Note by the author, David W. Allan:

PROVIDENTIAL EVENT

I know it is unorthodox to write a note to the Foreword, but it will help you appreciate the tone of the book, and besides, the book is unorthodox anyway.  Right before the final preparations to get this book to print, my Sweetheart and wife said, “We need to go to the temple.” I replied, “Let’s go.” That day, 25 June 2014, we met Professor Riddle in the Provo, Utah, temple. I was delighted to meet him again, because I had taken a Philosophy of Religion class from him back in the 1950s, and it was one of the most meaningful classes I have ever taken. There in the Temple, I shared with him how what I learned in his class had significantly impacted the content of this book, and we were now in the editing process.

When I told him what it was about, he seemed very interested, so I asked him, “If you have time, would you be willing to read it and give me some feedback?” He said that he would make time, and he would be happy to read it. I e-mailed him my best efforts the next Saturday morning (28 June 2014). Astonishingly, he had finished it by the next Tuesday morning and wanted to get together. We invited him to dinner that evening, and we had a most productive and enlightening evening. His feedback was enormously valuable and resulted in Chapter 25 being added to the book and his suggestions influenced in other areas of the book as well. I am extremely grateful for his massive contributions to the book.

Chauncey gave me a copy of his latest book, “Think Independently,” (2009) which is based on his notes for a class that he taught at BYU and was 30 years in the writing. I highly recommend this book, and you will see that its contents also impacted the contents of what I have written here.

I was especially pleased and touched when he agreed to write the Foreword for the book. You will be impressed, as I was, with his web site – put together by one of his students. It is a collection of many of Professor Riddle’s writings and you will find in them a “goldmine” of a man thinking at deep and profound levels.

Professor Riddle is 87 and still writing and teaching great material as well as working in the temple. His hobby, gardening, is amazingly manifest by the “Garden of Eden”-like surroundings of their lovely home. Since philosophy predates science, I cannot imagine a better person to critique our book. I consider

Professor Riddle one of the most well-grounded philosophers on the planet, and I believe that it was in “God’s Time” that we went to the temple that day.