The prolific philosopher Peter Kreeft has a new book out titled: “Jacob’s Ladder: Ten Steps to Truth”

Like some of his previous books it is set around a dialogue between two characters. This time both characters are fully fictional and set in the year 1977. Libby Rawls is a young women that is a nominal Christian and a skeptic. The other is “Mother” an older mixed-race women who is willing to lead Libby along these steps of a Jacob’s Ladder. Each day they discuss a subject where the subjects build on each other leading to further truth. These two characters are also involved in his novel “An Ocean Full of Angels.”

This book takes a building block approach to understanding the faith and starts at what might seem to be an odd first step of “passion.” While common philosophical ideas are discussed it is also not standard apologetic fare and mostly deals with natural theology. The conversational dialogue mostly adds to the book and the back and forth between the two women helps to illustrate points. Some of the use of coincidences in the book are a bit heavy-handed at times. Also evident is Kreeft’s playful humor which was used at times and contributed to the banter between the two women.

There is also a both/and approach in these steps climbing the ladder appealing to both reason and heart. Of building on what we know instinctively. I was reminded of Blaise Pascal’s “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of …” I don’t remember if he referred to this specifically, but certainly parts of the Pensées were quoted within. The combination of head knowledge and heart knowledge is certainly an approached used before such as with C.S. Lewis and there are echoes of Lewis’ approach here.

As the Ignatius Press site references here are some of the topics discussed.

• Do you have the passion to know?
• Does truth exist?
• What is the meaning of life?
• What is love, and why is it so important for our lives?
• If there is a God, what proof is there for his existence?
• Has God revealed himself to us in a personal way?

As you would expect the character is taken through all the common philosophical errors that are so prevalent. The refutations of these common arguments and world views flowed quite well and even within these ten steps there are plenty of mini-steps being taken. I found almost all of the chapters to be quite strong and worthwhile. Although the chapter on God did not satisfy me as much as the other chapters.

So what is the target audience for this book? The light conversational tone with serious answers appealing to reason might make it useful for a skeptic working through the idea of faith. The idea framework of the book also makes it a good apologetics approach when you are dealing with the big questions with someone.

Two of Mr. Kreeft’s books really helped me out at the beginning of my investigation of the Church. Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith and Yes or No?: Straight Answers to Tough Questions about Christianity. This book incorporates aspects of both of these books while presenting it in a way that might be more appealing for some.

I am an admitted book stalker of Julie Davis and became interested in Save Send Delete by Danusha Goska as she was posting about it at Goodreads.

Her 5 star review of the book sealed the deal for me as I know she does not max out stars lightly.

When I first read the summary of the book I thought it might be a bit like The Loser Letters by Mary Eberstadt. As I really liked that book as it was funny while making some great points. Very pointed satire.

There are points of contact between The Loser Letters and Save Send Delete especially as one is a series of letters to a “spokesmen of the New Atheism” and the the later is a series of emails to a Richard Dawkins type.

The premise of this book is that it details a series of emails to a famous atheist. Mira after having seen this famous atheist on a Bill Moyer’s show on PBS decides to email him. As Julie describes:

She sends him a long, forceful, clever email that she knows will never get past his secretary. Except that he answers. And he won’t let her off the hook with a polite apology.

The book goes on where you only see her emails to this famous atheist intermixed with some to her friend. The “Save Send Delete” refers to the end of each email where one of these words is bolded. This is a rather clever idea and you get an idea of a thought process of initial reaction, revising, changing your mind about what you said, or committing to reply. But this goes on beyond just being clever as it really adding to the narrative of the story. See Julie’s review for a sample of these letters.

The often long emails that take so many divergent paths are a wonder to read. They are so funny, pointed, and filled with the realities of life. Political correctness has not only taken a vacation, but I think had run away in alarm. This is not common apologist fare, but a look at the reality of the faith. The “famous atheist” replies (as we draw from context) some of the standard objections and she calls him on the vapidness of some of these arguments. For example the “Your Catholic because you were raised that way and plus you don’t know other faiths” argument. Sometimes in more dissenting publications you see an argument of “Lived experience” as if it was a trump card to the truth. Yet here Mira’s “lived experience” is an argument for the faith and the life she has lived across the world. It also draws from a wealth of information culturally and historically. Strangely at times it even reminded me of Fr. George Rutler and the wealth of information he draws from when he writes, that is is Fr. Rutler was a bit coarser and swore.

These series of letters are just a wonder to read on so many levels. I was so drawn into the book that time and time again I forgot that Mira was a character in the story. Sure a good novel draws you in, but this was beyond that. In just so many ways this novel is brilliant. The relationship between Mira and “Rand” the atheist goes from back and froth from adversarial to common ground respect. What also adds to this novel is that while Mira is arguing for the faith, she has her own difficulties and fallenness. She struggles in her faith while knowing it is true. Her correspondence with “Rand” brings out the desire to be a better Christian.

“Inhale as a believer, exhale as an atheist”

Mira’s struggles are indicative of this phrase she uses. In some ways this is a theme of the book, but not without hope. It brought to my mind the quote “Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle,.” There is a inner battle going on in both Mia and Rand. The novel also really brought to mind the reality of that quote to something more palpable to me. Are intellects can apprehend a truth while still not fully taking it in.

There are aspects of this book that would have annoyed me if this was a lesser novel. Mia is not the perfectly faithful Catholic as she alludes once to supporting women’s ordination and seemingly homosexual acts. Again I had totally forgotten that Mia was a character in a book. But even this was I think a part of the “Inhale as a believer, exhale as an atheist.”

I wish I had the skill to describe how good this book is and it has been one that gave me a lot to reflect upon. It is not the type of book you just put down after finishing it, because you are just not done digesting it yet. While I have very little impact on what books get better known, I can hardly think of a book that I want to have better known. It deserves all the attention it can get.

Earlier this week Pope Francis written by Matthew Bunson and published by Our Sunday Visitor was released. As I had written when reviewing Francis: Pope of a New World is that you expect some flaws and lack of depth for a book that quickly comes to market. In many ways this book gets passed some of those problems and is also a bit fuller when it comes to the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

This book provides a detailed snapshot of the time leading up to the election along with the necessary coverage of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI resignation. The first chapters are rather detailed with both historical information, but also containing the full texts that the Pope Francis delivered. The rest of the book takes a deeper look at his roots and his years as a Priest, Bishop, Archbishop and then Cardinal.

I had heard the author of this book being interviewed concerning it and as I remember he said that one of his goals was to provide context concerning the life of our new Pope. I believe he succeeded at this since you get a much better sense of Argentina with its founding history and specifically the history of Argentina during the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The context of his priestly vocation lived out in those years also gets a bit more depth than I have read before. Going beyond just the highlights that have been concentrated on to more of the concrete ways he lived his vocation and dealt with difficulties. This book also takes a look at the homilies he preached as the Cardinal of Buenos Aires and the responses to events that often informed them. You can clearly see the Pope’s style of a directness that punctuates while coming back to the central theme repeatedly.

I enjoyed the background information that provided the context and put into perspective strings of events reported on in recent weeks. So while this book excelled at background perspective and a more detailed look at his life, if fell short when it comes to personal stories about those years in Buenos Aires. Lacking was any idea of the Pope’s sense of humor or descriptions about him from those who knew him. I liked Francis: Pope of a New World because there were some great personal stories regarding him. Although the source of many of these stories were pulled from “El Jesuita” by journalists Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti and the book “Pope Francis” only references this other book once.

Really I found both of these books to be nice companions to the other where each book had different strengths and they nicely balanced each other’s weaknesses.