When one writes a new foreword to a book that was published sixteen years ago, the first question the author asks himself is whether he will want to correct the text in any essential points that he now considers to be erroneous. Since, during these years, my ideas have been constantly changing and, as I hope, developing, I was quite prepared in rereading the book to find a number of statements I might like to change. To my surprise I found that I felt no need for changes in essential points and have no objection to having the book reprinted again as it stands.
The next question an author would ask himself is whether he should expand on what he wrote many years earlier. The answer to this question is definitely in the affirmative. I stressed in the text the importance of differentiating between the religious thought concept and the human experience behind it. But I did not go far enough in describing what it is that could be called "religious experience," regardless of what the thought concept may be. If I were to write the book today I would expand the chapter on "Some Types of Religious Experience. " This is not the place to do so, but there is one point I want to mention: for the religious person, whether he is a "believer" or not, life is a problem; the fact of having been born raises a question that man must answer. The most important task of his life, then, is to find an answer to this question; not an answer in thought only, but an answer in his whole being, in his way of living.
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