There are a ton of potential apologetics books to read. So if I were to make a handful of suggestions to an atheist friend, what would I suggest? I think I ought to limit myself to five or six suggestions. We'll see...
Let me start with the book I am currently reading. The Resurrection of Jesus by Michael Licona. This is a rather large book that seeks to ask whether Jesus was raised from the dead from a historical perspective. Licona attempts to find a place of neutrality and apply normal historical methods to the question. Part of this neutral attempt means that he does not assume that the Bible was inspired by God, and he does not assume that the books are inerrant. He does quite a bit of discussion about the theory of history, methods of history, how this type of investigation should be done, and what all the relevant sources are. Another book that I hope to get to is by NT Wright - The Resurrection of the Son of God. This is another hefty tome on the resurrection. Wright is a prominent New Testament scholar from England, and this book is the third in a series on the origins of Christianity. It might be worth it to backtrack and do volumes one and two which provide some background. Reading those three volumes would itself probably be a year-long project. I think the resurrection is a good place to start because it is at the heart of the Christian claim. Paul himself says that if Christ is not raised from the dead, we above all men are most to be pitied and our faith is worthless. The spread of Christianity in Acts was based on the preaching of a resurrected Christ. This was not a tack-on but rather part of the center of what was being proclaimed and what was being believed. This, then, seems like a good place to start to me. There are more popular level treatments of this topic, but for a thorough treatment, these two are probably the best place to go.
I think that a lot of skepticism towards Christianity today comes from science. I do not think that is justified exactly, but that argument is for another post. There are a few suggestions I would make in this vein. First, I would suggest There is a God by Antony Flew. Flew was probably the most serious and notorious atheist in the decades before Dawkins and company. But later in his life he became a theist. He did not subscribe to any particular form of theism, and he disbelieved in an afterlife, but this was quite a change, and the reasons that he gives were primarily based on scientific evidence. This book is shorter and relatively easy to read. It is a mixture of autobiography and apologetics from someone who was helped by science towards theism but never made the step toward Christianity. Second, I know it is a little dated, but I would suggest Darwin on Trial as a step towards having a more balanced opinion on evolution, especially if evolution would be the hang-up for you towards coming to faith in Christ. Johnson is a Christian, but he does not subscribe to a young-earth view, and he does not even argue for creationism in this book. Instead, it is primarily a polemic against evolution as widely understood, poking holes and asking some questions that Darwinists would not much want to have asked. (The link I have provided actually appears to be updated; it is merely my own edition that is dated.) There are other books and literature on intelligent design that I could mention, but Darwin on Trial would be a good starting place for those interested in that vein of thinking. Some of the other books are very technical, and it is easy to get bogged down in the science, as if I am missing a lot of prerequisite classes to truly understand what is being argued. Finally, in this scientific vein I would like to suggest The Language of God by Francis Collins. I read it a long time ago, and I don't think my views on things would line up exactly with him, but it is interesting, and Collins is the head of the Human Genome Project. This book is part autobiographical as well, and Collins surveys several different options for the way that science and faith may relate. (As a note, I may say that all three of these books are shorter and probably easier to read. For something meatier to digest, and on my personal wish list is Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga.)
A great question to ask is whether the Bible is reliable, whether it is true. Certainly the books on resurrection above will deal with the question. But there are some good books that center specifically on this. The most concise and most widely read would probably be The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by FF Bruce. This book is barely over a hundred pages, but it gives a good answer to this question, and this would be the first place I would direct people. Another book, longer but in the same vein, would be The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is an important and newer book on the role of eyewitness testimony in the Gospels. I also read a newer book before Christmas this year called Reinventing Jesus which dealt with the issues of how Christianity arose and how the documents would have been passed along. Issues of corruption in transmission have recently been raised by guys like Bart Ehrman, and I think this provides some good common sense answers to the issues he is raising. Admittedly, I have read somewhat narrowly in this area because I have not read as much on the reliability of the Old Testament. But I think that the New Testament builds on and takes the Old Testament to be true. If the New Testament is true, Jesus' trusting and referencing and fulfilling the Old Testament would imply the truth of the Old Testament. Therefore, I think it is sufficient, at least for my own faith, to have good reasons for relying on the New Testament. A very good book on the issue of whether we have the right New Testament would be Canon Revisited, although it is very clear that it asks this question from the perspective of the Christian. Does a Christian have warrant for believing that we have the right books? He answers yes. Maybe not the best place to start, but a very interesting read. I have also heard that Inspiration and Authority of the Bible by BB Warfield is a classic and a solid defense of the Bible; it is a little longer. I have not ready any of them, but I would also personally be interested in obtaining and reading something on archaeology and the Bible: The Stones Cry Out or The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament or On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Plenty to chew on here, but probably best to start with Bruce and move on from there.
