Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Covers the Bases Well, August 17, 2004
Aptly named "A Comprehensive Case," this book builds from the foundational issues and works its way up to the crowning miracle of Christendom -- the resurrection of Jesus. However, if you are looking for explorations of modern miracles or similar evidence, this is not the book you want.
It is to the editors credit that their first chapter is given to two who deny the possibility of miracles (and/or their detection). Taking David Hume's infamous chapter, "On Miracles," as the opening salvo, In Defense adequately sets the stage for the debate. Hume's arguments continue today in full force. They have by no means lost their influence. But lest you think these Christian apologists are setting up an outdated strawman, another section is given to contemporary atheist philosopher Anthony Flew to voice his comments on Hume as well as miracles.
With the opposition in place, four Christian writers begin making the philosophical case for the possibility that miracles exist and can be detected. A section on defining miracles is a welcome narrowing of the issue. Then Norman Geisler persuasively takes Hume and Flew head on and Francis Beckwith wrestles with the possibility of detecting miracles in history. The closing chapter in this section deals with "Recognizing a Miracle" and is also helpful in narrowing the issue.
The next set of chapters provides additional philosophical justification for believing in the possibility of miracles as well as their detection, including an aggressive assault on metaphysical naturalism by Ronald Nash and a brief argument for the existence of God. The main goal of this chapter is to establish the existence of a God who can and is inclined to act in human history. In other words, a God who does miracles. Overall this section succeeds in establishing its arguments and provides one more link in the chain of argument.
The final section rests on the shoulders of the previous chapters. Given that philosophical objections to the possibility and detection of miracles are not sound, and that there likely is a God who can and is inclined to intervene, we now get the arguments that God has done just that. Which makes it somewhat odd that this chapter leads off with an argument about "Miracles in the World Religions." This chapter is more effective in showing that Hume's argument about competing miracle traditions in various religions is not necessarily a valid objection than it is in exploring the competition in detail. It probably belonged with the other chapters focusing on philosophy. Then follows a chapter on fulfilled prophecy that provides an interesting discussion, but is too short to convince fence sitters. After that, a chapter argues that the incarnation of Christ is not logically incoherent. Interesting, but not something that most of us have spent much time contemplating.
By far the best case-specific arguments for miracles in the book are William L. Craig's chapter on the empty tomb and Gary Habermas' chapter on the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Craig, used to having the whole argument to himself, adjusts well to tackling only the empty tomb. He takes Crossan to task for his ill considered insistence that no crucifixion victim would have been buried at all (an argument disproved by the archeological find of the body of a crucified first century man in a family burial chamber near Jerusalem). Habermas, who I have had less exposure to, does a good job discussing the resurrection appearances of Jesus by focusing on the earliest reports referenced in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The book then ends with a conclusion wrapping up the case for "God's Action in History."
Overall, this book delivers what it promises -- a comprehensive defense of miracles. Of course, any single chapter could itself be a book (and in fact, many chapters are books by the very same authors). But this book clearly sets the stage, offers solid discussions of the underlying philosophy, and delivers some good arguments for believing that God has indeed acted in human history.
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28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extremely Thorough From the Best Scholars Available, May 16, 2000
In one word this book is - AWESOME! Every chapter is thorough, concise, and scholarly. Geivett and Habermas have collected some of the best available scholars around today to present an iron clad case for the actions of God in human history. The book begins with David Hume's work on miracles along with a response from Antony Flew (the eminent Humean scholar). Then, a barrage of wonderful Christian philosophers and theologians tackle the issue of miracles in each chapter. Some of the chapter titles include - Defining Miracles (Richard Purtill), Miracles and the Modern Mind (Norman L. Geisler), History and Miracles (Francis J. Beckwith, Recognizing a Miracle (Winfried Corduan), Science, Miracles, Agency, Theory & the God-of-the-Gaps (J.P. Moreland), The Evidential Value of Miracles (Douglas Geivett), Miracles in the World Religions (David K. Clark), The Incarnation of Jesus Christ (John S. Feinberg), The Empty Tomb of Jesus (William Lane Craig), The Resurrection Appearances of Jesus (Gary R. Habermas), and more. As you can see, simply by the chapters I listed, the book is packed full of great evidence, arguments, and even scientific review of the topic at hand. This book was a text book of mine (among others) in a philosophy class that dealt with the philosophy of David Hume at Southern Evangelical Seminary. I cannot recommend this book enough, you will not be disappointed.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific Introduction to the Issues, December 19, 2005
A number of the best Evangelical philosophers have worked together to produce a fine series of essays on the philosophical issues of miracles. Undoubtedly the strongest feature of this book is that the reader will walk away knowing the most important issues that are in play in a philosophical analysis of miracles. Despite the fact that each author writes an essay on each issue, I found that most of them only begin to scratch the surface. For example, one essay is a defense of the existence of God and another is a refutation of naturalism, both of which by the limits of lengths of the essays will be unconvincing to those who are not already convinced the author is correct. Many of the other essays (though, not all of them) have this exact same problem. Of course, this does not mean these chapters of worthless. Rather, they merely are the initial framing of arguments and ideas that deserve further exploration and study. After getting a basic grip of the issues, readers can pursue further details in more depth in academic journals or book-length works. Be that as it is, this book is commendable for containing so much information in so little space. I know of no other book that covers so much ground in specifying what the basic philosophical issues are on miracles. Some of the work is a little too quick, but even when the articles have weak arguments, I think they lay out the crucial issues for the topic. So, as a basic introduction to the philosophical problems of miracles, this is a great book. But as a convincing case that some miracles have occurred, I suspect some people may rightfully judge that some of the arguments are specious.
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