Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics | 
 enlarge | Author: R. C. Sproul
Publisher: Crossway Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 13466
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 1581345194
Dewey Decimal Number: 239
EAN: 9781581345193
ASIN: 1581345194
Publication Date: September 19, 2003
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Excellent discourse on why to believe June 16, 2008
Starting from the ground up, Sproul does an excellent job of walking anyone (Christian, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, etc.) through the reasonable and logical framework of why to believe in anything, and specifically, why the Christian worldview fits with what true philosophy and the natural revelation all around us says about God.
 Not Sproul's best October 12, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Probably more than anything else RC has written, I was disappointed with this text. Granted he does a fair case of presenting material that's been presented before in a manner that's refreshing, and as always, his writing is engaging and warm. But I felt that perhaps RC was somehow going to "bring home" the cosmological argument in a manner that would be simply decisive. After establishing that God need not be created, he needs to refute the same can't be true for natural reality. He gets down to the substantial foundation of matter, sort of, calling it that pulsating underlying thing, then says since that always changes, it can't be eternal. I'm rephrasing in my own words, but the thing is this. There is no reason why matter/energy can't be eternal. The big bang need not be the point where it first came into existence. Indeed, cosmologists do believe that 'logically prior' to the big bang matter and energy did already exist. Considering that one of the laws of physics is the conservation of matter/energy - "matter can neither be created, nor destroyed", it is a reasonable argument that there always was matter energy. There's no natural evidence apart from the bible that there ever was "nothing". Basically, the whole argument of the book fell apart for me because Sproul didn't deal with that adequately. At the time, I was seeking to reinforce a Christian faith, though I must confess I've sinced moved on. I still have a warm place in my heart for RC, but this book was disappointing.
Always Being Ready To Give A Defense September 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In this book, RC Sproul, who has done so much for the Reformation cause, and its consistent commitment to the revealed, true Word of God, explains why and how we should defend our faith, once-for-all delivered to the saints.
It is (with its modern cover) aimed at the 'most popular section' in the Christian bookstores, and once again should be most effective there where the new or often time, doubting Christian seeks refuge in the mass market section, so as not to bring close attention to himself/herself!
So it should be a perfect tool in competing with the drivel of 'Anointings' and 'Power-prayers' and 'Miracles-workers' that so obscure the faith Sproul here seeks to defend.
'If anyone believed that the total inability of man required the Holy Spirit to convert a soul, it was Calvin. Likewise, if anyone believed in the total inability of apologetics to convert a soul, it was Calvin. He, of course, did not abandon the apologetic task but still used evidence and argument to prove matters of faith - not to convert the hearts of the ungodly, but to 'stop their obstreperous mouths'. This is a large part of the task of the Christian apologist: to prove the Christian worldview.' pg 17
An important counter-strategy tool.
 One of Christianity's finest scholars - but alas, classical apologetics is a lost cause. August 20, 2007
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have often enjoyed reading RC Sproul's writing. He is intelligent, thorough, and knowledgeable while conveying a sense of engaging warmth. The subject matter he is dealing with however, is a lost cause. The classical arguments to defend the Christian faith all do have holes in them, and Sproul, though he is a brilliant man, has not succeeded in plugging them. This comes down to the simple reality that a truly faulty argument can never be made "not-faulty" no matter how brilliant the scholar is who attempts to make it so. So it is with the various arguments within classical apologetics. For the sake of being concise, I will deal with Sproul's presentation of the cosmological argument. It's presentation is common enough that I assume the reader's general familiarity with it. In defending the argument, he challenges the argument that matter/energy can be eternal. He maintains that even though matter/energy is conserved and constently changing, it the core of it - whatever pulsating stuff matter/energy ultimately is, it cannot be eternal. There is simply no reason we have to accept this as true. The big bang is not regarded by astrophysicists and cosmologists as the "creation" of matter and energy. It is understood as an event in the distant past when all the matter and energy that is within our universe was contained within a singularity which exploded. There is no evidence and no reason to believe that logically prior to the big bang it wasn't also in existence. Indeed, many viable cosmological models presume it was. So matter/energy not only can be eternal, but there is a good scientific reason to believe it is - this is known in science as the law of conservation of matter/energy. (Matter/energy can neither be created or destroyed). A corresponding problem with his argument is the claim that God simply always was and needs no explanation. Why? Because God has "aseity". That's a property which means one doesn't need to have been created. Rather than shedding light on the issue this merely lends a false sense of credibility to the cosmological argument by enhancing an already unecessarily pseudo-sophisticated vocabulary.
I do credit Sproul with not trying to make the cases that evidentialists attempt to make. I also respect that he sees the bankrupcy of fideism and presuppositionalism. Unfortunately, classical apologetics also remain insufficient, as all efforts at Christian apologetics do. The problem is that Christianity contains beliefs that (figuratively speaking) "want" to exist in a realm beyond questionability, as mythology and theism both do. Unfortunately, unlike mythology and theism, Christianity makes assertions that can be challenged and tested according to logic, history, and other disciplines. In the end, Christian truth cannot stand because it's not true.
Review of Defending your Faith, by RC Sproul January 22, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A must for the students who are learning apologetics and those who are aquainted with the suject. RC Sproul submits the subject in a format that is scholerly and readable at the same time. A must read for any who desire to understand what they believe and be able to defend it before those who would oppose it.
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