Abstract

In an earlier day we received from Smith a fine study of comparative religions. Now we are offered a thoughtful meditation containing his mature reflections and conclusions from an intense study of religions and philosophies of both the East and the West. One recognizes that this is a major philosophical statement from the author, while also rather unique on the current philosophical scene, although quite in continuity with what he understands as the core of world philosophy. Smith isolates the center of a tradition to which a wide variety of cultural affirmations have pointed, and this unity of intent, this "invisible geometry," this "primordial tradition," signifies the most fundamental features of reality. Consequently, this volume is an extended essay in a new or reaffirmed natural theology, even after a day in which many had supposed that theology in general and natural theology in particular had not only died but had been buried.