Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics

I give five stars to the third edition of William Lane Craig's "Reasonable Faith" not because I agree with it but because it makes fascinating reading while providing what is probably the maximum philosophical case available today for the truth of theism and Christianity. Any skeptic looking for a mental workout is likely to find it difficult and challenging to refute many of Craig's arguments, which, though technical at times, are generally written with a great deal of seamless clarity. Craig has obviously spent years reading, debating, and thinking deeply about the subjects he writes about and he anticipates just about any objection one is likely to put forward. Probably this book is best read alongside a work such as "The Cambridge Companion to Atheism," which offers contrasting views with a similar level of philosophical quality.The general plan of the book is to move from the general to the specific, starting with general proofs for God's existence, then moving toward asserting the existence of miracles (the ability of God to intervene in history), and then using the argument from miracles to support the claim that Christianity is the one true revealed religion. The book is divided into eight chapters:Chapter 1: How Do I Know Christianity Is True?In addition to providing a brief historical overview of Christian apologetics, this chapter also discusses Craig's interpretation of "the inner witness of the Holy Spirit." He concludes that "A person knows that Christianity is true because the Holy Spirit tells him it is true, and while argument and evidence can be used to support this conclusion, they cannot legitimately overrule it." I leave it to the reader to decide whether such a position is compatible with still calling oneself a "philosopher" or whether it ultimately reduces everything that Craig subsequently has to say to some sort of word game with no real relevance to what one actually believes.Chapter 2: The Absurdity of Life Without GodIn heavily emotive language, Craig declares that life, without a God to grant immortality and a purpose to life, life is "absurd." He does not really explain, however, how a lack of immortality really would make life devoid of meaning instead of making it imperative for one to find meaning in the mortal time that one has. Also, in Craig's view (which he does not discuss in this book), most people who have ever lived (all non-Christians, even if they were never preached the Gospel and never heard of Jesus) are destined to go to Hell for all eternity. Isn't that even more absurd than a short life in a Godless universe?Chapter 3: The Existence of God (1)After a brief overview of the traditional arguments for the existence of God (all of which Craig finds to be valid and true), Craig jumps into the cosmological argument, which claims (in one form or another) that the universe must have a "first cause" that is outside the realm of space, time and causality. He spends the largest amount of time on the "kalam cosmological argument," which he was personally responsible for reviving in the later 1970s and which argues that anything that "begins to exist" must have a cause. Craig obviously rejects "young earth" creationism (despite his commitment to "Biblical inerrancy," which he also does not discuss in this book), since he uses Big Bang cosmology as his central evidence that the universe had a beginning at a specific point in time and did not exist for an eternal past. He concludes that a transcendent Mind must have created the universe out of nothing, though he assumes mind/body dualism without argument and does not address the objection that no minds are known that are separate from material bodies.Chapter 4: The Existence of God (2)First off, Craig defends the "teleological argument," better known these days as the "argument from design." He avoids discussing it in the context of biological evolution and instead goes for a higher-level approach by defending the "fine-tuning" of the universe that makes it hospitable to human life. The next section, on the "moral argument" for God's existence, once again uses highly emotive language to claim, in effect, that all atheists are by definition nihilists with no objective basis for morality. Only the existence of a God, Craig claims, can assure objective moral values. This section is one of the weakest in the book, because in addition to the unfair, straw-man characterization of the morality of atheism Craig makes a glaring omission: he fails to describe how one determines what the "objective" moral rules that come from God actually are. If one claims that they come from revelation, one is immediately confronted with the moral horrors presented in the Bible: the slaughter of the Canaanites ordered by God (including innocent children) in Numbers Chapter 31, the requirement in Mosaic law that rape victims have to marry their rapist, etc. Craig simply avoids the whole issue. Following the moral argument, Craig gives a brief overview of the mind-bending "ontological argument," which claims somehow that God is a necessarily-existing being and that if one allows that it's possible that a God exists who is the greatest conceivable being, then God must exist. I still didn't get it.Chapter 5: The Problem of Historical KnowledgeIn a prelude to his defense of the reality of miracles and the reliability of the historical