Customer Reviews

Reasonable Faith (3rd Edition): Christian Truth and Apologetics

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This book is good, solid mind food. People perceive, and it is sad to say that they perceive with good reason, that Christianity is mere mind-fluff, and that what is holding back Christianity is the Christians.

This book is a discussion of what is behind Christianity, and provides a philosophical framework in which to defend Christianity. It is written at the college level, since it is intended to be an apologetics resource for college students. I marvel at the way that Dr. Craig brought together so many ideas from so many resources in this book. It found that I used almost every facet of my undergraduate education in understanding the ideas and evidences he used. Most helpful was my survey of philosophy and my hard science classes.

This book is divided along six headings: Faith, Man, God, Creation, Sacred Scripture, and Christ. Each chapter is in turn divided along several sub-headings: the Historical Background of the question, an Assessment of the question as it currently stands, and a Practical Application, where Dr. Craig discusses how "the rubber meets the road" is discussing this issue with those curious about Christianity.

This is not a bash book, nor is it a survey on "how to hate," but rather it is geared to a thoughtful and ponderous evaluation of many evidences of the truthfulness of Christianity. For example, in Chapter 2, Craig discusses the existential absurdity of life without God. He raises the question of where we get absolute values, and how life becomes meaningful if we are merely a cosmic accident or a galactic hiccup. This is the one question that the atheist, or "atheist-arguing-agnosticism" cannot answer: if there are no moral absolutes, then why not torture babies for sheer pleasure. After all, it has been done before.

Then in Chapter 3, Dr. Craig discusses the existence of God as evidenced by the Big Bang. The chapter isn't physic-heavy (It doesn't even have one equation), but it does discuss the implications of having an absolute time for creation. Craig relies heavily on the "Kalam" argument by Al-Ghazali, which, simply put, is: "Everything that began had a cause. The Universe began. Therefore it had a cause." Then the question becomes a discussion of who or what is the causal agent in the universe.

The prose is quite clear, so there is no pedantry or confusion with what you read. I found that this book was quite a pleasure to read, and it made me take several longer looks at my faith. The concluding chapter is a gem. Dr. Craig states that the ultimate apologetic is Christian love. Against such love, there is no argument.

William Lane Craig is well known inside scholarly circles. Christian scholars regard him as one of the elite. And atheist scholars, along with prominent atheist websites, feel compelled to pay a great deal of attention to the writings and debates of Craig, in my view, because he has demonstrated himself to be one of the sharpest pins to regularly burst the atheism balloon. There is no serious debate about Craig's scholarly credentials and abilities, and Reasonable Faith makes that abundantly clear.

Reasonable Faith is a methodical, meticulous, sometimes impassioned defense of the existence of the Biblically based Christian God. In this book, Craig not only challenges the views of various atheist scholars (whether they reside in science, mathematical or history disciplines) but also challenges the views of deism and 'liberal Christianity'. I felt that the book represented a very logical and easy follow stairway from the issues of faith and reason, to the inescapable reasonableness of the resurrection of Jesus. In between, Craig conducts a quality appraisal of the Godless worldview and where it leads, and an outstanding analysis on the existence of God where he takes on the views of Hawking and others. Craig Blomberg contributes a very good chapter on the reliability of the New Testament, with Craig concluding with a good chapter on the self understanding of Christ and a masterful chapter on the resurrection. Each chapter provides a very compelling chronology of how the debates revolving around these topics have evolved over time, giving the reader a good sense of how thinkers on multiple sides of the issues have formed their various positions. Craig then does an assessment of this chronology in each chapter. I found this approach to be very strong and persuasive.

Craig also does a good job referencing his book, and offers a very good bibliography of other readings that go into further detail on the issues that Craig examines here. When reading this book, the reader may very well want to conduct further investigation and research into a number of areas that Craig touches on, and the bibliography in this book allows the interested reader to do so easily.

The problem of miracles was the one area where Craig could have been a little stronger, in my view. This area is not weak by any stretch, but could have stood for further exploration and examination, in my opinion.

Overall, this is an outstanding book. Craig wrote this book on a more popularized level to make it more amenable to laypeople, but potential readers should not be lead to believe that this is an easy or fluffy read. While written at a more popularized level than much of Craig's high scholarly material, this is still a book that deals with complex issues in a meaty way, and requires the reader to carefully think things through. After reading this book, I hope that even those who remain unconvinced about their need for the Christian God will at least acknowledge that Craig clearly demonstrates that the historical Christian religion can be effectively and articulately defended against the highest level of opposing arguments thrown against it. Christianity is a religion that more than stands on its own intellectually, and Craig shows, in my view, that its competitors in the world of scholarship have long since been lapped. An excellent resource!

Having been introduced to Dr. Craig via the video debate that he did with Frank Zindler in 1993 (I have seen the video a dozen times as I have shown this to numerous apologetics classes), I knew that this was a very skilled scholar of Christian truth and apologetics. "Reasonable Faith did not disappoint. From the issues of the existence of God to the resurrection, Dr. Craig deals with a number of important topics that definitely belong in a book like this. He makes the point for his book in the introduction, "Christianity is being attacked from all sides as irrational or outmoded, and millions of students, our future generation of leaders, have absorbed this viewpoint" (xiii). He is absoultely correct in saying that we need to use our minds to fully know and appreciate the God who has revealed Himself to us through His Word.

