麻豆约拍

In a series of personal essays, Richard Holloway considers the tensions between faith and doubt over the last 3000 years. Author and former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway focuses on the Judeo-Christian tradition as he takes the listener from the birth of religious thinking, through the Old and New Testaments, to the developments in subsequent centuries and their influence on thinkers and writers, up to the present day.

The mid-19th century was a time of great change in almost every area of life - economic, political, social and industrial. Up to now, Richard Holloway has been looking at 'the poetics of doubt' through the work of poets and writers. Today, he focuses on 'the forensics of doubt'. He looks at the impact of Charles Darwin and geologist Charles Lyell, whose discoveries undermined the creation stories of the Old Testament. And Richard discusses with AN Wilson how the emerging tradition of 'biblical criticism', which began in Germany, started to strip away the supernatural elements of God.

George Eliot is the bridge here. In translating the work of the German critics, she lost her own faith and began to believe, as the German philosopher and atheist Ludwig Feuerbach suggested, that God may be a human construct - a creation of the human mind.

Producer: Olivia Landsberg
A Ladbroke production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4.