accounts of Jesus that appear in the New Testament, Craig provides an interesting (if highly selective) history of historiography. His central claim is essentially that the development of modern historical methodology has given us new tools that can be used to analyze the historical claims of Christianity (and of course determine that they're in fact true).Chapter 6: The Problem of MiraclesIn this chapter Craig defends the rationality of a belief in miracles, asserting that rejection of miracles amounts to a presupposition of naturalism. If one admits the possibility that God exists, then one admits the possibility of miracles, so that if one denies that miracles can happen then one must actively disprove the existence of God. Craig spends much time refuting Hume, accepting philosopher John Earman's assertion that Hume's argument against miracles was an "abject failure," though Craig glosses over various defenses of Hume that have subsequently been made. Craig also does not investigate the possibility that the reality of miracles can be rejected based on experience rather than simply being a metaphysical presupposition. For example, modern miraculous events, including faith healings and so forth, tend to disappear in the presence of skilled magicians (see, for instance, James Randi's classic book "Flim-Flam!"), and that seems to be legitimate "background knowledge" that one can apply when evaluating claims about Jesus.Chapter 7: The Self-Understanding of JesusThis chapter serves a dual purpose: Craig addresses the general question of the "historical Jesus," i.e. the real Jesus of history, and then uses that issue to lead into a discussion of how the historic Jesus really saw himself. Arguing against various critical approaches to the New Testament, Craig asserts the Jesus really saw himself at the Messiah and the divine Son of God. However, Craig doesn't examine some of the traditional questions about the historic Jesus, such as his apparent belief (at least according to the interpretation of some of his statements) that the end of time would happen within the lifetime of his contemporaries.Chapter 8: The Resurrection of JesusThis 71-page chapter addresses an issue that is at the center of Craig's interest: the historical reality of the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus. Craig asserts that historical methodology (as reviewed and established earlier in the book) can establish a set of undisputable facts surrounding the resurrection: the discovery of Jesus' empty tomb by a group of women; the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his followers; and the belief by Jesus' followers that they had physically seen him risen from the dead. As long as one allows the mere possibility of miracles (which is implied by allowing the possibility that God exists), then the "resurrection hypothesis," the claim the Jesus actually rose from the dead, is the best explanation for the available facts. It is somewhat unclear to me, however, how the general possibility of miracles translates into support for a specific miraculous claim, which must still be evaluated based on both the available background information (such as empirical data about present-day miraculous claims) and the specific evidence about the miracle that's being asserted. Also, Craig's use of historical methodology is somewhat questionable. For example, he uses the principle of agreement between multiple sources as an excuse to strip away all contradictions between the various New Testament accounts of the resurrection. It thus becomes off-limits to point out that the different Gospels give different accounts of which women discovered Jesus' empty tomb, and that the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances rarely overlap in their details, since these problems are not present in Craig's list of "undisputed facts." If one does not accept this methodology, one can say that the "best explanation" of the accounts of the resurrection must account for both the contradictions as well as the commonalities between the Gospel accounts. And that explanation may be that the New Testament is a combination of fact and legend that cannot be easily separated.

This was an excellent book on Christian apologetics. By far, it is the best book on the subject by a contemporary author. In this book, Craig argues for the Christian faith using what has been called the "classical" method of apologetics. That is, he argues first for the existence of God (theism) and then for the truth of the Christian faith.The first chapter deals with religious epistemology, or how we know that our religious knowledge is true. Here, Craig makes a distinction between showing that Christianity is true and knowing that Christianity is true. The Holy Spirit testifies to us of our sin before God, God's judgment on us and the world, and the forgiveness offered in Christ. In contrast we can show that Christianity is true by arguing for the existence of God, the historical claims to divinity made by Jesus and ultimately Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Notice that none of these by themselves or even taken together necessarily leads to Christian faith. It is the inner witness of the Spirit that convicts us of our sins, tells us that we are accountable to God, and that Christ died for us to forgive us. Apologetics can help someone come to faith but it is ultimately God who