The first chapter, Faith and Reason, was well done as he took a historical look at how previous believers have wrestled with how much reason is needed to have true faith. (Hence, the title of the book.) Without the Holy Spirit, no one would ever become a Christian, he says, and I fully agree. Good things were written here, and I truly appreciated his assessment section as he put everything together. Another thing I liked about this chapter (and the other chapters as well) is that Dr. Craig wrote a short conclusion that gives an application for the believer. This not only serves as a wonderful summary but is certainly very useful for the lay reader.

After showing the absurdity of the idea that there is no God in chapter 2, Dr. Craig went to one of his specialities in the third chapter regarding the existence of God. This was a long and sometimes too deep chapter that would probably lose many readers. After reading this chapter, I became confused as to whom Dr. Craig thought his audience was. Was he shooting for more of a lay audience, as his "application" sections seemed to indicate? Or was he going for the more intellectual crowd, a group that could even include skeptics? I'm not sure, but I found that I had to move slowly through this chapter, and I'm familiar with the points being made. Still, there's a lot of meat here and worth a study.

I felt the middle chapters bogged down a bit, with history being emphasized along with the points. Craig Blomberg, though, had an excellent submitted chapter on the historical reliability of the Bible. The last chapter on the resurrection was one of the strongest points of this book, as I think Dr. Craig does as well as anyone reporting on the historicity of the most important event in Christianity.

One final comment. I would have liked it had the editor eliminated the conjunctions that began many sentences (but, for, etc.). The book also has too many sentences beginning with the word "now." Now, I know this is a minor point, but truly it almost became a humorous distraction every time I saw another sentence that began with it. :) Despite this silly observation, Reasonable Faith is a book I would recommend. Indeed there are few Christian scholars as sharp as Dr. Craig. I challenge an atheist, committed or not, to take up this book and see if Christianity is nonsensible. If he is honest, he will have to admit that there are at least some strong points with the Christian religion.

Dr. Craig attempts to develop a cumulative case for the truth of Christianity. First, he attempts to demonstrate the probability of god's existence by utilizing a number of the common arguments. However, Craig's specialty is the cosmological argument which he develops very well in this book. While the cosmological argument does nothing to prove the truthfulness of Christianity, it definitely goes a long way towards demonstrating the high likelihood of the existence of some type of god.

After arguing that it is far more likely that god exists rather than god not existing, he then proceeds to argue for the possibility of miracles on the basis of god's ability to perform them. This sets the table for Craig's finest area of expertise - the resurrection of Jesus. He gives great arguments for the historicity of Jesus burial in a tomb, discovery of the tomb empty, and the post-mortem appearances of Jesus.

I believe Craig's sequence of argumentation is the most effective. He shows the existence of god to be highly probable before he attempts to convince readers of the reality of Jesus' resurrection. This is a far more convincing route than the one used by those who would try to argue for the existence of god on the basis of the resurrection. People won't believe in miracles unless they FIRST believe there is a god who can perform them. Fortunately, Craig is well aware of this and builds a very convincing case for the truthfulness of Christianity.

Craig's section on the "witness of the Holy Spirit" being the proof of Christianity is a very small section of this book (less than 10 pages) and does nothing to hinder his overall argument. The fact that a previous reviewer took a very minor subsection of the book and blew it into a full-blown review seems to me to demonstrate the reviewer's hesitancy to address some of Craig's more substantial arguments such as the cosmological argument for god's existence or his argument for the resurrection.

The strengths of this book are: 1. its accessibility (it is easy to follow, and presented in a direct, style, Craig addresses the listener); 2. the historical approach for each topics (This is missing in most apologetics books. One can notice in particular how Craig masters the deist controversy , he did research on it); 3. its dealing with "existential" aspect of apologetics ("the human predicament").

The shortcomings are: 1. the absence of a global framework, reasoning for integrating the diverse arguments: one still need to study Geisler's Christian Apologetics for such an integration; 2. Craig's view of Christianity as basically true, his circular reasoning (based on the Bible) about the Holy Spirit, and his uncritical endorsment of Plantinga's nonsensical epistemology (see James Sennett's book ("Modality..."): this is the major shortcoming of the book, a big mistake. 3. The book is definitely intended to Christians (Craig tells how to convert non-Christians...), I would not lend to a non-Christian. Strangely, Craig addresses at the end of the album non-Christian listeners, asking them to make a commitment for Christ. But this may be a good thing for nominal Christians. 4. Craig's concentration on the Kalam argument: fine, this argument is excellent for those of us with a background in natural sciences, yet it does not give the theistic God (e. g. it could give several gods), just as the design argument. One really need to use Aquinas' 3rd way to get the full-blown theistic God (the latest exposition of it is in Yandell's "Philosophy of Religion", 1999, but this is a difficult read. An easier one can be found in Geisler's Christian Apologetics). The third way is based on abstract concepts (necessity, etc.) and is probably not fitting in a popular books, so I will not blame Craig for not using it here.

