AUTHOR AND PHILOSOPHER Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's new novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (Pantheon, 2010), follows the past and present of one Cass Seltzer, a professor of the philosophy of religion who Time magazine dubs "the atheist with a soul" after his book, The Varieties of Religious Illusion, becomes a runaway best seller. With fame comes a previously unattainable romance with a game theorist, the sudden appearance of an old flame searching for immortality through biochemistry, and a professional offer that's hard to refuse. While processing it all, Cass flashes back to his days as a beleaguered graduate student who returns--along with his larger-than-life, messianic advisor, Dr. Jonas Elijah Klapper--to the Hasidic community Cass's mother had fled as a young woman. There he and Klapper encounter a six-year-old mathematical genius who also happens to be destined to succeed his father as the leader of the sect. Goldstein spoke recently with the Humanist about her funny, complex, and illuminating book. The Humanist: 36 Arguments for the Existence of God swirls with all manner of ideas about faith, reason, devotion, and the games we humans play. (And of course there's the title of Cass Seltzer's bestseller The Varieties of Religious Illusion.) Would you say your novel is fundamentally making the argument that we should argue about the existence of God?
