Journal: Christian Apologetics Journal
Volume: CAJ 02:1 (Spring 1999)
Article: Book Review: Conversations With Which God? Looking At Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God, Book 1
Author: Marcia Montenegro

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CAJ 2:1 (Spring 1999) p. 1

Book Review:
Conversations With Which God?
Looking At Neale Donald Walsch’s
Conversations With God, Book 1

Marcia Montenegro

The title of this best-selling book means what it says: the author has recorded in words conversations held between him and a being he calls God. I first heard of this book in 1997 while discussing spiritual beliefs with a woman working in a New Age bookstore. She kept quoting from this book, as though it were a sacred source of truth, finally telling me that I should read it. Since it seemed to have had such a strong influence on her world view, I purchased and read it. It covers a wide range of topics which cannot all be presented here, so only the most striking points will be addressed

In 1992, Walsch, unhappy and full of angry questions about why his life seemed to be a failure, wrote a letter to God with his questions. As he finished writing the last question, Walsch claims the pen moved on its own and he found himself writing words as though taking dictation. Walsch claims he knew this was God dictating the responses, although he does not explain how he knew this. It is only natural, then, that we examine this book to see what God has to say and what kind of God he is. There is no obligation on the reader’s part to take Walsch’s word that this is God, especially since Walsch offers absolutely no evidence for it. He just asserts it as though the reader should accept it.

Words Are Not Truth

The very first point this God makes is that he communicates with everyone, but not by words alone. In fact, his main form of communication is through feeling.1 Interestingly, God (for the sake of convenience, I will call Walsch’s God “God,” though I am not agreeing that this is the one true living God of the universe) immediately attacks words: “Words are really the least effective communicator. .. merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. .. . They are not Truth. They are not the real thing.”2 If this is true, then this statement, which is made with words, cannot be true which would mean that maybe then words are truth. This statement defeats its own assertion.

Also, why is God using a book of words to communicate to us through Walsch? Why should we believe anything in this book if words are so useless and mere “noises?” If one wanted to be rigidly logical, one could say that this statement renders the book meaningless and therefore there

CAJ 2:1 (Spring 1999) p. 2

is no reason to read it. God, who should be more clever than this, is using words to say words mean nothing. This is the first clue th...

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