankfully free on the Internet). Keynes uses the same political philosophy to explain England and France's vicious motives for the heavy WWI German reparations. He laments English and French leaders' failure to understand the rapidly changing nature of intra-European political and economic relationships, which he beautifully documents (European population, for example, had grown a lot, leading to new cross-continental grain trading patterns). And we all know now, as Keynes did then, the ensuing consequences.
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