Preface
Preface
As with the first and second apologetics books we have assembled with B&H (Passionate Conviction and Contending with Christianity's Critics), this third book we are coediting does several things. First, it raises classical questions in the philosophy of religion and apologetics, but it does so in a fresh way that interacts with cutting-edge scholarship and current discussion. For example, this book contains a fresh articulation of the argument against naturalism, and it responds to flawed reasoning used against the cosmological argument.
Second, the book addresses contemporary challenges for the church as well as current topics not typically covered in standard apologetics or philosophy of religion texts. The book has chapters on the much-discussed Zeitgeist film, on comparisons of Jesus' birth and resurrection to alleged dying and rising god myths in Mediterranean pagan religions, on the Qur'an as special revelation, on "slavery" and "genocide" in the Old Testament, and on Bart Ehrman's criticisms of the resurrection and of the New Testament's reliability. Third, the book undertakes the task of apologetics with pastoral concern undergirding it. It offers essays on when God gives humans the "silent treatment" and on navigating the question of God's hiddenness.
This book—as with the previous two books—makes cutting-edge resources available to the broader Christian community. Indeed, Evangelical Philosophical Society scholars and their evangelical comrades-in-arms in theology, biblical studies, archaeology, and history can help broaden and deepen the thinking of the next generation of apologists who would benefit from exposure to this wide range of topics.
Paul Copan and William Lane Craig
May 2011