PREFACE
PREFACE
We are living in a time when certain critics of Christianity have abandoned all delicacy and decorum in debate. Rather than sticking to rational, carefully reasoned arguments, they have taken off the gloves to launch angry, sarcastic, and sloppily argued attacks. They lob their rhetorical grenades in hopes of creating the (incorrect) impression that belief in God is for intellectual lightweights who believe ridiculous, incoherent doctrines and are opposed to all scientific endeavor and discovery. These objectors are writing books—indeed, best sellers—that tend to be more bluster and emotion than substance. This new tone of debate is characteristic of the New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. On another front, textual critic Bart Ehrman misleadingly raises doubts about the New Testament text's reliability, while novelist Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Jesus Seminar cofounder John Dominic Crossan mislead many into thinking that various Gnostic Gospels give us more reliable information about the historical Jesus than do the canonical Gospels. From various angles the public is being told that we cannot trust what the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular, say about Jesus of Nazareth.
The Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS), with its journal Philosophia Christi, is dedicated to (among other things) addressing these challenges.1 Indeed, part of the EPS's mission is to help equip the church to respond to these pressing challenges. In conjunction with its annual meetings, the EPS hosts annual apologetics conferences at local churches in different regions of the country. Since 2003, leading scholars in their various fields—philosophy, biblical studies, biblical history and archaeology, theology, religious studies, and ethics—have freely contributed to the rousing success of these conferences, which consistently draw large crowds. Without fail conference participants are evidently enthusiastic, engaged, eager to learn, and encouraged to defend the gospel winsomely and wisely. They come with great anticipation, and they leave with a renewed appreciation for the intellectual foundations for their faith and a rekindled vision for responding to its critics and questioners.
As part of an ongoing series in accessible, cutting-edge Christian apologetics, this volume is a successor to our previous B&H book, Passionate Conviction.2 Both of these books are the fruit of the annual EPS conferences. The chapters of this book, with the exception of the more in-house debate regarding open theism, are dedicated to addressing challenges from the New Atheists and other contemporary critics of Christianity concerning belief in God, the historical Jesus, and Christianity's doctrinal coherence. We pray that this book, too, will encourage your faith, strengthen your mind, and embolden your witness.
Paul Copan
William Lane Craig
Reformation Day 2008