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Adventures in Belief
How I Discovered the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything (Possibly)
by Keith Ward
Imprint: Cascade Books
Keith Ward--philosopher, ethicist, theologian, Anglican priest, cathedral canon, and book-writing addict--has spent his life thinking about "the big questions" (and, what's more, getting paid for it!). This philosophical pilgrimage led him from jobs at Glasgow and St. Andrew's Universities in Scotland, to Cambridge University, then on to King's College, London, followed by Oxford University (by invitation of the Queen!), before moving back to London at Gresham College, Heythrop College, and Roehampton University. Along the way he became a fellow of the British Academy and of a number of academic institutions, gathering up doctorates from various places, and writing more books than your bookshelf can handle. This sounds awfully dull, but according to Keith Ward, it was great fun, and he experienced all these things with a feeling of slight surprise, and with an irrepressible sense of humour.
Having retired, exhausted, at eighty-one, Ward could not resist one more book. This is it--a humorous account of his life and thought, especially to show how he developed his own philosophy of personal idealism. It is both a genuinely amusing account of the life of an English academic and a rather profound account of an anti-materialistic and scientifically informed philosophy.
Keith Ward is the Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Oxford University, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has taught philosophy at a number of British and American universities.
“Adventures in Belief combines Keith Ward’s autobiographical reminiscences with highly readable accounts of his religious and philosophical beliefs, all done with self-deprecating wit and humor. Readers of his many books will be delighted to know more about their context in his life, while anyone looking for an introduction to philosophy and theology will find it here in a wonderfully approachable form.”
—John Barton, University of Oxford
“Keith Ward’s captivating autobiography will delight his many admirers and impress a wide readership drawn to the big questions in philosophy and religion. Full of self-deprecating humor and sardonic aphorisms, it combines the serious reflections of a connoisseur of the world’s great religions with often hilarious accounts of turning points in his life that apparently originated in mistakes. How a one-time atheist became a distinguished idealist philosopher and adventurous Christian theologian makes for an utterly absorbing read.”
—John Hedley Brooke, University of Oxford