Reading this book is a project, all 533 pages of it, not counting notes and bibliography. It is marketed as being “remarkable both in its depth of content and ease of accessibility.” The first part I would agree with wholeheartedly. The last part, well, it depends. To be fair, I am sure it is easier for the layman to digest than most scholarly tomes, but it certainly requires all of your mind. You cannot watch a baseball game and read during the commercials and absorb it all. I limited myself to 10-15 pages at a time, depending upon chapter and section length and managed to stay afloat. Do not be too proud to recognize your own limitations—it will only keep you from getting some great information.
The first thing this apologetics novice learned is that there are many types of apologetics, and the authors go through them in an astoundingly unbiased, and thorough, manner. I had no idea all the way through which was their preferred method until the ending gave it away. Trying to wade through the differences was sometimes mind boggling, but the authors give you practical ways to see those differences. Four times in the book we see a possible conversation between unbelievers and an apologist using his preferred method. Seeing exactly how each method works in a conversation is extremely helpful.
Another help are the many and various charts. At the beginning of the book (preface), you find a “Plan of the Book”, a two-page chart that tells you exactly what will be covered in each chapter. You must read it and then refer back to it occasionally. Then throughout the book you find yet more charts, even more toward the end, that will help you absorb what you have read and see the differences more clearly.
Yes, you will get impatient. Especially when it seems that some scholars are more interested in promoting their own method than in reaching the lost, you will be strongly tempted to lay it down and not pick it back up. Persevere! In the last part of the book, the authors oh, so carefully and respectfully, recommend that apologists of all stripes learn to see the strengths of other methods and the weaknesses of their own, putting them together in an integrative approach to...make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you1Pet3:15.
Faith Has Its Reasons is published by Biblica Books/Intervarsity Press.
Dene Ward
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