Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics
by R. C. Sproul
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Book Summary Information
Author: R. C. SproulEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-09-25
ISBN: 1433503158
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Crossway Books
Book Reviews of Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics
Book Review: Traditional Apologetics Made Simple
Summary: 5 Stars
Ever attend a relative's 50th birthday party, and a family member decides it's a cool idea to stick 51 candles on the birthday cake, and the first dozen candles fit nice and tidy, but by the time you're cramming the 40th candle into the cake, the surface is packed like a teenage phone booth prank, and no one can see the frosting, much less "Happy 50th" printed in cursive. And as you light the candles it ignites like an Indian funeral pyre, and when grandma carries it out to the dining room, your uncle appears completely embarrassed, with a facial expression that declares: "I appreciate the thought, but why are you shoving a huge scary fireball in front of my mug?"
That's how many feel when they read various books on apologetics: When one cracks open the book it is so loaded with brilliant apologetic arguments and insights that the philosophical fireball intimidates the reader and singes his brain.
Not so with the ever-readable and always-understandable R.C. Sproul in "Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics."
Sproul asserts: "God alone is eternal and self-existent. Of all the theological attributes of God that are found in the theological tomes of history, the one that most sends chills up Sproul's spine is the word aseity. If there is any word in the English language that captures the otherness of God, it is this one. It refers to his self-existence, that God and God alone has the power of being in and of himself."
Many Western Christians frequently have their faith challenged as the unbeliever calls Christianity irrational. Herein Dr. Sproul furnishes an outline of the history of ideas as he demonstrates that the Christian faith is rational and compatible with modern science.
Dr. Sproul writes: "Nothing has no is-ness. If there ever was a time when nothing at all existed, what could possibly exist now? Nothing! But if something exists now, it tells us that there never was a time when there was nothing. Everything that we know of, including the universe, had a beginning. Everything is contingent, derived from something outside of itself to lend being to it ... except for God. He is not created. There was never a time when he was not. Eternally he is. He has that power of being in and of himself. There is nothing more profound to say about God than the way he reveals himself in the name "'I Am Who I Am." I Am the LORD and there is no other.'"
Professor Sproul discusses the classical proofs: "The first proof is that God is the "ends necessary," that he possesses necessary being. He alone has being that is necessary and this makes him holy. We can define necessary being in two ways, ontologically and logically. When Aquinas said God has necessary being, he was saying that he's the kind of being who cannot possibly not be. God is who he is from everlasting to everlasting and he cannot be anything other than what he is eternally in and of himself. His being is also logically necessary. There is no reason why a particular man should exist. There was a time when he did not exist. He can claim no logical necessity for his existence. But you need to leave your reason behind when you explore the idea that God does not exist. You have to stop thinking logically to think that the universe came into being by itself without God. Nothing could be more irrational that something comes from nothing. Logic demands that if something exists now, something always existed or you have to choose an irrational alternative."
On biogenesis: "Non-believers remained close-minded -- as many modern thinkers have been totally close-minded to any possibility to the existence of God and are forced to argue that life on this planet has arisen spontaneously by chance, and that even the so-called laws of nature with which science works are lawless in themselves. The examination of the nature and the properties of things, or the "what" questions have not been able to answer the "why" questions, and particularly the "how" questions of any one thing's existence or how life has come to pass."
Additionally he asks: "How did the laws of nature come to be? Second, how did life originate from non-life? And third, how did the universe come into being? ... There are those who argue that the laws of nature are merely convenient forms that human investigators impose on nature, that nature's facts are brute facts and mute facts, and have no inherent design. Design is something that is merely projected upon nature from the thinking of the scientist. ... Atheists accept the laws of nature simply by faith, and pursues the point that these laws are not something that are the result of cultural creation, but rather the discovery of something that exists within nature itself. Newton did not invent the law of gravity or impose a principle of gravity on the natural world; rather, he discovered it as an external reality."
And: "Now, the very presence of laws in nature indicates that nature has intelligible order. The overarching presupposition of all scientific inquiry is that the inquiry can yield intelligible information. If indeed the universe and everything in it is utter chaos, without order, then it would be equally unintelligible. The fact that science can proceed in an intelligible manner screams to Atheist that there must be order in it. It is a short step or an easy argument to move from the presence of order to the presence of design. In a sense, the presence of order is virtually tautological to the question of design."
I would add: The God of the Bible in Trinity is the starting point for epistemology, apologetics, and philosophy. The triune God is reflected and revealed everywhere in the material and nonmaterial worlds. The Trinity "confronts" humanity and all creation everywhere at all times. You cannot look into a microscope or a telescope or a mathematical table and fail to be confronted by the God alone who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The triune God is the foundation and the solution to the problem of the one and the many. The foundation for all reality and the understanding of that reality is the triune God. The explanation of all entities, phenomenon, laws, and concrete objects begins with God. Beginning with any starting point or presupposition other than the Trinity is self-defeating forasmuch as God alone provides the ontic necessities to ground immutable universals that are essential for knowledge since He alone is omnipotent and all-knowing.
Herein Sproul provides an educational volume in an accessible writing style; a fine book for high school students, college-age kids, and adult laypeople.
also see:
Truth, Knowledge and the Reason for God: The Defense of the Rational Assurance of Christianity
or an apologetic book refuting false religions:
One Way to God: Christian Philosophy and Presuppositional Apologetics Examine World Religions ASIN# : 1432722956
Summary of Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics
There is a widespread belief that reason and faith are incompatible and opposed to each other. Faith is viewed as subjective, emotional, a crutch for those who find the real world too hard. Though many of the world's finest minds hold this view, the Bible teaches that it is the fool who says there is no God.
Dr. R. C. Sproul clearly and simply argues that at its core Christianity is rational. He focuses on defending the basic truth claims for two of the most crucial issues of apologetics: God's existence and the Bible's authority.
In this primer of apologetic thought, Dr. Sproul affirms four logical principles that are necessary for all real discussion and teaches you how to defend your faith in a faithless world. Using the writings of church fathers and philosophers throughout the ages, he uncovers the common ideologies that work against faith.
The defense of the faith is not a luxury or an intellectual vanity. It is a task appointed by God that you should be able to give a reason for the hope that is in you as you bear witness before the world.
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