In this series, I will recommend certain scholars and apologists to our readers and listeners. These are people that I believe are worth listening to because they are informed and give good arguments and insights into the subjects that they study, which helps intellectually equip Christians so that they can grow in their own faith and their outreach towards non-Christians. I am not claiming that these scholars and apologists have everything correct, but I think they are intellectual powerhouses that we can learn much from.
Timothy McGrew
Timothy McGrew is a philosophy professor at Western Michigan University. His philosophical specialties are epistemology, probability theory, logic, and the history and philosophy of science. When it comes to Christian apologetics, he frequently speaks and writes on the meaning of "faith" and the possibility and actuality of miracles. Don't let his credentials as a philosopher fool you, however, he is also very competent when it comes to biblical studies. Dr. McGrew has spent years researching the reliability of the Bible and he has shared his knowledge in numerous talks and debates over the years. In the next section, I will provide resources on the various topics McGrew has been involved in over the years.
Miracles
Dr. McGrew has said a lot over the years on the possibility and actuality of miracles and the rationality in believing miracles. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a fantastic source for learning philosophy, features Dr. McGrew's helpful article on miracles. McGrew has given helpful talks on how to think about miracles and has participated in debates on the rationality of believing in miracles. I also highly recommend this talk on the history of the discussion of miracles among philosophers over the centuries. Many people make it seem like David Hume basically closed the issue of miracles, but Dr. McGrew shows that Hume has had his critics over the centuries. Tim and his wife, Lydia, who is also a scholar, also have an article defending the resurrection of Jesus Christ in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (chapter 11).
Faith
Many people claim that faith is believing without evidence. Being a philosopher who regularly thinks of evidence and rationality, Dr. McGrew has spent a lot of time showing that faith is not against the evidence. In Tom Gilson's book, True Reason, Dr. McGrew and Dr. David Marshall respond to the charge that faith is unevidential belief by giving a historical perspective on how faith was understood and defined by thinkers in the church (chapter 11). McGrew has also debated the atheist Peter Boghossian, who wrote a book arguing that faith is an unreliable way of knowing things because it doesn't rely on evidence.
The Reliability of the Bible
My favorite stuff from Dr. McGrew is his material on the reliability of the Bible. He has spent a lot of time researching the subject and has helped to resurface an old argument for the Bible's reliability that, while good, has been forgotten for some time. Dr. McGrew has an excellent series responding to alleged historical errors and contradictions in the Gospels. He has debated the well-known biblical critic, Bart Ehrman, on the reliability of the Gospels. The most interesting thing that Dr. McGrew has brought back into the apologetic discussion is the issue of Undesigned Coincidences. An undesigned coincidence occurs when two or more people give completely different details about the same event, but despite the details being different, they fit together and explain each other like pieces of a puzzle, which gives a full picture of the event. Undesigned coincidences are marks of reliability and truthfulness because they are subtle and unlikely to be made up or planned by the group of people giving the details, but despite this, the details still fit together well. The kicker is that these undesigned coincidences are found all over the Bible. Tim McGrew has spoken extensively on these things, but it is actually his wife, Lydia McGrew, who has put the most work into bringing this argument for biblical reliability back. Lydia's book, Hidden in Plain View, explains undesigned coincidences and details a massive number of them in the Bible. You can also find a number of her posts on various undesigned coincidences in the blog, What's Wrong With the World.
The Existence of God
I have not seen Dr. McGrew talk as much about the arguments for God's existence, but he does have some material on it that I think is worth looking into. Here is a talk by him giving three arguments for God's existence and answering questions and criticisms from people.
I hope Dr. McGrew's materials are helpful to you all.
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