Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith [Paperback]

Peter Kreeft (Author), Ronald Tacelli (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1586172794 | ISBN-13: 978-1586172794 | Publication Date: June 30, 2009

Unbelievers, doubters and skeptics continue to attack the truths of Christianity. Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is the only book that categorizes and summarizes all the major arguments in support of the main Christian beliefs. Also included is a Protestant-friendly treatment of Catholic- Protestant issues. The Catholic answers to Protestant questions show how Catholicism is the fullness of the Christian faith. Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is full of the wisdom and wit, clarity and insight of philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. This is an informative and valuable guidebook for anyone looking for answers to questions of faith and reason. Whether you are asking the questions yourself or want to respond to others who are, here is the resource you have been waiting for. Topics include: faith and reason, the existence of God, God's nature, creation and evolution, providence and free will, miracles, problem of evil, Bible's historical reliability, divinity of Chris, Christ's resurrection, life after death, salvation, the Eucharist, Catholic hierarchy and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 494 pages
• Publisher: Ignatius Press (June 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586172794
• ISBN-13: 978-1586172794
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Lay-Level Text With A Misleading Description, July 10, 2009

By 

Brian Roberts "Author" (Metro Detroit, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith (Paperback)

Anyone who has been anticipating this book is probably already familiar with the Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions (hereafter referred to as "HBCA") by the same authors.

BE ADVISED: This "new" volume is that exact text (as far as I can tell, it is entirely unaltered from the last edition of the HBCA) with the exception of a new chapter - just under forty pages - of very short essays, ranging from a half a page to two pages in length, on various Catholic topics.

In other words, if you already own the old handbook, then purchasing this new handbook gets you a little less than forty additional pages. What's more, the new essays are not framed with anywhere near the deductive precision of the arguments in the old HBCA. Their polemic is more of an appeal to poetry and inspiration rather than logic (in fact, the authors sneak in an actual poem in their essay on Marian doctrines). This is all horribly disappointing since the authors are clearly capable of a full volume of deductive reasoning for Catholic doctrines (which is what I expected of this text when I bought it).

ALL THAT SAID: I still rate the book 5 stars. If you do not already own the old HBCA, then the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is a must-own. If you do own the old volume, then this new one is not worth the price. The essays are very nice and indeed inspirational, but they would have been better released as a $5 booklet. If a friend buys the book, the essays are worth borrowing the text from your friend for a quick read. Personally, I think Dr. Kreeft's audio CD "7 Reasons to be Catholic" is much better than the forty pages provided in the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics (even though the forty pages cover certain Catholic doctrines more specifically). There is also a nice little suggested reading list for the new Catholic chapter, attached to the original HBCA bibliography.

The best books I know of for the Catholic who was looking forward to this book because of the misleading description are The New Catholic Answer Bible - Librosario, Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians", and The Spirit of Catholicism (Milestones in Catholic Theology), by Karl Adam. In fact, The Spirit of Catholicism is my favorite book on Catholicism that I have ever read. And believe me. As a convert, a theology major, and a Catholic evangelist, I've read a lot of books on Catholicism. The "Handbook of Catholic Apologetics" is a great book of Christian apologetics for the average reader but it is by no means an actual handbook of Catholic apologetics!

Google PhatMass and check out their forums if you want to know more about Catholicism or if you want some more book recommendations. Great crowd over there.

God bless you!

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A reprint with a coda, July 15, 2009

By 

Rich Leonardi (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith (Paperback)

As another reviewer has noted, this "new" Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is merely a reprint of the authors' earlier work of ecumenically oriented Christian apologetics with a 40-page Catholic coda. As such, it's a bit misleading to give it a new name, especially when that new name suggests that this book is something that it really isn't. Ignatius Press, a fine publishing house, ought to issue a clarification in their promotional materials.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as "Catholic" as I would have liked..., August 26, 2009

By 

Bobby Bambino (Lebanon, NH United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith (Paperback)

This book is the Handbook of Christian Apologetics with an additional chapter on "Catholic" issues at the end. While I do really like this book and think that the Handbook of Christian Apologetics is a 5-star book, this book attempting to be a handbook of CATHOLIC apologetics was a bit disappointing, as another 3-star reviewer mentioned. A handbook on Catholic apoloegtics should have whole chapters devoted to topics like Mary, historical controversies, salvation, etc. as opposed to only a couple of pages at most on 20 topics, as important as they are. So I just thought that as a handbook for specifically Catholic issues, the book is lacking.

But otherwise, it is an excellent book and one of the premiere works for a philosophical defense of the Christian faith from the ground up. Some highlights from certain chapters:

The book contains the best exposition of the relationship between fath ad reason I have ever read. The authors point out the very obvious yes penetrating fact that given any two collections of things (in this case, the collection of all faith statements and the collection of all reason statements), there can only be 5 possible relationships between them. All of one are the other (or vice-versa), none of one are the other, they are the same, or there is a partial relation. The authors then go on to describe how these 5 statements correspond to 5 types of thinking; rationalism, fideism, a kind of modernism, and two others without names. It provided an excellent framework to think about faith and reason.

One chapter is spent looking at 20 arguments for God's existence. Some of them I had not seen before and were quite interesting, especially Descarte's "ontological" argument. At first it seemed silly to me, but then I thought a bit more about it and thought that there may be more to it. Taken as a whole, this chapter provides a good overview for the arguments for the existence of God. The authors are careful to note what the arguments do and don't do. For example, the moral argument does not give us the attribute of omniscience and the design argument does not necessarily say that God is interested in a relationship with us. Theism and Christianity are carefully distinguished in this chapter.

The chapter on who Jesus was/is is excellent. The authors are careful to go thoughly through every possibility; that is, was Jesus lunatic, liar, lord, legend, or guru? Each option, except lord, is carefully weighed and shown to be extremely lacking and problematic. The authors take the time to make a solid case, and look at each option from all angles, demolishing any hope of holding to any of the non-lord options. Just from looking at all the possibilities and exhausting everything except lord, the authors show that it is indeed possible to rationally hold (in fact, most reasonably) that Jesus was lord.

Thus, the book is very good and a solid defense of theism, truth, and Christianity, but doesn't give the full range and breadth of exposition that I would have liked to see for a book attempting to defend specifically Catholic issues.