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It’s difficult to name a more public, well-known evangelical philosopher and apologist than William Lane Craig. From his high philosophical writings such as The Kalam Cosmological Argument and Time and Eternity to his more popular writings such as Hard Questions, Real Answers to his many debates seen on YouTube, few Christian apologists have outpaced his literary output for defending the faith. His most recent work, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, is included among his more popular works intended to reach a broader audience.

Craig explains, “This book is intended to be a sort of training manual to equip you to fulfill the command of 1 Peter 3:15. So this book is intended to be studied, not just read. You’ll find several arguments that I’ve put into easily memorizable steps” (24). The structure and format of the book is refreshingly useful, providing a number of helps along the way for the reader: definitions of key words in the margins, useful guided questions, Scripture passages, explanations of figures that were mentioned, and outlines with diagrams that map out the various logical arguments he deals with in each chapter.

Not only does Craig format his book helpfully for the person who is being introduced to these apologetic topics, but he also weaves his autobiographical story between some seemingly abstract topics. For such a public academic known for his philosophical brilliance, Craig makes sure that the reader never neglects the reality that these arguments and subjects deeply involve people’s emotions and what we all hold as most important in our lives. Hearing the anecdotal side of what Craig does as a world-traveling apologist and debater helps the reader appreciate how Craig was led to prioritize having reasons for his faith and his motivation for providing and explaining those reasons.

On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision

On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision

David C. Cook (2010). 286 pp.

This concise guide is filled with illustrations, sidebars, and memorizable steps to help Christians stand their ground and defend their faith with reason and precision. In his engaging style, Dr. Craig offers four arguments for God’s existence, defends the historicity of Jesus’s personal claims and resurrection, addresses the problem of suffering, and shows why religious relativism doesn’t work. Along the way, he shares his story of following God’s call in his own life.

David C. Cook (2010). 286 pp.

The format of the book follows a natural progression from very basic questions like “What is apologetics?” to common philosophical questions such as “Why did the universe begin?” to more specifically Christian questions like “Did Jesus rise from the dead?” Those who are familiar with the evidential/classical apologetic approach will anticipate why Craig frames the apologetic concerns this way in the first place as well as the way he puts forth his proposed answers. Craig attempts to bring age-old apologetic discussions such as the cosmological argument, the moral argument, theodicy, and proofs for Jesus’s resurrection into a current context and phrase them in language that is accessible and intellectually portable to the average Christian seeking to engage unbelief and its challenges to theism.

Formidable Thinker, Communicator

Throughout the book, it is clear that Craig is immensely qualified to discuss a range of topics that are included in the book-philosophical arguments, logical proofs, scientific arguments for and against design, and the philosophical history of how some have argued for and against theism. Anyone who chooses to challenge Craig’s competence in formal philosophical concepts, formal logic, and philosophy of science better be aware of how formidable Craig is in those fields, both in the academic realm and in explaining those topics to a popular audience.

Christians will heartily want to affirm much of the conclusions that Craig strives to demonstrate and give proof for-that God is the first cause of everything, that God is the necessary source for what is “good,” that Jesus rose from the dead, etc. Anyone who makes it his life work to vigorously defend such important truths should have his intent commended.

Plausible Hypotheses, Ultimate Truth

The concern I have throughout this book is not the conclusions that are drawn but the book’s method and the way Craig arrives at those true conclusions. Craig’s approach assumes a deep reliance and dependence on selective, particular philosophical truths to explain the probability of theistic propositions, and an almost naïve hope that the theism he seeks to explain will contribute to individuals having good reasons for their Christian faith, or at least their belief in God.

The unbelieving reader of On Guard and those who listen to Craig’s debates may very well be convinced by his arguments for theism, and God may very well (and has!) use Craig as a catalyst for the Spirit to work in the hearer’s heart. Yet that is quite a different question than whether the way Craig answers those questions is consistent with the truths of the Christian faith he is seeking to defend.

A very important distinction in apologetics is what a believer should say in an actual apologetic or even evangelistic conversation, and what a believer argues for conceptually and foundationally that may or may not make its way into a conversation or presentation with an unbeliever. The reader is left to assume that the logical arguments stated in the book are what the Christian actually says to the unbeliever. There are many examples that could be cited. At one point Craig says, “Take God out of the picture, and all you’re left with is an apelike creature on a speck of solar dust beset with delusions of moral grandeur” (132).

If this is meant to come through in actual conversation, the unbeliever may respond, “So what? I am convinced that there is no God and if that is the natural conclusion drawn from that truth, so be it, whether I like the conclusion or not.” Craig’s observation may be a conversational tactic that assumes the unbelieving, atheistic position for the sake of argument to point out a possible negative implication of such a belief, but it certainly doesn’t account for the systemic damage atheism does—not only to one’s conclusions but also to how one even defines morality, humanity, truth, language, etc. Those definitions look wholly different to a believer than an unbeliever because of the Christian context in which they are defined.

Although very helpful in structure, form, intent, and accessibility, Craig’s On Guard lacks in providing the reader an ultimate answer according to what God says in his Word when his method forces him to see the Christian faith and truths as plausible hypotheses rather than the ultimate truth through which plausibility and the hypothetical can have any foundation at all.

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