Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith

Contents

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
part one: Apologetic Preliminaries
1 Introduction: Hope, Despair and Knowing Reality . . . . . . 15
2 The Biblical Basis for Apologetics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 Apologetic Method: Evaluating Worldviews . . . . . . . . . 45
4 The Christian Worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5 Distortions of the Christian Worldview—
Or the God I Don’t Believe In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6 Truth Defined and Defended. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7 Why Truth Matters Most:
Searching for Truth in Postmodern Times. . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8 Faith, Risk and Rationality:
The Prudential Incentives to Christian Faith. . . . . . . . . . 155
part two: The Case for Christian Theism
9 In Defense of Theistic Arguments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10 The Ontological Argument. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
11 Cosmological Arguments: A Cause for the Cosmos. . . . . . . 207
12 The Design Argument: Cosmic Fine-Tuning . . . . . . . . . 240
13 Origins, Design and Darwinism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
14 Evidence for Intelligent Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
15 The Moral Argument for God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
16 The Argument from Religious Experience. . . . . . . . . . 364
17 The Uniqueness of Humanity:
Consciousness and Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
18 Deposed Royalty: Pascal’s Anthropological Argument. . . . . 418
19 Jesus of Nazareth: How Historians Can Know
Him and Why It Matters
by Craig L. Blomberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
20 The Claims, Credentials and Achievements
of Jesus Christ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
21 Defending the Incarnation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
22 The Resurrection of Jesus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
part three: Objections to Christian Theism
23 Religious Pluralism: Many Religions, One Truth. . . . . . . 567
24 Apologetics and the Challenge of Islam. . . . . . . . . . . 599
25 The Problem of Evil: Dead Ends and the
Christian Answer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
26 Conclusion: Take It to the Streets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
Appendix 1 Hell on Trial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
Appendix 2 Apologetic Issues in the Old Testament
by Richard S. Hess. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662
Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680
Name Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732
Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 739
Scripture Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748