麻豆约拍

Author and former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway concludes his series in which he considers the tensions between faith and doubt over the last 3000 years. In the final omnibus edition, he focuses on writers and thinkers of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

He talks to Sir Anthony Kenny, literary executor and biographer of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, about Wittgenstein's view that 'even when all possible scientific questions are answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all'. In response, Kenny offers a rare poem by Wittgenstein, and Holloway charts the debate to the present day citing the ideas of Richard Dawkins and Roger Scruton.

He explores the work of three inter-war writers - James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene and their contrasting views on the role of doubt and disloyalty before moving on to the literature of the Holocaust which aims to 'say the unsayable' and throw light on one of the biggest questions in the story of doubt: how can we reconcile the idea of God when there's so much suffering in the world?

Holloway tackles the paradox that God can be experienced as both a presence and an absence, discussing the work of three post-war poets - Philip Larkin, John Betjeman and RS Thomas - with the help of Larkin's friend and literary executor, Sir Andrew Motion, Betjeman's biographer AN Wilson and an archive recording of R S Thomas himself. Holloway concludes that we 'can reach neither negative nor positive conclusions about the mystery that besets us.'

With further contributions from theologian and author Professor Don Cupitt, author and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and Revd. Professor David Jasper from Glasgow University.

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