Face of God

The Face of God by Roger Scruton, 178 pages

In his 2010 Gifford Lectures, Roger Scruton argues that the traditional rational proofs for the existence of God are fundamentally misguided.  Rather than objectify God, Scruton insists that He must be understood primarily as a person.  Just as the concept of human personhood remains mysterious, so too the nature of God.  Through an analysis of how human persons relate to one another, with a special focus on the face as the outward sign and symbol of personality, Scruton finds evidence for the divine in our relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world, most tellingly in the overlapping experiences of beauty and the sacred:  "What is revealed to me in the experience of beauty is a fundamental truth about being - the truth that being is a gift, and receiving it is a task."