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Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics

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Mention the word Apologetics to your average Christian and know what happens? At best, you get that deer-in-the-headlights gaze as a response. At worst, you're told that Apologetics has to do with being sorry. Granted, if Christian Apologetics were about being remorseful, Dr. R.C. Sproul (Sr.) would write a read-worthy book on the subject. Truth be told, Sproul couldn't be boring if he tried. Christian Apologetics, however, is about providing a rational defence of Christianity's truth claims.

If you are a Christian and feel yourself lacking when your friends or family or colleagues challenge what you believe, you could scarcely find a better primer on how to respond than what is offered in _Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics_. The book consists of twenty-three chapters. But - and this is important - each chapter is little more than five pages in length. Combine the chapter length with Sproul's readable style and unique ability to communicate complex Christian truth claims clearly, and what you have is a palatable and helpful book. As a testimony from my own experience, I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it.

After dealing with some preliminaries (e.g. the biblical mandate for Christian Apologetics, the inability of Christian Apologetics to convert a non-Christian apart from the Holy Spirit, etc.), Sproul lays out the four pillars of knowledge, namely, the law of non-contradiction, the law of causality, the basic reliability of sense perception, and the analogical use of language. In so doing, Sproul points out that non-Christians have to undermine at least one of these pillars when denying Christian truth claims. Some very helpful examples from the history of philosophy are proffered. For example, Sproul provides a brief analysis of two of the greatest sceptics of modern thought, namely, David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

As an aside, it is refreshing to come across a theologian like Sproul, who can hold his own in the world of philosophy. Granted, some may argue that Sproul oversimplifies betimes. But remember you philosophy buffs out there: _Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics_ is a primer just as the title suggests. Regardless of one's assessment of Sproul, however, it ought to be patently obvious that he has a broad knowledge and profound understanding in a wide range of areas. It should come as no surprise, then, that Sproul is the Christian thinker who communicated privately with Carl Sagan in scientific and philosophical matters prior to the latter's death.

Following the introduction of the four pillars of knowledge, Sproul addresses the two issues that, when established as true, account for ninety percent of the apologetic task, so we are told (p. 196): The existence of God and the authority of the Bible. I would like to speak more of how Sproul approaches the existence of God and the authority of the Bible, but I don't want to spoil all the fun! Sproul's take on the existence of God, for example, I found particularly stimulating.

As with any of Sproul's books, you will not be disappointed if you decide to purchase _Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics_. This book would be a great gift for a young Christian entering college or university.

This is a pretty good treatment of the rationality of some core christian beliefs. Now there is certainly more to christian beliefs than rational explanation for those beliefs, there are the very important elements of emotion, character, love, faith and the like. However, just because the christian faith is a faith, this does not automatically make it completely opposed to reasons for that faith. Faith and reason are not necessarily foes, it is quite possible for reason to "serve" faith. This book seeks to show this being done in regards to several subjects of importance to christian belief such as the existence of God. Now, I have read many, many sophisticated philosophical treatments dealing with the subject of "proofs" and/or "non-proofs" for the existence of God. I have read from some of the top thinkers/philosophers/theologians from ancient times, and on up to modern times. The treatment given to the rational defense for the existence of God in this book is simply profound and profoundly simple. Don't miss this book if for any other reason than this. It takes several chapters to build up to it, but once the book gets to it, it is absolutely pivotal and pointed, with razor sharp logic. If you are into philosophy, check out the same author's concise treatment on philosophy over the ages, it is called Consequences of Ideas. For a great concise treatment of the nature of the biblical God, the same author has another fantastic work by the title of The Character of God. It may seem as though I'm raving a bit about R.C. Sproul, and perhaps I am a bit, but it's not that I blindly follow him and his thought, or any one else for that matter, but Sproul really does make very good sense on several theological/philosophical concepts. Thanks Dr. Sproul.

Outstanding! For any and all, christian and non-christian that hold to the notion that faith and reason are opposites of each other, I highly recommend this book. I have always been a christian however this book revealed truths to me that have stimulated a new and revitalized reason for believing. It also has revealed to me the half-truths that permeate the philisophical world and has helped me understand where many of the false notions and concepts dealing with the existence of God originated.

Ever attend a relative's 50th birthday party, and a family member decides it's a cool idea to stick 51 candles on the birthday cake, and the first dozen candles fit nice and tidy, but by the time you're cramming the 40th candle into the cake, the surface is packed like a teenage phone booth prank, and no one can see the frosting, much less "Happy 50th" printed in cursive. And as you light the candles it ignites like an Indian funeral pyre, and when grandma carries it out to the dining room, your uncle appears completely embarrassed, with a facial expression that declares: "I appreciate the thought, but why are you shoving a huge scary fireball in front of my mug?"

That's how many feel when they read various books on apologetics: When one cracks open the book it is so loaded with brilliant apologetic arguments and insights that the philosophical fireball intimidates the reader and singes his brain.