brings that person to saving faith. Craig correctly states that apologetics is a servant of the gospel and as such it is the gospel that deserves ultimate priority in our discourse with nonbelievers.The second chapter departs from the broad classical outline a bit, veering in an existential direction by arguing that life is meaningless/absurd without God and immortality. Basically, this apologetic is designed to get the nonbeliever to care about the question of God's existence and possible revelation. One thing that is interesting about reading Craig is that he gives historical overviews of his present topic. In this chapter he discusses Pascal, Dostoyevsky, and Kierkegaard who are the greatest existentialist (in Pascal's case proto-existentialist) thinkers. For those who have not read any of these men, Craig's short discourses on their thoughts definitely provides an impetus for that endeavor. The main weakness I can see with this chapter is that it posits a choice is between Christianity and atheism only. In the West, this may largely be true but it does not encompass all the metaphysical options such as Buddhism, Islam or the other religions/philosophies. This apologetic doesn't by any means get one to Christianity but it at very least it gets one to ask the right questions and be sincerely interested in the things of God. That is, it outlines the human predicament and argues that without God there is an utter absence of ultimate meaning, value and purpose.Now we get to the first chapter on the existence of God. In this chapter Craig gives an interesting historical overview of the various key figures behind the traditional theistic arguments along with an elaborate defense of the kalam cosmological argument. This is a very simple argument: 1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2) The universe began to exist. 2) Therefore, the universe had a cause. With Craig, I believe that this is a sound argument from both philosophical and scientific perspectives. Craig goes into much detail defending the Big Bang theory which lends to the interpretation that the cause of the universe was timeless, immaterial and personal. He also gives two philosophical arguments for why the universe could not be eternal. Of them I find the first argument persuasive but I think that the second argument fails on its own because it is dependent on the first for the reasons given by the philosopher Wes Morriston.The second chapter on the existence of God begins with an excellent exposition of the fine-tuning design argument. Before reading this I admit to being more skeptical of the argument than I am currently. Next, Craig gets to the moral argument which he does a decent job of defending, although I much prefer C.S. Lewis' formulation of the argument. Craig does little to argue against the modern skeptic who denies the objectivity of moral values. Again, Lewis did a better job of challenging the moral relativist there. The last part of the chapter is really the only silly part of the book. Here Craig drops the ontological argument but is both too brief and not very convincing, even if you agree with all his points. As with the Leibnizian cosmological argument, Craig refers to other theistic arguments to bolster the case for the ontological argument which basically renders it less convicting on its own. Also, he did not devote near enough space to defend the argument as he should have if he was going to bring it up. Craig ought to have cut out the discussion of this argument and focused more on the others.Chapters 5 and 6 are really good defenses of historical realism and the possibility of miracles. Craig does a service by getting at the historical roots of the modern bias against miracles and argues persuasively that this philosophical predilection is without merit. Chapter 7 is a decent portrayal of Jesus' divine self-understanding. I wished that Craig spent some time countering a widespread notion is scholarship that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet as evidenced by him allegedly predicting the imminent end of the world, at least according to some New Testament critics. I know of one scholar who takes this route in arguing against the proposition that, "God raised Jesus from the dead," and I admit that this is the best objection to the faith that I've come across.The last chapter deals with Craig's favorite topic, the resurrection of Jesus. Craig does a good job here and mentions other scholars like N.T. Wright and Gary Habermas that have done great work on the topic. Craig weaves into the chapter a reasonable criterion of historicity that he expounded earlier in chapter 5. The only complaint I have about the chapter is that Craig sometimes gets so excited making his points that he fails to fully explain some things that he brings up. I genuinely value depth more than breadth which is probably why I objected to his use of the ontological argument earlier. That being said, this was an awesome book which I recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the rational warrant for Christian belief.

Excelente obra que todo cristiano debería tener para dar razones de nuestra fe

The topics covered on the book were really outstanding; I was highly impressed and a lot of my on perspective towards faith and reason will be permanently marked by the way of thinking the author conveys.. great read and good for solidifying faith as well!

