Reason for the Hope Within [Paperback]

Michael J. Murray (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 28, 1998

As a new believer, Murray found that explaining his faith was a lot trickier when talking to unsympathetic philosophy professors. Refined by years of graduate work at Notre Dame, he now presents a condensation of recent work in Christian philosophy for those with deep intellectual curiosity and a desire to defend orthodox Christianity.

Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (December 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802844375
• ISBN-13: 978-0802844378
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The weight of truth, September 6, 2000

By 

H. David Peirce "Zossima" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reason for the Hope Within (Paperback)

The author of every essay in this collection uses his/her mind to probe both deep aspects of God's being and controversial issues in Christianity. Each article is impressive in its breadth and depth, particularly given the brevity devoted to such issues as hell and God's sovereignty. Every article is comprised of a review of historical teachings on a topic, then presents the authors reasoned position. The author's arguments are all well-constructed. As such, they are food for thought to anyone interested in Christian doctrine, whether you agree with the author's position or not.

Additionally, in a world that relegates faith and Christian doctrine to mystical lunacy, that holds religious belief as subordinate to the "facts" of science, it is refreshing to read logical arguments for Christian doctrine.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A most laudable project, very well executed, September 12, 2005

By 

Micah Newman (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reason for the Hope Within (Paperback)

Just the idea of this collection of essays is a wonderful one, and extremely valuable, for at least two reasons.

1) The motivating concept overarching these works is that of locating the proper role of apologetics. The value of this guiding principle could hardly be overstated, as seldom as it is broached among apologetic writers, who all too often leave tacit their background assumptions as to what, *precisely*, they take their arguments to be accomplishing. Michael Murray, in the opening essay, sets the tone at the outset with his eschewing of the "sledgehammer apologetics" of such as Schaeffer and Sproul. The alternative set out is an extremely wise and circumspect approach that knows the limits of reason and doesn't try to overextend it. Whatever that approach sacrifices in rhetorical effect, it more than makes up for in humility and authenticity.

2) The authors are professional philosophers with all the best thought and scholarship on their chosen topics at their fingertips, plus the discipline of clarity and precision that comes with contemporary analytic philosophy. But they're writing explicitly with the non-philosopher in mind, so are careful to apply the clarity and precision of their discipline without being at all technical or complex. The result is a serious no-BS zone, but a readily accessible one.

I don't know where you'd find either one of the above elsewhere, so to have a compendium with BOTH the aforementioned is just priceless. The results are uniformly excellent and helpful, with the notable exception of John O'Leary-Hawthorn's "Arguments for Atheism," which I found almost useless. The whole thing amounted to "Well, that's just what would be expected from someone without the gift of faith." (That's almost verbatim.) It's almost as if an atheist went "undercover" to write a exceptionally weak contribution to an apologetics volume.

That one only sticks out like a sore thumb because the rest of it is so good. Highlights for me included:
Daniel Howard-Snyder - "God, Evil, and Suffering" (extremely helpful in understanding the issues; some angles on the Problem of Evil I hadn't heard before)
Timothy O'Connor - "Religious Pluralism" (I said this book steers clear of "sledgehammer apologetics," but O'Connor really does give what I would regard as a flat-out refutation of they're-all-right Pluralism)
Trenton Merricks - "The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting" (a Christian physicalist shows that accepting orthodox Christian truth in no way requires substance dualism, and in fact dualism may even be unBiblical, if anything)
Frances Howard-Snyder - "Christianity and Ethics" (the Euthyphro dilemma examined and defused)
Douglas Blount - "The Authority of Scripture" (from a theologian: how and why we get such an idea; as simple and robust as Plantinga's "properly basic" notion)

I hope you find it as valuable and edifying as I did.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for any apologist's library!, May 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Reason for the Hope Within (Paperback)

This is a book I have been hoping to see for a long time. As an avid reader of philosophy and apologetics I have been aware of the growing number of Christian philosophers and the work they have been doing. The problem was always in getting their material. It is usually only found in hard to get journals or anthologies. This book takes the best they have to offer and compiles it into apologetic categories. The articles are well-written, challenging and thoughtful. I would recommend this to those who do apologetics at the intermediate to advanced levels. It is also a good book to give to a thinking unbeliever. CPT Curby W. Graham, 1-7 CAVALRY Intelligence Officer.