I read this book under the recommendation of two noted apologists. This book neither toys around with apologetics nor gives brief, watered-down arguments; rather, it gets to the meat of the subject and goes in depth. This book is well suited for college/graduate apologetics courses and for any Christian who is willing to take a serious, in-depth look at Christian apologetics. The book is academic in nature and not a typical self-help, devotional read... although while reading this book I do feel my relationship with Christ grew out of my deeper understanding of many things.

Craig explores and explains well the relationship of faith & reason, the existence of God, the absurdity of life without God, miracles, arguments concerning problems of historical knowledge, reliability & historicity of the New Testament scriptures, and the claims & resurrection of Christ. Each chapter gives views contrary to orthodox Christianity and then Craig analyzes each in turn. I especially appreciated his treatment of miracles and the problem of historicity.

At the end of each chapter is a summary and a personal application section. The personal application questions helped me to keep in mind the real reason why I was reading this book. This book could be used in a small group Bible study, but I would not recommend it to those who are not willing to put forth some effort.

The last chapter is brief, but very important. Here Craig reminds us that the best arguments in the world really come second to how we live our lives as Christians and how we interact with the people around us. This, he says, is the "ultimate apologetic."

This is a wonderfully written book.

This book is a tremendous work showing that there are actual intelligent reasons for believing in some of the cardinal elements of biblical christianity. This book does not aim to answer every possible concern related to the subject, but it aims at the central issues. Whether or not the content of this book actually proves biblical christianity, well, this is not the point. As a philosophy student, I have learned enough to know that undoubtful proof in the areas of religious belief is notoriously hard to establish. But the point of this book is that there are some very well thought out reasons to back some of the main claims of christian belief. You don't have to embrace wishful thinking, become gullible and just hope it's true. Faith and reason are not automatically in opposition, one does not necessarily rule out the other. That's what this book is. It is a fairly intense exercise in explaining the reasons for believing in God and the Historical actuality of the Jesus of the new testament. ( yes there really are some pretty rational grounds for these beliefs ) Potential buyers of this work need to understand that this is a somewhat difficult book to plow through, it will require a good deal of mental effort, but it is well worth the effort for sure. The only real complaints I have with the actual content is twofold. One is that the Kalam arguement for the existence of God is, I think, too heavily leaned upon. It's not that the arguement is no good, it's just that it's too dependant upon the big bang concept of cosmology which is more problematic than what is commonly realized. Two, at one point, the author lays claim to the Holy Spirit for one of the main ways He knows christianity to be true. Although, this is by no means the only way he claims to back up these beliefs. Now, his claim to the holy spirit giving him his "certainty" is fine if it's kept in it's place, which really is one of subjectivity. After all, other religious adherents may claim that the spirit of their god is telling them of the certainty of their beleifs. At any rate, these two very minor "goofs", if I may call them that, are small potatoes in an other wise very rationally solid book of reasons for biblical faith.

Not too long ago, I went through a period of serious soul-searching. Something in me told me that God was truth, but I didn't have strong answers to many of the tough questions that troubled me. I had heard atheists make seemingly-good arguments against the existence of God or the truth of Christianity. I had also heard Christians make seemingly-good points, but in my ignorance I struggled to discern the truth between the two opposing views. I eventually bought and read a book based on a debate between William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Never before had I seen Christianity defended with such strong philosophical, logical, scientific and historical arguments. I was filled with an intellectual hunger for more information that brought me to this book.

Reasonable Faith has affected me more than any other book except the Bible. It won't answer every question, nor does it try to do so, but it gives the reader a strong foundation for the further study of Christian apologetics. William Lane Craig guides the reader through the history of theological thought, arguments for the existence of God, arguments for the Christian God and historical arguments for the historicity of the risen Christ. His writing style is fluid, captivating, and expresses difficult subject matter in an easily-understood way. His philosophical arguments for natural theology are especially devastating to the naturalistic worldview.

If you only own one book on Christian apologetics or philosophy, it must be this one. I thank God for William Lane Craig's ministry.

A monumental work! This is the best book on the subject of Christian evidences that I have read. It reviews and assesses the major topics involved in Christian apologetics: faith and reason, the absurdity of life without God, the existence of God, the problem of miracles, the problem of historical knowledge, the historical reliability of the New Testament, and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. What makes this work special is that Dr. Craig draws upon a wealth of knowledge from modern big bang cosmology and New Testament critical studies to bolster his claim that Christianity is reasonable. Reading this book will challenge the skeptic's atheism and edify the believer's faith. Destined to be a classic and rival to C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity."

I found this to be one of the better Christian apologetics books out there. However, this book seems to be heavily geared toward the Christian reader; I initially believed that it would be directed toward skeptics. I found that the author placed a lot of emphasis on personal experience. The arguments are well laid out and very well organized, but several of his ideas have been refuted by various authors and speakers. Although, as an atheist, I certainly did not agree with many of Dr. Craig's points, I enjoyed reading his ideas.