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Book Review: On the God of the Christians3 6 1scholarly life to an audience that may not be familiar with Brague. The forewordcontains Brague’s pronouncement of the two grand truisms previouslyalluded to. The first two chapters are preludes of a sort, where Brague clearsup or disposes of widespread confusions, and chapters 3–7 examine attributesassociated with the God of the Christians.In the first chapter, Brague goes to great lengths to distinguish the Godof the Christians from other gods or Gods. This chapter is far and away themost defensive or apologetic—indeed it strikes a somewhat hostile tone attimes. In it Brague’s primary task is to dispel the notion that Judaism, Islam,and Christianity are sympathetic and similar or compatible religions. Theyare not similar, in his view, and he encourages his readers to stop speakingof Judaism, Islam, and Christianity in the same breath as “the threemonotheisms,” “the three religions of Abraham,” and “the three religionsof the book.” Using these expressions, he says, is “false and dangerous” (2).Brague treats each of these expressions in subsections of the first chapter.And while Brague persuasively argues that there are significant differencesbetween these three religions, he perhaps goes too far. For surely there arecommonalities between these three religions. Moreover, his use of the term“dangerous” is striking, but upon further reading one sees that he speaksonly of intellectual danger, insofar as using these expressions conduces tointellectual laziness. He does not say that it is politically dangerous to point tocommonalities between these religions. One wonders, then, whether it mightnot be politically salutary to emphasize the points of agreement between thethree, since agreements surely exist, rather than insist upon the differences.At any rate, his treatment of alternative divine law codes is largely apologetic.Chapter 2, “To Know God” (Connaître Dieu), is rich and merits sustainedattention. In it Brague aims to make very fine distinctions regarding howwe know God and what precisely we know about Him. Given its emphasison precise terminology, this chapter invites consideration of the quality ofthe translation. Generally speaking, it is very good; it is readable, true tothe French, and it even captures the author’s tone. Seaton has done Englishspeakers a great service by making this book accessible to them. It wouldhave been helpful, however, to see the translator discuss his principles oftranslation. Similarly, footnotes that provide justifications for the translator’schoices when difficult ones had to be made would aid the reader in thinkingthrough problems. And while readability is certainly a concern of any translator,it would be useful to render key terms consistently throughout. At leastin this chapter, where precision seems so important, Seaton does not do this.