Sulla fede / On Faith, by Giorgio Pressburger

Faith is not simply a conviction: it is a different kind of experience, with its own specific nature, as Claudio Magris reminds us in his Preface to Giorgio Pressburger’s essay. Faith grabs hold of us and we grab hold of it: it attracts and transforms us. Pressburger investigates the concept of faith by departing from a personal literary autobiography. His fellow-travellers consist of authors like Dostoevsky and Kafka, philosophers like Kant and scientists like Einstein. He travels beyond historical and religious reconstruction and confronts the dynamics and movements that enable authors and their works to penetrate the grace of faith. Pressburger’s question is “Where does this vast psychic and physical energy come from?” What does God look like? And how do science and nature interact in faith? This is a dense but suggestive book which works its way around the irreducible nature of a profound concept. An unavoidable confrontation forged from intelligence and pain, science and belief, health and illness.