★★★★★
My kind of Christian apologetics! A friend on Goodreads recommended this book to me, and he guessed right. I loved it.
Rauser
leads us into a quaint little coffee shop for an afternoon of friendly
argument, where he spies the perfect target: an atheist named Sheridan
who is versed in apologetics just enough to make the conversation
interesting. Sheridan argues that the geographic distribution of various
types of believers proves that religion isn’t objective; he wonders why
Zeus isn’t just as likely to be a real god as Rauser’s Most Perfect
Being; he insists that morals are an evolutionary accident, with no need
for divine intervention; he confronts Rauser with the problem of evil,
and in particular the absurdity of everlasting punishment; and he argues
that what Christians recognize as signs from God are no more than
coincidences. Except for the whole “Yahweh condones evil” thing (where
Rauser’s best defense is to shrug and admit that he’s not a defender for
the “home team” but rather a pursuer of truth), Sheridan’s objections
to Christianity get shot down.
You
might recognize already that Rauser’s idea of apologetics is not about
debating atheists until they succumb to logic and beg for baptism, but
“rigorously pursuing truth in conversation.” This book isn’t going to
shoot the moon. None of that “I can prove Jesus rose from the dead”
stuff. Just reasonable exploration leading to a reasonable conclusion
that Christian beliefs are not unreasonable.
I
hope you don’t take this as a spoiler, but here’s my take on the coffee
house conversation: Rauser provides some solid argument for the
possibility of some sort of unexplained, intelligent creator and guide,
who could be just about anyone but Yahweh of the Old Testament (as least
the way its writers understood Him, since surely a “perfect being”
wouldn’t really condone the genocide that was done in His name). Some
arguments are better than others, and like I said, Rauser provides no
conclusive proof that Christianity is the One True Religion. So, we’re
left with a mystery, but one that should at least keep us from sneering at those who choose a Christian interface with this mystery.
All in all, this is a really fun book. Randal, if you write more, please consider more Dubious Disciple reviews!
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