Not so with the ever-readable and always-understandable R.C. Sproul in "Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics."

Sproul asserts: "God alone is eternal and self-existent. Of all the theological attributes of God that are found in the theological tomes of history, the one that most sends chills up Sproul's spine is the word aseity. If there is any word in the English language that captures the otherness of God, it is this one. It refers to his self-existence, that God and God alone has the power of being in and of himself."

Many Western Christians frequently have their faith challenged as the unbeliever calls Christianity irrational. Herein Dr. Sproul furnishes an outline of the history of ideas as he demonstrates that the Christian faith is rational and compatible with modern science.

Dr. Sproul writes: "Nothing has no is-ness. If there ever was a time when nothing at all existed, what could possibly exist now? Nothing! But if something exists now, it tells us that there never was a time when there was nothing. Everything that we know of, including the universe, had a beginning. Everything is contingent, derived from something outside of itself to lend being to it ... except for God. He is not created. There was never a time when he was not. Eternally he is. He has that power of being in and of himself. There is nothing more profound to say about God than the way he reveals himself in the name "'I Am Who I Am." I Am the LORD and there is no other.'"

Professor Sproul discusses the classical proofs: "The first proof is that God is the "ends necessary," that he possesses necessary being. He alone has being that is necessary and this makes him holy. We can define necessary being in two ways, ontologically and logically. When Aquinas said God has necessary being, he was saying that he's the kind of being who cannot possibly not be. God is who he is from everlasting to everlasting and he cannot be anything other than what he is eternally in and of himself. His being is also logically necessary. There is no reason why a particular man should exist. There was a time when he did not exist. He can claim no logical necessity for his existence. But you need to leave your reason behind when you explore the idea that God does not exist. You have to stop thinking logically to think that the universe came into being by itself without God. Nothing could be more irrational that something comes from nothing. Logic demands that if something exists now, something always existed or you have to choose an irrational alternative."

On biogenesis: "Non-believers remained close-minded -- as many modern thinkers have been totally close-minded to any possibility to the existence of God and are forced to argue that life on this planet has arisen spontaneously by chance, and that even the so-called laws of nature with which science works are lawless in themselves. The examination of the nature and the properties of things, or the "what" questions have not been able to answer the "why" questions, and particularly the "how" questions of any one thing's existence or how life has come to pass."

Additionally he asks: "How did the laws of nature come to be? Second, how did life originate from non-life? And third, how did the universe come into being? ... There are those who argue that the laws of nature are merely convenient forms that human investigators impose on nature, that nature's facts are brute facts and mute facts, and have no inherent design. Design is something that is merely projected upon nature from the thinking of the scientist. ... Atheists accept the laws of nature simply by faith, and pursues the point that these laws are not something that are the result of cultural creation, but rather the discovery of something that exists within nature itself. Newton did not invent the law of gravity or impose a principle of gravity on the natural world; rather, he discovered it as an external reality."

And: "Now, the very presence of laws in nature indicates that nature has intelligible order. The overarching presupposition of all scientific inquiry is that the inquiry can yield intelligible information. If indeed the universe and everything in it is utter chaos, without order, then it would be equally unintelligible. The fact that science can proceed in an intelligible manner screams to Atheist that there must be order in it. It is a short step or an easy argument to move from the presence of order to the presence of design. In a sense, the presence of order is virtually tautological to the question of design."

I would add: The God of the Bible in Trinity is the starting point for epistemology, apologetics, and philosophy. The triune God is reflected and revealed everywhere in the material and nonmaterial worlds. The Trinity "confronts" humanity and all creation everywhere at all times. You cannot look into a microscope or a telescope or a mathematical table and fail to be confronted by the God alone who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The triune God is the foundation and the solution to the problem of the one and the many. The foundation for all reality and the understanding of that reality is the triune God. The explanation of all entities, phenomenon, laws, and concrete objects begins with God. Beginning with any starting point or presupposition other than the Trinity is self-defeating forasmuch as God alone provides the ontic necessities to ground immutable universals that are essential for knowledge since He alone is omnipotent and all-knowing.

Herein Sproul provides an educational volume in an accessible writing style; a fine book for high school students, college-age kids, and adult laypeople.

also see:
Truth, Knowledge and the Reason for God: The Defense of the Rational Assurance of Christianity
or an apologetic book refuting false religions:
One Way to God: Christian Philosophy and Presuppositional Apologetics Examine World Religions ASIN# : 1432722956

A must for the students who are learning apologetics and those who are aquainted with the suject. RC Sproul submits the subject in a format that is scholerly and readable at the same time. A must read for any who desire to understand what they believe and be able to defend it before those who would oppose it.

This is an excellent introduction to apologetics that places the bulk of the emphasis on the philosophical arguments typically used against theists. Essentially this is apologetics that focuses to begin with not on Scripture, but on epistemology. How do we know what we can know? This has been a critical arena for non-theists seeking to discredit the possibility of a God without the necessity of dealing with any particular god.

