In Why Believe? (Continuum) Professor John Cottingham argued that every human being possesses impulses and aspirations for which religious belief offers a home.His new book, How to Believe is concerned not so much with why we should believe as with what leads a person to become a believer. Cottingham challenges believers and non-believers alike to think afresh about the need to change their lives and about what such change might involve.Many people are deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of human existence but hold back from religious commitment because of doubts about the evidence for God. In this lucid and emotionally engaged study, John Cottingham charts a rational pathway towards religious belief by showing how it requires all the responses of the human mind.Intellectual analysis has its place, but to grasp all the relevant evidence we also need emotional openness and imaginative sensitivity. Drawing on a rich array of literary, scriptural and poetic resources, the author locates religious belief in a transformative framework of meaning and value.

ForewordPart 1: Contrasting Visions1 The onset of autumn2 An ambiguous world3 Belief and comportment4 Transformation and truthPart 2: The World 'Beyond'1 The closing of the windows2 Dimensions of reality3 Science, scientism and subjectivity4 Transcendence and presencePart 3: Adopting a Worldview1 Outlooks, pictures, frameworks, lenses2 The double helix3 The dimension of praxis4 Vision and enactmentPart 4: Religion as a Live Option1 A secular age2 The phenomenon of 'pervasiveness'3 Uniqueness and particularity4 Funnels of significancePart 5: The Disclosure of the Sacred1 Religion and art2 Crossing the threshold3 The sacred secularized?4 The fires of arrogancePart 6: Something of Great Constancy1 From fancy to reality2 The costs of belief3 Embodied engagement4 What are days for?BibliographyIndex