Customer Reviews

Reasonable Faith: Basic Christian Apologetics

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

 

 

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

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.