I make this review deliberately long because I think the arguments and logic in it are so effective they deserve to be better known.Apologetics is not about apologising but rather establishing a rational basis for the Christian faith. Of all the books I have read I think this is the best and most comprehensive overview of what you might call “non biblical apologetics”. Apologetics can cover both biblically based issues such as "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" or "Did miracles really happen?" and non biblically based questions such as "Can you prove that God exists?"While there is a small section on the bible most of the book covers what you might call “arguments from first principle” for the Christian faith. These are increasingly important in a world at least in the West where many people are sceptical about organised religion of any type. Lane Craig points out the fallacy in the argument “nobody comes to Christ through apologetics” by quoting Gresham Machen “false ideas are the greatest obstacle to the reception of the gospel”. If we allow such ideas to go unchallenged the very concept of belief is placed outside the bounds of any rational persons thinking.Above all Lane Craig shows that there is an underlying rationality and plausibility to Christian belief. This is especially important I suggest with students and teenagers - in pretty much every school and university Christian teenagers are assaulted with every kind of non Christian worldview. We need to equip them to think for themselves with rational arguments. Lane Craig notes “I find it hard to understand how people can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics”.I suggest that if you read this together with books on the trustworthiness of the bible by writers such as Craig Blomberg, Amy Orr-Ewing or the new one coming from Pete Williams on the gospels you will cover most conceivable questions. Other more specialised books can cover issues like “How can a loving God allow suffering?” or “do all religions lead to God?“. RZIM/OCCA has a wealth of apologetic resources books and speakers for those who are interested in learning more.I recommend their services very highly.The only caveat I would make about this well regarded book, now in its third edition, is that in places it’s a little advanced for the non specialised reader. But is good to be stretched!Lane Craig begins by giving a historical overview of apologetics covering the main proponents such as Aquinas, Locke as well as more contemporary thinkers. He underlines how Aquinas (wrongly) changed the definition of ‘faith’ to something like “intellectual assent to doctrines not provable by reason... a doctrine cannot be both known and believed”. Lane Craig makes what I think is a crucial distinction between the role of the Holy Spirit who convicts us and using good arguments to point us to God. “We (Christians) know that Christianity is true primarily by the self authenticating witness of God's Spirit. We show Christianity is true by presenting good arguments.” This distinction between knowing and showing enables us to give our friends and family who don’t believe some good rational arguments as to why they should believe. These arguments are more effective rather than telling them “just have faith” which tends just to put people off - or leaves them saying “I wish I had your faith” - thus implying that faith is like being left handed - some people have it, others notVarious other historical thinkers are then deployed most notably one of the greatest I think - the French mathematician Blaise Pascal. His thinking is very relevant to the 21C - “I behold nothing but infinity in which I am a mere atom.. all I know is that I must soon die... and fall into nothingness or the hands or a wrathful God... I ought to spend (every day of my life) to find a solution..but I cannot be bothered”. Life is in fact absurd If there is no God. For there is no ultimate value. In a universe without him good and evil do not exist and there is no ultimate purpose. “Vanity of vanities ! All is vanity.” Truly with no God the only viable alternative is nihilism as Nietzsche argued. If He does not exist then life is futile. The human predicament is thus terrible if we lived consistently according to atheistic principles. Fortunately most atheists don’t live that way! They believe often very impressively that there are rights and wrongs and many of them live rather moral lives. But this is because they live as if there is a God. Their actions dont match their beliefs.Lane Craig then moves to cover the main arguments for the existence of God (not at this point the Christian God). Some of these are well known, others less so. The author uses the analogy of chain mail to show how the various arguments interconnect with and reinforce each other. They are:-- The ontological argument ("if God is conceivable he must exist")- The Kalam or cosmological argument ("anything that comes to exist must have a cause: nothing happens without a reason”.)- The teleological argument (popularised by Paley with his famous “watch maker argument”)- The moral argument ("reality is characterised by an objective moral order: that order is founded on a morally pure deity")He then develops the scientific evidence which support the other arguments. Up to less than 100 years ago for example, scientists assumed that the universe was timeless and eternal. Now we know there was a beginning and more than that - The Big Bang theory posits an absolute origin from nothing.Even more the thermodynamic properties of the universe suggest that the universe was “wound up” at the beginning. It’s hard to disagree with the statement “the universe was brought into existence by something which is greater than and beyond it”. Lane Craig then argues that this first cause must be personal. He draws an analogy with the question “why is the kettle boiling?” Which can be answered either scientifically (heat increasing the kinetic energy of the water molecules) or personally (I turned on the electricity). In summary “we may infer that a personal creator of the universe exists