Preface

God Alone Is the Truth and the Way
By Frederick Mahan

Librarians charged with classifying new books in order to assign them appropriate places on the shelf are going to have a tough time with Frederick Mahan’s God Alone Is The Truth And The Way. The book, like its author, resists easy compartmentalization. The book doesn’t fit snugly into the genres of philosophy, theology, memoirs, history, or current events, even though there are elements of each of these in it. Nor do its startling conclusions comfortably conform to standard labels such as evangelical, secular, liberal, or conservative. This is because Mr. Mahan is more concerned with following truth where it leads him than in making sure that his opinions are conventionally pleasing.

The upshot is that God Alone Is The Truth And The Way is a maverick. But this is as it should be, because the book’s author is something of a maverick himself. Frederick Mahan, the son of an immigrant, is a self-made man. He has achieved the Great American Dream. He is respected in his chosen profession of law. He is wealthy. He is well-read and well-traveled. He has every reason to be proud of his own accomplishments and smugly satisfied with the country in which he has been so successful.

But he is a profoundly dissatisfied man, because he fears that the country in which he lives is slipping into moral and spiritual bankruptcy. He believes that we’re entering into a new Dark Age in which, as the poet Yeats wrote, “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” In this book, which may be accurately described as a sort of “survivor’s manual,” Mr. Mahan offers us both a diagnosis of how the Great American Dream has turned into the Great American Nightmare, and some suggestions on how to get through the coming chaos. His suggestions are based in part on his deep-seated faith—deep-seated, mind you, not simplistic—in part on his rich life experience, and in part on his astoundingly wide reading. The convergence of these three strands is what makes the book difficult to classify. It’s also what makes it provocative and challenging.

 GOD ALONE IS THE TRUTH AND THE WAY

Mr. Mahan offers no quick fixes or magical solutions in God Alone Is The Truth And The Way. Indeed, he doubts that any are to be found (in fact, the demand for quick fixes is part of our problem). But he does a remarkable job of outlining the symptoms of our present dis-ease as well as the remedies available to us. God Alone Is The Truth And The Way is not an especially pleasant book to read, because it refuses to sugarcoat the pill. But it is an essential book.

Kerry Walters
William Bittinger Professor of Philosophy
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania