Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth
and Apologetics by William Lane
Craig
Great Apologetics Resource
Perfect as a textbook yet excellent for lay readers, this updated edition
builds a positive case for Christianity by applying the latest thought to core
theological themes.
J. Gresham Machen once said, False ideas are the greatest obstacles to
the reception of the gospel-which makes apologetics that much more
important. Wanting to engage not just academics and pastors but
Christian laypeople and seekers, William Lane Craig has revised and
updated key sections in this third edition of his classic text to reflect the
latest work in astrophysics, philosophy, probability calculus, the
arguments for the existence of God, and Reformed epistemology.

His approach-that of positive apologetics-gives careful attention to crucial
questions and concerns, including: the relationship of faith and reason, the
existence of God, the problems of historical knowledge and miracles, the
personal claims of Christ, and the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.
He shows that there is good reason to think Christianity is true. As Craig
says, If you have a sound and persuasive case for Christianity, you dont
have to become an expert in comparative religions and Christian cults. A
positive justification of the Christian faith automatically overwhelms all
competing world views lacking an equally strong case.
Personal Review: Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and
Apologetics by William Lane Craig
This was an excellent book on Christian apologetics. By far, it is the best
book on the subject by a contemporary author. In this book, Craig argues
for the Christian faith using what has been called the "classical" method of
apologetics. That is, he argues first for the existence of God (theism) and
then for the truth of the Christian faith.
The first chapter deals with religious epistemology, or how we know that
our religious knowledge is true. Here, Craig makes a distinction between
showing that Christianity is true and knowing that Christianity is true. The
Holy Spirit testifies to us of our sin before God, God's judgment on us and
the world, and the forgiveness offered in Christ. In contrast we can show
that Christianity is true by arguing for the existence of God, the historical
claims to divinity made by Jesus and ultimately Jesus' resurrection from
the dead. Notice that none of these by themselves or even taken together
necessarily leads to Christian faith. It is the inner witness of the Spirit that
convicts us of our sins, tells us that we are accountable to God, and that
Christ died for us to forgive us. Apologetics can help someone come to
faith but it is ultimately God who brings that person to saving faith. Craig
correctly states that apologetics is a servant of the gospel and as such it is
the gospel that deserves ultimate priority in our discourse with
nonbelievers.
The second chapter departs from the broad classical outline a bit, veering
in an existential direction by arguing that life is meaningless/absurd without
God and immortality. Basically, this apologetic is designed to get the
nonbeliever to care about the question of God's existence and possible
revelation. One thing that is interesting about reading Craig is that he gives
historical overviews of his present topic. In this chapter he discusses
Pascal, Dostoyevsky, and Kierkegaard who are the greatest existentialist
(in Pascal's case proto-existentialist) thinkers. For those who have not read
any of these men, Craig's short discourses on their thoughts definitely
provides an impetus for that endeavor. The main weakness I can see with
this chapter is that it posits a choice is between Christianity and atheism
only. In the West, this may largely be true but it does not encompass all
the metaphysical options such as Buddhism, Islam or the other

religions/philosophies. This apologetic doesn't by any means get one to
Christianity but it at very least it gets one to ask the right questions and be
sincerely interested in the things of God. That is, it outlines the human
predicament and argues that without God there is an utter absence of
ultimate meaning, value and purpose.
Now we get to the first chapter on the existence of God. In this chapter
Craig gives an interesting historical overview of the various key figures
behind the traditional theistic arguments along with an elaborate defense
of the kalam cosmological argument. This is a very simple argument: 1)
Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2) The universe began to
exist. 2) Therefore, the universe had a cause. With Craig, I believe that this
is a sound argument from both philosophical and scientific perspectives.
Craig goes into much detail defending the Big Bang theory which lends to
the interpretation that the cause of the universe was timeless, immaterial
and personal. He also gives two philosophical arguments for why the
universe could not be eternal. Of them I find the first argument persuasive
but I think that the second argument fails on its own because it is
dependent on the first for the reasons given by the philosopher Wes
Morriston.
The second chapter on the existence of God begins with an excellent
exposition of the fine-tuning design argument. Before reading this I admit
to being more skeptical of the argument than I am currently. Next, Craig
gets to the moral argument which he does a decent job of defending,
although I much prefer C.S. Lewis' formulation of the argument. Craig does
little to argue against the modern skeptic who denies the objectivity of
moral values. Again, Lewis did a better job of challenging the moral
relativist there. The last part of the chapter is really the only silly part of the
book. Here Craig drops the ontological argument but is both too brief and
not very convincing, even if you agree with all his points. As with the
Leibnizian cosmological argument, Craig refers to other theistic arguments
to bolster the case for the ontological argument which basically renders it
less convicting on its own. Also, he did not devote near enough space to
defend the argument as he should have if he was going to bring it up.
Craig ought to have cut out the discussion of this argument and focused
more on the others.
Chapters 5 and 6 are really good defenses of historical realism and the
possibility of miracles. Craig does a service by getting at the historical
roots of the modern bias against miracles and argues persuasively that this
philosophical predilection is without merit. Chapter 7 is a decent portrayal
of Jesus' divine self-understanding. I wished that Craig spent some time
countering a widespread notion is scholarship that Jesus was a failed
apocalyptic prophet as evidenced by him allegedly predicting the imminent
end of the world, at least according to some New Testament critics. I know
of one scholar who takes this route in arguing against the proposition that,
"God raised Jesus from the dead," and I admit that this is the best
objection to the faith that I've come across.

The last chapter deals with Craig's favorite topic, the resurrection of Jesus.
Craig does a good job here and mentions other scholars like N.T. Wright
and Gary Habermas that have done great work on the topic. Craig weaves
into the chapter a reasonable criterion of historicity that he expounded
earlier in chapter 5. The only complaint I have about the chapter is that
Craig sometimes gets so excited making his points that he fails to fully
explain some things that he brings up. I genuinely value depth more than
breadth which is probably why I objected to his use of the ontological
argument earlier. That being said, this was an awesome book which I
recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the rational
warrant for Christian belief.
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