Table of Contents
Preface Rebecca Willard Heatley xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Beginning to Think for Christ 7
Hiding from God 11
What Is Knowledge? 13
Reason Is a Gift from God 16
The Spirit of Apologetics 16
At the Mercy of Our Ideas 17
What Is Truth? 18
Correcting Our Ideas Through Discipleship 20
The Meaning and Method of Life in the Spirit 21
Chapter 2 The New Testament Charter On Apologetics 23
A Model for Dealing with Doubt 26
The Nature of Faith 28
The Context of Apologetics 29
Apologetics Is for Everyone 33
In Gentleness, Fear, and Good Conscience 33
The Result of a Truly Happy Life 35
Chapter 3 Biblical Apologetics 37
The Role of Reason 44
What Apologetics Is Not 46
Confident, Humble, Generous, Open Servants 52
Chapter 4 Faith and Reason 55
Human Reason Under Grace 61
Why Is God Not More Obvious? 65
God's Omniscience 66
Why Is There a Hell? 67
"They Are Without Excuse" 70
Why the Physical World Cannot Be All There Is 71
The Physical Causes for Any Event Cannot Be Infinite 73
Commonplace Myths of the "Big Bang" and of "Cosmic Evolution" 75
Order Comes from Minds 76
Reading E = mc2 from Left to Right 77
God's Involvement in Science and Technology 80
Faith to Build Your Life On 81
Chapter 5 Communication Between God and Humanity 83
The Process of Creation 88
Building on What's Already Been Established 90
God's Good Purposes in Human History 92
The Friend of God 97
The Uniqueness of Jewish Culture 99
Animal Sacrifice 100
God Works Within the Culture 102
Is Scripture Perfect? 104
Chapter 6 The Problem of Pain and Evil 111
A Formally Valid Argument 114
Benevolent and Powerful 114
Separating Pain from Evil 116
The Value of Pain 117
Rejection of the Argument 119
Is God Responsible for All Evil? 120
If God Is Good 121
"In a Perfect World" 123
Why Won't God Do It My Way? 124
There Is No "Good" Without "Evil" 125
Character Development 125
The Importance of Order 127
Dilemma Dissolved 128
The Christian Response 129
Human Responsibility 134
The Other Problem of Evil 135
Jesus as Our Model 136
The Hound of Heaven 138
Chapter 7 Living and Acting with God 141
Does God Speak to Us? 147
Hearing God Speak 147
Learning the Master's Voice 150
A Personal Example 151
Objections to Hearing from God 152
Testing What We Hear 153
The Three Lights 154
The Reality of a Personal Relationship with God 155
Our Interaction with God 156
Living in the Twenty-Third Psalm 158
Praying and Saying 161
The Fate of the Fig Tree 163
When to Pray and When to Say 164
Power in the Name 165
The Ultimate Apologetic 168
Acknowledgments 171
Notes 173
Resources for Further Study 177
Scripture Index 181
Subject Index 183
