Customer Reviews

Who Made God?: And Answers to Over 100 Other Tough Questions of Faith

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book can a very useful tool for those Christians who are bombarded with skepticism both from within and from without. I view this only as an introductory work, with the arguments being necessarily superficial (for brevity's sake), but the footnotes and further reading list are probably the most valuable part of the book. Reading it will give you a chance to see if apologetics is an area that you would like to explore, and then it will show you what additional books to launch into for each of the different categories.

As far as the substance goes, I believe William Lane Craig's writings are the star of the show. Although I have a liberal arts background, his chapter on science really makes me want to read more from authors like Polkinghorne about the only-recently-uncomfortable relationship between science and theology. It is fascinating to read that much of academy in cosmology is pointing back towards intelligent design theory and eschewing much of the previous postulations by Hawking or Weinberg.

I have been a big fan of Ravi Zacharias for a long time, so I was anxious to read the writings of his mentor, Norm Geisler. I hate to admit it, but I was somewhat dissapointed. I found his writing to be repetitive, circuitous, and sometimes even tautological. There are about three chapters that Geisler wrote that could have easily condensed into one. I know that Geisler is a prolific writer in apologetics and considered one the genre's mainstays, so I still do look forward to reading something of his that is more single-minded. I suspect that my complaints are a result of the constrined format.

It also should be noted that Zacharias himself did not pen any chapter, and acted only in an editorial capacity. I believe this to be a real loss for this book because few can match the eloquence, persuasiveness, and compassion of Zacharias.

All of this is not to say that I did not enjoy this book or found it useful, but once one is versed with the basics of this book, it is unlikely to be a reference point for deeper arguments, but I repeatedly find myself shopping for books from the "Further Reading" and footnotes chapters.

This book offers answers to over 100 commonly-asked questions about Christianity in an easy-to-read format. The editors bring together the world's leading Christian apologists and present their knowledge on each subject. The book is organized by topics, with several questions and answers listed under each topic. Part One of the book covers the most fundamental questions about Christianity, including the deity of God, Jesus Christ, the validity of the Bible, evolution/creationism, evil, etc. Part Two delves into more complicated topics and examines the differences between Christianity and other world religions, such as Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism, Transcendental Meditation, Buddhism, etc. Each chapter also ends with discussion questions, which are quite thought-provoking and beneficial for small-group study.

This book is a good starting point for those who wish to understand more about the Christian faith. It's fairly basic, so the editors list several more books and Web sites at the end for deeper study. This is a good reference especially for people who are curious about the Christian faith or are new believers.

The answers in this book are way too condensed and simple. Doesn't thouroughly answer the questions that are brought forth and takes snippets from other books on these topics for its' answers, such as "When Skeptics Ask" and "Case for Christ."

If you are looking for answers to tough questions pick up "When Skeptics Ask" "Case for Christ" "Kingdom of the Cults" and "Evidence that Demands a Verdict"

This book leaves a lot to be desired and expected more being that Ravi was the General Editor of this book and also "Kingdom of the Cults"

This is a good introduction to apologetics, packed with useful info, written by many experts. However, it may be just a little too short and condensed. There are better books like this out there like Samples' "Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions" , Strobel's "The Case for Faith" and "The Case for a Creator," etc.

I do take issue with Rhodes discussion on evil & pain. In an otherwise great discussion, he equates all of pain & death with evil, being evil or being nonexistent before evil entered the world. This is problematic in a number of ways (I quote the following from Dean's book "Is the Truth Out There?"):

Even plants "suffer" and experience "death,"...Did these plants suddenly appear after Adam's sin? According to the fossil record they did not. Science has also shown us that animal death is necessary for stable ecosystems. "No death before Adam" also violates the laws of physics. There is no life, or no work, without decay and death. In any given moment, cells are dying and food is decaying in our bodies so life may continue. Is this death and decay evil? If death was inherently evil, what of God who killed animals to clothe Adam and Eve and the deaths he caused throughout the Bible (in punishing people)? If death is inherently evil, then so is God.

Would not a caring creator prepare the world in the best possible way for man, the crown of creation? There are billions of tons of oil, coal, limestone, marble, topsoil and kerogen on Earth. All are valuable, and some necessary, for the maintaining and improvement of human life and all were created by decaying life. Would not the creator - knowing that man would sin by virtue of the fact the creator is outside of time and could see man's future - prepare the world accordingly? Was not the preparation of these materials good?

