Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics

From the classroom to mainstream media, Christians regularly find their fundamental beliefs discounted by opponents who consider faith to be incompatible with reason. Faith is viewed as subjective, emotional, and a crutch for those who find the real world too hard. The late R. C. Sproul, however, claims faith reveals just how rational Christianity truly is.

This book surveys the history and fundamentals of apologetics to demonstrate how reason and scientific inquiry actually support Christianity’s claims—thus equipping believers to defend the existence of God and the Bible’s authority. The defense of the faith is not a luxury or an intellectual vanity. It is a task appointed by God to give reason to your eternal hope as you bear witness before the world.

• A Logical and Biblical Defense: Sets forth the basic truth claims of Christianity to show the rationality of the Christian faith
• Comprehensive: Deals with arguments from philosophy, science, reason, logic, and history
• Ideal for New and Seasoned Believers Alike: Helps Christians know what they believe and why they believe it
• Great Resource for Individual, Small Group, or Classroom Study

Content

Introduction

Section 1: The Apologetic Task
Chapter 1: The Task of Apologetics
Chapter 2: Apologetics and Saving Faith

Section 2: The Four Essential Principles of Knowledge
Chapter 3: Introducing the Four Principles
Chapter 4: The Law of Noncontradiction
Chapter 5: Contradiction, Paradox, and Mystery
Chapter 6: The Law of Causality
Chapter 7: Hume’s Critique of Causality and the Basic
Reliability of Sense Perception
Chapter 8: Logical Positivism and Its Ghosts Today: Analogical Use of Language

Section 3: Natural Reason and Faith
Chapter 9: Natural Theology and Science
Chapter 10: Aquinas and Kant

Section 4: The Case for God’s Existence: Four Possibilities
Chapter 11: Illusion
Chapter 12: Self-Creation
Chapter 13: Creation by Chance
Chapter 14: A Self-Existent Being
Chapter 15: A Self-Existent Universe

Section 5: God and the Philosophers
Chapter 16: The God of the Philosophers and the God of the Bible
Chapter 17: Kant’s Moral Argument
Chapter 18: The Nihilists
Chapter 19: The Psychology of Atheism

Section 6: The Case for Biblical Authority
Chapter 20: The Authority of the Bible
Chapter 21: Jesus’s Teaching about Scripture
Chapter 22: The Trustworthiness of the Teaching of Jesus
Chapter 23: The Testimony of the Holy Spirit

Conclusion
Notes
General Index
Scripture Index