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Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith
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Review
"I know of no better analysis of Christian apologetic systems than Faith Has Its Reasons. It is comprehensive and rigorous, yet eminently readable. However, the book's greatest virtue is its ability to locate the importance of apologetics in the life of the church as well as in the personal faith of the individual believer."
Review
"Ken Boa is one of the most gifted writers and scholars in the Christian world. This is a brilliantly done apologetics reference. The title tells it all—our faith is not an unreasonable faith." -- Charles W. Colson, Prison Fellowship, Washington, DC "I know of no better analysis of Christian apologetic systems than Faith Has Its Reasons. It is comprehensive and rigorous, yet eminently readable. However, the book's greatest virtue is its ability to locate the importance of apologetics in the life of the church as well as in the personal faith of the individual believer." -- Francis J. Beckwith, Author of David Hume's Arguments Against Miracles "Applying the principle of 'unity in diversity' to apologetic systems, this book integrates the best insights of each approach. In challenging readers to maximize the stunning reasons for faith in concert with the magnetic power of transformed hearts, Faith Has Its Reasons charts the right course for the future of apologetics." -- David K. Clark, Author of Dialogical Apologetics
21/02/2003
This book bills itself as a handbook of apologetics, and at times it seems like a textbook. In the end, though, I think the authors would agree that it is (to use a word from the book) a metapologetic: it is about apologetics rather than an example or even a summary of apologetics.
The authors divide apologetics into 4 broad classes: The classical (which uses deductive logic); the Evidential (which uses inductive proofs); the Reformed (which relies on Transcendental arguments; and the Fideist (which uses indirect arguments and may not be an apologetic at all). The authors are quick to point out that few people fit neatly into any one category. In the final section of the book, they attempt to move toward an integrated approach that capitalizes on the strength of each model.
I would have gotten more out of the book if they had given more thorough examples of how these various apologetic systems work. How do evidentialists use history to argue for the probability of Christ's Resurrection? How do writers like Van Til avoid logic in making the Transcendental argument? These are questions that aren't addressed directly in the book. This isn't a criticism, but I make the point in case others are looking for a more descriptive approach to various apologetic systems.
To my mind, the end of the book is the weakest part. The attempt to integrate the approaches is interesting, and I agree that different apologetics will resonate better with different people. However, I think the authors go too far in trying to pinpoint which method--even which Gospel account--will best apply to certain types of people. I was surprised to discover the NFs (in the famous personality test) respond better to Mark's Gospel--I'm an NF, and I find Mark the account that resonates least with me. Maybe I'm an unusual NF, or maybe the authors were just pushing their theories a bit too far. I think it's probably the latter.
In any case, I think this is a good book, but it's probably more useful to people who have some background in apologetic thought than to beginners.
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