Customer Reviews

Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith

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

 

 

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!

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.

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.

Wisdom is knowing and doing what's right. To be wise, one must know reality is, and in particular, if there is a God and if man has an immortal soul. The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is a outstanding book that presents cogent arguments in favor of God's existence, man's immortal soul and the truth of Catholicism. The Handbook is a Summa Theologica for the 21st Century, and like the Summa, it is very well written.

Most of the books written by atheists claiming that God is simply a fairy tale are shallow, simplistic, not fair and dead wrong. So it's refreshing to see a book on apologetics that is clear, concise, fair and comprehensive. Having read 55 of Peter Kreeft's books, most of Kreeft's books are excellent, and the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is Kreeft at his best.

The key measure of any book is "Is it true?" Yes, the Handbook is true, and its message is important. Philosophy has been called "The Great Conversation" since it deals with great ideas. This book deals with several great questions and does a fair, comprehensive, clear and compelling weighing of the pros and cons and comes to a correct conclusion.

If you're looking for a Great Book, look no further - here it is. If a genie were to pop out of a lamp and grant you a wish, a good wish would be to ask for wisdom. The handbook is exceptionally wise. There's a quotation that "Without God, there is only darkness; with God, light is useless." If God is dead, then man is dead. For those wishing to escape the darkness, read this enlightening book.

Kreeft and Tacelli's book on Catholic Apologetics is first of all a book of definitions and reasoned philosophical thinking. It is cogent, lucid and provocative. I initially thought it would be "too dry", but found it instead to be intriguing, well thought out, and a good tool for the mental toolbox of any serious student of religious thought in the marketplace.

The book is written very well, I have to chew on it a bit to get everything out of it that is there, but really informative! Makes me wish I had studied harder in Philosophy class in college.

I brought this book entitled: Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith by Peter Kreeft for visiting priest from India who is a scripture scholar. I also have this book and I found it very apologetics in Catholic faith.

Purchased as the reference book for a Youth Class on Apologetics. Found it well written, covers numerous topics fully without extra fluff. The Personal Preface is excellent, I sighted it as some of reasons and purpose of apologetics. It is not a a basic book, but it is also not over your head. Layed out well, easy to follow.

This books tends to be a bit advanced to the common lay person. I have heard numerous complaints that their seems to be a need for an introduction to Philosophy before actually understanding the material and concepts in this book. I must agree. This is a bit to far advanced for the common lay person with no actual Philosophical training or education. I would highly recommend that you look up other "apologetics books" for the Catholic faith, this is just a bit to advanced !