who is uncaused, beginning less, timeless space less and unimaginably powerful. This as Thomas Aquinas was wont to remark is what everyone means by ‘God’ “Another powerful scientific argument is cosmic fine tuning. The world is conditioned by the values of various fundamental constants such as gravitation. The tiniest variation in any of these would render life impossible. The same is true about the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Hawking for example estimates that a decrease or increase in the expansion rate of one part in a hundred thousand million million one second after Big Bang would make the universe unviable.Moving onto the moral argument. The question is not “must we believe in God to live moral lives?” Of course not. Plenty of atheists live highly moral lives. The argument is rather that God is necessary (rather than belief in him being necessary) for moral values to be objectively true. If there is no ultimate source of goodness where do any morals come from? This argument is particularly powerful because it exposes the massive contradiction at the heart of modern atheistic thinking. Firstly, we are taught that moral relativism is true: so we have no right to judge each other, everyone's beliefs are true and and morality itself is the byproduct of evolution. Then with the same breadth we are taught that certain things like racism or murder or rape are fundamentally wrong. But these two are inconsistent - one must be false. They both cannot be true. (Christians would agree with the second and not the first in case you were wondering)This takes us about two thirds through the book and the rest looks at questions such as “Is historical knowledge verifiable?” “Are miracles possible?” “How did Jesus understand who he was?” And “can we prove the resurrection?”. All of these are useful and can be read with profit but are also covered elsewhere in other books. For an overview of modern thinking about natural theology however Lane Craig is hard to beat.To sum up all of these points - which of course are developed in much more detail - the point is this. Most non believers think Christians believe in God without any evidence. Now we can’t prove that God exists but what we can say is that “arguments make it rational to believe that God exists”. We are not making negative judgements about atheism like “atheism is irrational”. We are saying rather “here are some good arguments for Gods existence - what do you think?”Understanding these arguments as Lane Craig points out should give us tremendous confidence and boldness in talking about our faith. Most of our friends have never considered natural theology or met a a Christian who is able to offer carefully thought through arguments for his belief in God.Now all of this begs the question “what about the Christian faith per se??Jesus? The bible? Preaching? 121 work?”.I would use the analogy here of climbing stairs. Our goal is to help out friend climb to the top but we do that by convincing them to climb one step at a time. The size of the flight of stairs has grown much larger even over our lifetime. People’s familiarity with and openness to the Christian faith is much lower than heretofore. Many highly educated and thoughtful people I know regard Christianity as ludicrous. By showing them that's its actually rational to believe in a God we help them climb the first step of the stairs. Then the next step is to say something like “this ‘God’ whom I have shown is rational to believe in has told us what he’s like - revealed himself - through a book and more than that he has come to our planet as a person who walked the dusty roads of Palestine 2000 years ago.” Personally I then go on to say “would you like to chat about him having a look at one of the eyewitness accounts of his life?”In summary, an excellent if in places challenging book on 'natural theology'.

"fides quaerens intellectum""Ours is a faith that seeks understanding" , as Saint Anselm would have said.If you are a Christian who is looking for an excellent grounding to what you believe, then this is a must have book.Dr Craig is rightly ranked as one of the top 50 most influential living philosophers according to thebestschools.org. This book could be studied for years, each page is crammed with excellent insight.-From defining what it means to really know God exists v show God exists-From his robust defence of the Kalam cosmological argument to the solid case for Jesus in light of modern historiographical technique.- The list of recommended reading and sources used is massive. This is a well investigated and highly thought out book that is packed to the brim with quotes and research from the most senior of academics today.This book is slightly more advanced than books such as On Guard , however the challenge to learn what has been put forward here is incredibly rewarding. To listen to the elite atheists of today and realise that the arguments put forward are not as high calibre as you would expect , it gives confidence and encouragement to the believer.For atheists it may challenge you to think more about why you believe what you believe and if the arguments you may have had against Christianity have any merit.If you are a genuine truth seeker then this book is for you.

As a scientist I have had to resolve in my mind the evidence for God in modern science, and indeed there is plenty from the big bang, through fine tuning of the universe, to the sheer impossibility of cellular self-organisation, and the strong evidence from information theory and the gene code. I dislike the blinkered arrogance of the New Atheists in ignoring all the evidence from other disciplines except the theory of Neo-Darwinism, and their inadequacy in debate with logicians and theologians like William Lane Craig. This book is quite weighty, a theological textbook, but accessible to anyone wanting to weigh the evidence. Apologetics does not just fret about the self-indulgent angst of blinkered scientists but examines a much wider evidence base and this book is surely worth a read to see the Christian rational arguement very well presented.