Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age

Joseph Minich's latest book "Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age." This was not an easy book to read, but it was very rewarding. Advancing on the thought of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, Minich presents a phenomenology of divine absence in the modern era. Drawing upon thinkers such as Ellul, Marx, Heiddeger, Marcuse, Bavinck, Bonhoeffer, and C. S. Lewis (among others), Minich demonstrates how our present technoculture has alienated modern man from his labor, history, himself, and as a result even God.Living in a world in which the "real" is mediated to us nearly entirely by manufactured objects, what feels natural is the sense that the world is essentially an inert object that is subject to our willful manipulation. What is real becomes what is quantifiable. Even if you are a Christian, you live in a world in which God just feels relatively absent. It is a common experience of the Western World.Minich illustrates (borrowing from Taylor) just how contingent and recent this sense of divine absence is. Yet, it is also something that will likely not go away soon and it isn't something that we can simply think our way out of (Here's looking at you Christian Apologetics). The Christian faith will be lived out in receiving this condition and faithfully walking through it.

I heard about this book when the author was on the Mere Fidelity podcast. Having currently read a number of books responding to Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, this sounded like a fascinating contribution to that "cottage industry" (as one online reviewer to this book put it).The book offers an intriguing and valuable analysis into "our pre-cognitive perceptions" of what it's like to live in our world today. I am a pastor, and my interest in the book is mostly from an apologetics standpoint: understanding some of the "pre-cognitive" reasons that belief in God is so difficult for many today. And from that perspective it is chalk full of thought-provoking insights, many of which could justify book-length treatments on their own.Unfortunately, the book is not an easy read (as other reviewers have noted). For one thing, it is full of academic and technical language, much of which is left undefined. This is not necessarily a fault (and may say more about the breadth of my reading); just something for readers to be aware of. But it is also characterized by long, convoluted sentences, with an overwhelming about of parentheses. Like another reviewer, chapter 3 was tough going for me, and I found myself skipping ahead at one point.However, I am glad I pressed on and finished the book. There really is much to mine from it. While I can't give this particular book to many people, I do hope it's ideas can be fleshed out in more accessible ways in the future.

I heard in a podcast that this was essentially Minich's Doctoral Thesis or something of that nature and it definitely shows. The idea of divine absence in our modern technoculture is brilliant and could be incredibly helpful. All pastors should consider Minich's idea. However, the book is not very accessible. It is covered in highly academic language and is constantly interrupted by Minich's parentheses.The problem of academic language and Minich's constant interruption of his own thought got so bad in chapter three of the book that it was almost unreadable. I am a current seminary student and an avid reader and I was completely lost by the time I got to the final chapter, and not from lazy reading or lack of trying. I truly hope that Minich's book is taken seriously and that this more academic work can be simplified and synthesized by the author in a later work. I have greatly profited from this book for sure, but it is tough sledding at times.

Minich has added to the conversation concerning modernity and technology and how this has changed the landscape for both Atheism and Christianity. He takes the phrase used by Charles Taylor, “bulwarks of belief,” referring to the “built-in” reasons for belief in the Middle-Ages, and introduces the “bulwarks of unbelief” for the modern and technological age that make unbelief plausible due to a felt absence of God. Minich sets out to show how atheism is grounded less on intellectual grounds, and more on this felt absence of God due to our modern technoculture and alienation from our labor and loss of history.This is a fantastic new apologetic resource, because it does well in analyzing the different reasons behind atheism and secularism in our world. Technology is a big topic, and Minich sees this as playing a huge part in how we get to where we are today in our secular thinking:“The world of technology is a world where God’s absence is intuitively much more plausible than it was in pre-modern society.”Yet this book also paints a picture showing how Christian theism is the solution, because it is based on something that is solid and firm, grounded in something that is real and absolute.If you want to better understand our times, and how secularism made it way through our culture and thinking, I’d highly recommend this work!

This book gives a clarifying and compelling account for the sense of "Divine absence" we feel in our current moment in the west and for the increase in atheism. The author builds on the work of philosopher Charles Taylor by highlighting that this sense of "divine absence is because of our assumed reliance on technology that most of us do not understand or can explain or can replicate. He calls it "technoculture" and it is a divine replacement.Normally, giving the thesis of a book removes the need to engage it, I found the author's arguments salient, thoughtful, charitable and requiring more pondering on my part.As always, Lexham Publishers are producing the highest quality books out there. Covers, pages, layouts, feel are all miles ahead of everyone else.I received the book for free but was not required to give a positive review.