Most of the books I have referenced would seek to cover some very specific ground, whether science or the resurrection or some particular aspect of the reliability of the Bible. But there is also a place for a more big-picture overview. Classical apologetics - there are different schools of thought on apologetics - would first argue for theism in general, then for Christianity in particular. I would commend two books that are overview books but that are not aimed at making a bestseller list. The Reason for God by Tim Keller would probably be an easier read in this vein, but for a more in depth look I would recommend Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig and Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler. Both of these books seek to deal in a very detailed way with nearly all of the major issues in showing whether Christianity is true. Craig's book spends two meaty chapters in the middle on arguments for the existence of God, which provides the type of argumentation he uses in debate, but in much greater detail. Geisler's book does a survey of different philosophies and ways of knowing, critiquing along the way and commending theism. Again, very detailed overview. I have not made it all the way through either of these books, but I have benefited from portions out of each of them. Geisler and Craig both have written a lot of other books, some popular, some scholarly, but these are probably their two most foundational books to the rest of what they write. If you are a glutton for punishment or if you want an even greater level of detail, I would first recommend Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by Craig and Moreland. This book widens the scope from merely making an apologetics argument to looking at the foundation that Christianity provides for looking at nearly every imaginable question. Craig and many of today's Christian philosophers and apologists have benefited from influence by a man named Alvin Plantinga who helped to bring God back into the philosophical conversation in the 1970's. He has written a number of books, but the one I have and intend to read is Warranted Christian Belief. He deals at length with the issue of when a person may be said to have warrant for a belief and additionally whether the Christian is warranted in his religious belief. A popular level digest of Plantinga's thought may be found in A Shot of Faith to the Head by Mitch Stokes. I read this book in a single day and enjoyed it immensely. It is much easier to read than Plantinga's tome. Another suggestion on the way out of this paragraph - Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard.
(It would appear that I write very long paragraphs and that I failed in epic fashion to contain this to five or six suggestions.)
Let me land this plane... I want to finish with three book suggestions that I might classify as classics of apologetics in the 20th century. CS Lewis is probably the most famous apologist of the 20th century, and he wrote a number of books in a number of genres. He wrote Miracles, The Abolition of Man, and the Problem of Pain. All of these deal with some aspect of apologetics. But my all-time favorite suggestion to make from Lewis would be Mere Christianity. This book has probably had more influence on me and the way I think than any other book outside the Bible. I have read it at least three times. I highly recommend it. In it Lewis gives a fresh look at what Christianity really is at its heart and why we should believe it. I find it to be compelling. He does not wade into all the details of all the potential rabbit trails that some of my listed books might, but he puts the big-picture together for me in a way that grabs my heart as well as my head. One of the reading influences in Lewis' conversion - he was an atheist until later into his career as an English professor - was a man named GK Chesterton. The book of Chesterton that I have enjoyed the most would be Orthodoxy. Again, this is one of those big-picture books, but I recommend it because it literally makes me laugh out loud. It is probably the only book that consistently makes me do that. I find Chesterton to be hilarious, sarcastic, and incisive about ultimate matters. A third suggestion would be The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer is valuable in detailing the history of Western thought to show how we have arrived culturally, socially, religiously at our current location in history, and he is valuable in helping to push people to see the inconsistencies within their own worldviews. He helps us to be disciplined to see the logical effects of our presuppositions.
I hope that this list is helpful. I extend the invitation to anyone who is not a Christian but would like to read and discuss with me - please select one of these books and I will purchase it for you and work through it with you. I believe Christianity is true, and I believe that it is important, and I believe that I ought to share it. Thank you for your consideration and time spent reading this. Have a great evening!
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