Sproul deals with the major epistemology topics of the law of noncontradiction, causality, the reliability of sense perception as a means for gathering knowledge, and finally the analogical use of language. He then moves on to an overview of key voices on the topic of natural reason and faith. He then moves on to offer the four basic explanations for why there is *stuff* - you, me, the earth, the universe, lemurs, what-have-you. Does *stuff* really exist at all or is it an illusion? If *stuff* is really there, did it get there by chance or by it's own causation? Could it have always been there in one form or another? Or does the fact that *stuff* exists necessitate an uncreated creator that is the source of all the *stuff* we know about today?

Afterwards there are several chapters dealing with key philosophers in the modern period who contributed powerfully (generally in the negative sense) to the discussion of the existence of God. Each is examined in light of the four major issues of epistemology to determine whether they are rationally sound or not. And finally Sproul deals with the reliability and authority of Scripture.

It is this last topic that seems to be the most briefly and inadequately treated, perhaps because Sproul expects that it will be more familiar to his readers. It is in this section that there are more dots that appear to be unconnected - or connected only tenuously. There is valuable material here, but it could have been dealt with a bit more thoroughly.

If you aren't well-versed in philosophy, this book is an excellent primer with a target of educating Christians to feel more adept at engaging non-theists on the topics that non-theists often choose for their rejection of theism. Sproul writes engagingly and accessibly. There are sections where he quotes Scripture rather extensively, but in other areas he deals with the topic purely from a rational standpoint - since that is how the apologist is going to need to engage the non-theist.

An excellent introduction to an important and often neglected aspect of apologetics.

Defending Your Faith is an amazingly well written book, as is practically every Sproul book that I've ever read.
R.C. Sproul is known for his teaching and his ability to take a complex subject and present it in a way that can be more easily understood. He has certainly done this with Defending Your Faith.
Though Defending Your Faith is subtitled "An Introduction to Apologetics" it is much more than that. It is a foundation for apologetics. The reasoning, the information, and the responses given to various arguments against Christian Theism are among the most helpful that I have ever read.
This is not some dry, dreary tome that is written for academics, but is a book written to help the common man learn to better defend his faith and gain greater confidence in the fact that his faith is indeed reasonable and credible.
While there are many things dealt with in this book such as the task of apologetics, the relationship of apologetics to saving faith, natural theology, the case for God's existence, the origins of the world, philosophers and God, and Biblical authority, there were a few that truly stuck with me. I was especially gratified to find Sproul spending much time on the law of noncontradiction. One area in which I truly was blessed to learn and grow was the arguments Sproul gave for causality and for God being the uncaused Cause. Going even further and building on that same argument, Sproul later spoke of God as the self-existent God and explained why that is a much more credible belief than the belief in a self-existent universe.
Sproul also reaches back in time to present the arguments of apologists of days gone by. He repackages their ideas to make them palatable to today's reader.
I cannot praise Sproul enough for writing this book and for doing such a good job of it.

R. C. Sproul does an excellent job in presenting the basics for defending your faith. I was educated from the beginning with a definition of apology that I was unaware of, through reviews of philosophers that I hadn't read since college. Each chapter touches on an aspect of existence with which Christians often have to deal while interacting with the rest of humankind. Mr. Sproul tantalizes us with the beginnings of the necessary knowledge to articulate our beliefs and convincingly respond to attacks against our beliefs. I am now ready to read an advanced, more detailed exploration to further deepen my knowledge.

I found good evidence in this book not necessarily to start a debate but a good way to prove to my unchristian friends why i believe what i believe. This book concentrates on some specific subjects like, people think christian believes are an emotional thing but R C Sproul provides reasoning to back the christian believe. A really good book, wish i had read this earlier. The book also provides a good argument for witnessing to atheists.

R.C. Sproul is one of the most lucid writers of our time. Some might would use the word "oversimplify," but I would disagree and use lucid because he can make things very transparent. His book Defending your Faith, an introduction to apologetics is exactly that: an introduction. If you're a seasoned apologist or a skeptic/atheist that knows the arguments for God's existence well, then please don't look to this book for answers to your questions. This book is for beginners whether you're a Christian wanting to defend your faith or a skeptic looking to familiarize yourself with the arguments for God.

I wish I had this book first when I became interested in apologetics. Sproul starts with logic and then works his way up. He explains how logic works and then explains the surface of the arguments. If an author dives into the arguments without explaining how logic works, then the arguments won't be very clear. So, that is the strength Sproul's apologetic book: his laying the foundation for argumentation and understanding of argumentation.

As said earlier, if you're a beginner in apologetics, unfamiliar with logic, or a Sproul fan, then buy this book. It will help you greatly in your journey of apologetics. Sproul has a very lucid writing style and when you read this book you'll understand the task and goal of apologetics; learning the main arguments along the way.