Mikey's Quest for Father God

When Mikey O'Rourke, a precocious eighth-grader, reads a Facebook post by his Uncle Billy, he's shocked. After all, his family is Catholic. He's even more surprised when his father tells him all his uncles-Billy, Ray, and Al-are atheists. Mikey doesn't know how to handle this newfound information.

In his novel Mikey's Quest for Father God, author Jim Farrell tells how Mikey leaves behind his shock and surprise to learn why people have such different beliefs about the existence-or nonexistence-of God. As a temporary reporter for the News-Journal, Mikey sets out to interview believers and nonbelievers to discover why they do or do not believe in God. Among those he interviews are his parents, a rabbi friend of his father's, his grandmother, a Korean exchange student, and a young woman who lost her faith.

Mikey's Quest for Father God explores traditional Thomistic arguments for God's existence, Maimonides's famous question, "Why is there something and not nothing?," Pascal's Wager, Anselm's ontological argument, the problem of evil, the Holocaust, the civil rights movement in St. Augustine, the closed box of science, saints, martyrs, pedophile priests, and same-sex couples. You will love following Mikey to his conclusion.