Customer Reviews

Defending Your Faith: Reliable Answers for a New Generation of Seekers and Skeptics

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

is covered in this book. You could spend your time pouring over a lot of lengthy works written to defend the faith, or you could read this. It is consice and practical in its approach to apologetics. I value this book far more than some of the massive tomes I've accumulated over the years. If you understand the reasons for Biblical Christianity given in "Defending Your Faith," you will not only be able to "refute those who contradict" (Titus 1:9) but your faith will be built up as well.

This is about my favorite book on Biblical Apologetics, or how to defend the claims of historic Christianity. Very easy to read, and very well researched and footnoted. I highly recommend it.

Dan Story does a fine job of sharing tips on how to share your story and your faith. It was excellent that he showed in the beginning when and when not to use Apologetics. Chapter 4 on Offensive apologetics was fatastic and has affected my approach in sharing with many people.
He could have perhaps said more on the use of the Gifts of the sprit while witnessing (I have found healing and the word of knowlege to be very effective in such cases) but that was not perhaps the intention of his book and I realize that some of those who believe the gifts kicked the bucket with the original apostles might not have read all that he had to say.

Good book. Get it and Put it into practice.

Dan Story handles the topic of presuppositions versus evidence, in a unique way. Christianity is based on facts that are tangible. Story says, "look at the evidence and make a decision." The questions of evil, reincarnation, the fate of those who never heard of Christ and the trinity are handled very well. Laymen and theologians will both love this book. Buy it now!!

The two main schools of apologetics among evangelicals are presuppositionalism and evidentialism. Story makes it clear from the first chapter that he is an evidentialist and attempts to explain the superiority of his chosen school. Unfortunately he totally distorts and misrepresents the presuppositionalist viewpoint without citing a single advocate of that school! He only cites critics of presuppositionalism. It seems obvious that he was careless in his research here. The irony is that he ends the book by using a presuppositionalist argument! This betrays his lack of understanding of the school he belittles.

Another problem is in the section where he defends the Protestant 66 book canon over against the Catholic canon which includes seven more books called deuterocanonicals. Again Story betrays his bias and poor scholarship. He makes the erroneous assertion that the Catholic Church officially added these books in the seventeenth century to counter the Protesta! nts and to bolster Catholic distinctives. He seems unaware that those same Catholic distinctives can be found in many accepted books as well. One argument he uses to support this silly thesis is that the Church fathers rejected those books. This is true Protestant form - putting words into the mouths of the fathers, none of whom were Protestant. He claims Athanasius and Jerome rejected the "Apocrypha," but as usual fails to give any citations. In fact, Jerome and Athanasius accepted those books and all other Catholic distinctives. I hope Story will be more careful in his research in the future as he is only embarrassing himself and slandering others. My opinion is that he simply parroted the popular views held by his favorite teachers. On the bright side, Story does offer some good arguments concerning other topics, but since tehy have been covered better in other works, this work is a waste of money in the long run.

It is unfortunate that an apologetic work lauded by one of my faves, RC Sproul, should fare so poorly at providing an effective grounding in apologetics. Story misconstrues the presuppositional method so completely, and provides no supporting material or footnote for his fallacious interpretation of the presuppositional approach, that it appears he has never read Cornelius Van Til. He criticizes presuppositionalism as assuming that "the Holy Spirit is unable to minister and convict through Christian evidences" (as if there were any other kind of evidence). Van Til and (even more strenuously) Greg Bahnsen flatly deny this and reveal how evidences can be successfully used in an apologetic. Further, Story claims presuppositionalism "limits God to working only subjectively in the lives of believers." ?? I can not make sense of this, as I can not fathom any other way in which God works in the lives of individuals since his work in mine is not the same as it is in anyone elses -other than in the generic sense of assuring salvation. But soteriology cannot be his difference with presuppositionalism since presuppositionalism does not extend itself (any more than evidentialism does) to formulate a soteriological position other than to rely on that posited by the Reformers (even Sproul respects Van Til as a theologian!). Yet he goes on to say on page 151 in the chapter "How Do We Know Miracles Really Happen?" "...the answer to the question of whether the Bible miracles are true alone determines the authenticity of the Christian faith?". Really? What about the Bible being true? Or the gospel being true? He states "...the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus Christ encompass the entire fabric of Christianity. If these two ...miracles did not occur, Christianity crumbles." But one might ask, if moral absolutes do not stand, does Christianity? If the laws of logic lapse, does Christianity hold together? If the uniformity of nature does not exist, as a worldview of chance matter in motion must dictate, can Christianity? Arguing the way Story proposes is defeated simply with "Oh, I believe in the incarnation and the resurrection. I just think there are natural explanations for them." Story's evidentialist approach leaves him down in the mud with the unbeliever working brick by brick to build a Christian house. I have to conclude that this is book is good evidence....that evidentialism is not the strongest apologetic for the faith. It's not even a good one. Can God work through evidentialism? Can he work even through our fumbling errors? Of course. But shoot for higher. Try "Always Ready" by Greg Bahnsen instead and if you feel gutsy go straight to "Defending the Faith" by Van Til. It appears Story never did.