There is also the illogical claim that God did not create the laws of physics until after man sinned. Why would God create the laws after he created the universe? Those who believe death before Adam is evil explain the existence of carnivores by claiming that creation was already prepared to become meat-eaters since God knew what was coming. If this were true, the fossil record must be a deception, because it shows animals were already eating meat. Adam and Eve were not eating meat (which Genesis 1:29 and Genesis 9:3 seem to indicate) because it is healthier for people with their long life spans. With all the vegetation in Eden, meat would be unnecessary. When mankind's lifespan later decreased, he could eat reasonable amounts of meat without much worry (assuming meat is not the only food you eat, its good properties will outweigh the bad in our relatively short life spans).

When God gave man meat (Genesis 9:3) he did not say anything about changing the animals' diet. One could infer from this omission that the former guideline for animals (Genesis 1:30) was applicable only in Eden or was not completely forbidding carnivorous activity among animals. If Genesis 1:30 were forbidding all carnivorous activity, why does it only refer to the life types man would be interacting with inside Eden (land and airborne animals, see also Genesis 2:20) and not ocean dwelling creatures? To get really technical, read Genesis 1:29-30 again and notice how it is not forbidding anything, but seems to be a recommended guideline. Also, since God specifically told man he could eat meat in Genesis 9:3, here is another obvious point that the death of animals is not inherently evil.

Now consider how Genesis states Eve's childbearing pain was increased after the fall. This tells us two things: 1. There was pain before the fall; and 2. She may have had children before the fall. Also realize that pain is a defense mechanism, so it can not be a construct of evil.

People often ask why some people are taken from this world when they are. Granted, we do not have the larger perspective to see how everyone's life fits together, but consider that God may take people so they do not have to experience our corrupt and evil world anymore. On the other side of things, God limited the life spans of man so he could cause less death and destruction to each other. In other words, death serves larger purposes from a perspective beyond our own.

Once we strip away the emotion of death and look some of the realities of death, we find that the death tautology loses its strength. Not only through physical reality, but it does so through a careful reading of scripture as well.

I figured that a book put together by Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler would have been organized better. The book is very simple. It might be at a coffee shop philosophy level. I guess I was looking for a book that would give more detailed answers. I guess it might be a good introductory book on apologetics, but it may be too simple for that even. I usually love anything by Geisler or Zacharias, however this book just wasn't good enough.

This book offers some good responses for questions that often arise, but only in an introductory fashion. It's a great book to give to the kind of person who wants answers but isn't willing to dig too deeply to find them (and there are a lot of those around). There is a wealth of resource material in the endnotes for anyone wanting to explore the topics deeper.

This is a good entry-level book on Christian apologetics. It is suitable for anyone interested to find short answers to a range of common questions raised against the evangelical Christian faith. The book is written in a crisp, easy-to-read style that even a new reader will find easy to digest.

A minor quibble is that the question-and-answer format tends to either leave gaps or create overlaps in the material provided. Also, those interested in deeper and more thorough-going discussions of the questioned handled in the book (see the synopsis above) might find the need to look elsewhere.

As other reviewers have stated, this is a basic introduction to Christian apologetics. It is not, and is not intended to be, the primary source for
answers to problem areas confronting believers when dealing with skeptics.
However, I found it to be a good, basic resource for many of the common questions asked by skeptics and seekers. As other reviewers have stated, the footnotes
themselves are a valuable resource by themselves for further study.

If you are looking for a detailed, comprehensive textbook in Christian apologetics, this book is not it. It does provide some basic answers in short form to some of the questions frequently encountered when witnessing to others.

It's a good resource for Christians, and I would recommend it to someone honestly seeking Biblical truth.

I purchased this book in hopes of finding a basic apologetic book to recommend to my lay friends who don't have enough background in the subject to read some of the more in depth works. I was sadly disappointed.

The book starts out well enough with a solid chapter by Norman Geisler. He sets the tone well with short and simple answers to relevant questions. Then the tone completely changes in what is the most poorly treated chapter in the book "tough questions about evil". Surely if this is an apologetic book to offer solutions to non-Christians, the contribution of scripture is of little worth, and additional logical answers are needed. (for a far more adequate response to this issue - and equally readable - see William Craig Lane's section on this topic in his "Hard Questions, Real Answers"). As we move through this work there is very little by way of consistency in terms of the level of answer offered by the various contributors. Some answers were too in depth while others simply aren't adequate.

I'd be happy to recommend certain chapters and answers to friends, but not this entire book wholesale.

I for one will continue to look for an accessible and general book on apologetics.

A am a university student who is studying religion and philosophy, and I think that this book does a good job of offering an overview of christian apologetics. The answers that it offers agree with what the Bible teaches, and answers given to topics such as evil, pain and suffering were strong philosophical arguements.

Over the past few years, I have read a number of books by both Zacharias and Geisler, and I can say without a doubt these two are among the greatest christian apologists of all time, and their works have greatly strengthened the field of christian apologetics.