History of God

God has a history, and it is far from simple For more than four thousand years, people have argued, worshipped, fought and wondered over the idea of a single divine being. Karen Armstrong traces how that idea changed across Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and why those changes mattered. Beginning with the religious worlds of antiquity, A History of God follows the development of Israelite monotheism, Christian ideas of the Trinity, the revelations of Islam, medieval philosophy and mysticism, Reformation conflict, Enlightenment scepticism and modern atheism. Scripture, theology, philosophy and mystical writing reveal not one fixed concept of God handed down unchanged, but repeated attempts to speak about transcendence in the language of a particular age. The result is a history of belief that shows human beings trying to understand what lies beyond them. For readers interested in religion, philosophy and the origins of modern debates about faith, it shows why arguments about God have always also been arguments about society, morality and human meaning.