"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," said British statesman Edmund Burke. Uttered over two centuries ago, his words have proved prescient in the annals of history and are probed again in the pages of a new book. With this warning, Os Guinness begins Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror (HarperSanFrancisco, February 2005, 242 pages).

A student of both Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri and sociologist Peter Berger, Os Guinness is "one of evangelical Christianity's few public intellectuals" according to Publishers Weekly. In many of his works—whether The Dust of Death, God in the Dark, or The Call—he reveals how our worldview (and namely, our view of God) shapes who we are and what we do. This is no less the case in Unspeakable, where the difficult question of evil is examined through three lenses: the Eastern, secularist, and Judeo-Christian faiths. As he writes here, "The deepest questions about God are … inseparably tied to the deepest questions about humanity."

Ironically, Guinness was scheduled to speak at a dinner in Manhattan on the subject of evil—on September 11, 2001. And he is no stranger to this conversation: he lost both of his brothers before he and his parents escaped China by foot when the Communists expelled missionaries and foreigners in the 1940s. Says Guinness, "In some ways this book has been with me since I was a boy in China and lived in a time of war, famine, revolution, and persecution in which more than 20 million died in the region in which we lived." As such, he wrestles with this reality at a personal level, and his insights and stories challenge us to do the same. Even so, he cautions, "Evil dwarfs our best discussions and remains a mystery even after our best explorations."

Of course, even after Auschwitz, Rwanda, and 9-11, there is a growing body of those who would dismiss this language of evil. Furthermore, Guinness observes, "It is a widely held and largely unquestioned belief in educated circles today that religion is the main cause of repression and violence in our world and an essentially divisive and explosive force in public life that we would be wise to exclude from the public square altogether." However, he contends,

"We must never lose sight of the undeniable fact … [that] more people were killed by secularist regimes in the twentieth century than in all the religious persecutions in Western history, and perhaps in all history…. Whatever our personal views of religion, this statement [that religion is to blame] is simply and factually wrong, and its lazy repetition seriously distorts public debate and endangers democratic freedom. Its root is an unexamined Enlightenment prejudice that simultaneously reduces faith to its functions and recognizes only the worst contributions of faith, not the best—such as the rise of the universities, the development of modern science, the abolition of slavery, and the promotion of human rights."

So Unspeakable sets before us seven questions, beginning with "Where on earth does evil come from?" We feel its effects in bodies wracked by disease, natural disasters like tsunamis, and through other human beings (Hitler, Stalin) who darken our world. Yet we are not only witnesses or victims; we harbor evil in our own hearts and often unleash its fury in thoughts and deeds. We are "ordinary people" capable of "extraordinary evil." Or, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, the problem with the world is I.

According to the Judeo-Christian faith, each of us holds the truth—of God, ourselves, and our world—in unrighteousness. Taking this cue, and signals from Schaeffer and Berger, Guinness challenges us to press our worldview to the logic of its conclusions, both negative (are there contradictions?) and positive (its aspirations). He asks, "Do the differences make a difference?" and looks at these worldviews from the vantage point of their own teachers and faithful followers so that we might best be able to evaluate them. To what did Buddha attribute suffering, and what was his solution? If we are, as Bertrand Russell said, merely the accidental collection of atoms, can there be any meaning in suffering, let alone in our lives? Is this really the best of all possible worlds? And how did Jesus address these heartfelt questions?

Ultimately, Guinness suggests that if we hope to live authentically, we will put our worldview to this threefold test: Does this particular view best describe reality? Does it offer hope in its remedy; that is, is it truly livable? Lastly, he asks, "[Is it] practical in offering solid grounds for both courage and comfort in facing evil"?

As in most of his writings, Os Guinness speaks winsomely and yet straightforwardly to both the seeker and believer, and as such, I would heartily recommend Unspeakable to a diverse audience or reading group. And to the one struggling, his book offers real hope:

"There must be no sentimentality or confusion here—no blind, irrational "leap of faith." For his followers, Jesus is the fullest, clearest reason why we can know the answer to the two deepest questions of faith: "Is God truly there?" (his existence) and "Is God truly good?" (his character). Thus, Christians do not say to God, "I do not understand you at all, but I trust you anyway." That would be suicidal. Rather, they say, "Father, I do not understand you, but I trust you"—or more accurately, "I do not understand you in this situation, but I understand why I trust you anyway." It is therefore reasonable to trust even when we do not understand. We may be in the dark about what God is doing, but we are not in the dark about God."

Danielle DuRant is research assistant at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries