Reasonable Faith: Basic Christian Apologetics [Hardcover]

Winfried Corduan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1994

The apostle Peter urged his readers to give a reason for the hope that is within them. In a day when even the concept of truth is questioned, Corduan gives reasons for the truth of historic Christian faith and argues that being able to give reasons for one's faith is possible, desirable, and something laypersons can learn.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Baptist Sunday School Board (January 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805415491
• ISBN-13: 978-0805415490
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,364,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born August 17, 1949, Germany
B.S., 1970, U. of Maryland
M.A., 1973, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Ph.D., 1977 Rice University
Wife: June
Sons: Nick(b. 2-18-76), who is married to Meghan
Seth (b. 9-28-78), who is married to Amber
Cat: Poly

Residence: Alexandria, IN
Hobbies:
. . . making websites, blogging
. . . photography
. . . watching autoracing
. . . composing music (e.g. sequencing midis)
. . . playing my harmonica

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good and concrete introduction to apologetics, August 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Reasonable Faith: Basic Christian Apologetics (Hardcover)

This book is very suited as an introduction to apologetics, and for group study. Each chapter is preceeded by some conversations (called "vignettes") the author had with different persons on the subject of the chapter. At the end of the chapter, one finds some answers/reflexions about the vignettes of the chapter, as well as some questions to master the content of the chapter and for further reflexions, and also a short bibliography for further exploration.

I find most of the chapters very good, except the presentation of the cosmological and teleological arguments.

Ccontents

1 Faith, reason and doubt

2 Truth, knowledge and relativism

3 Knowledge: some important components

4 Knowledge: testing worldviews

5 Wordlviews in trouble

6 The existence of God

7 God and evil

8 Miracles: liability and asset

9 Back to the past

10 The New Testament and history

11 Who is Jesus

12 From Christ to Christianity

13 Truth and our culture

Names Index

Scripture Index

Subject Index

A much more detailed (and somewhat less formally presented) introduction to Apologetics can be found in "When skeptics ask" by Norman Geisler. For a more philosophical introduction, see "Reason and Faith" by Ronald Nash. For those who want more, I can recommend all the books of Geisler, James Moreland, William Craig, Douglas Geivett, Gary Habermas

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This passes as sound argumentation in Christian circles?, May 17, 1998

By 

David E. Woon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reasonable Faith: Basic Christian Apologetics (Hardcover)

The subject of Christian apologetics holds a fascination for a small group of believers and nonbelievers. A well-written case for the affirmative suitable for non-scholars on either side would be very welcome. While this book does cover the relevant topics in a logical and coherent sequence, I found many of its arguments to be ill-posed or ineffective, and in a couple of cases, offensive (for example, the author describes two forms of agnosticism, benign and malignant; surely he could have chosen terms with softer connotations). As an example of a poorly reasoned argument, atheism is defined as "the denial of any God whatsoever," an extremely narrow definition. Atheism is then dismissed as unprovable, against human nature, and forced to derive its values from theism. Theism is just as unprovable, against human nature, and derivative. I can appreciate that this book was largely intended for a Christian audience, but I suggest that this purpose might have been served better if the author had sought constructive criticism from someone on the other side of the fence.