The AK47 Podcast Season 2: Episode 5

I am starting a new series of interviews interviewing people who are Christian apologists, but not academics.  My purpose in these interviews is to encourage Christians who want to do apologetics, have apologetics ministries, or implement apologetics into their discussions with skeptics, but don't want to spend thousands of dollars of their money and years of their time on formal degrees in apologetics or other related fields.

In this episode, I interview Evan Minton of Cerebral Faith.  I ask him how he became a Christian, how he became interested in the intellectual side of the Christian faith, and why he decided to start a blog on the topic.  I ask him for advice on how to become a good apologist without a formal education, how to deal with anxiety about having discussions or debates with skeptics, his more controversial theological opinions, and where we can read his stuff.  We also talk about some of our nerdy hobbies like video games and anime, with an emphasis on Pokemon and Zelda.

Listen to the episode here.

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Read and listen to Evan's stuff on Cerebral Faith.

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Other Episodes in this Series

1. Sam Harper (Philochristos)

2. Cameron Bertuzzi (Capturing Christianity)

3. Clinton Wilcox (specifically on the topic of abortion)

4. Richard Porter

Apologist Recommendation: Edward Feser

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.

Edward Feser

Dr. Feser is a Catholic philosopher who teaches at Pasadena City College.  Being a Catholic, his metaphysics is heavily influenced by Aquinas, which may make his philosophy slightly different from other well-known Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, but his material is still valuable.  A lot of his material is academic, but he has a lot of more popular-level materials that offer great arguments and insights.  Here are some of his works.

His Blog

Feser regularly writes on his blog, where you can find his thoughts on everything philosophy, theology, Catholicism, and apologetics.  This is a good place to go to introduce yourself to his material.

Atheism

Dr. Feser has a lot of scathing and often hilarious critiques of the "New Atheism" and particular atheist writers.  In book form, he wrote The Last Supertition, which is a critique of the new atheism.  His criticisms of Jerry Coyne are all entertaining to read.  He has a review of Coyne's book, Faith Versus Fact, on First Things.  You can also find his blog posts and articles critiquing Coyne here and here.  Feser also critiques Lawrence Krauss, a physicist and atheist, here.  He has a lot more material on atheism and responses to atheist apologists, so look them up.

Existence of God

Dr. Feser has also written on the arguments for the existence of God.  His new book, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, is pretty self-explanatory.  Feser is also interviewed here, where he responds to Dawkins' critiques of the arguments for God's existence in his book, The God Delusion.

Misc.

I recommend just looking through his blog for more materials.  He has a lot of articles on philosophy of mind, ethical issues like sexual ethics, abortion, and capital punishment, explanations of Catholic docrines, and much, much more.  I hope you learn a lot from his resources.

The AK47 Podcast Season 1: Episode 21

I interview Dennis Bray, a Ph.D candidate in analytic theology at the University of St. Andrews, on the metaphysics of beauty.  Is beauty objective?  Why think it is?  How does the topic of beauty relate to the topic of goodness and morality?  What is God's connection to beauty and its objectivity?  What is an argument for God's existence from beauty?  All that and more here.

Listen to the episode here.

The AK47 Podcast Season 1: Episode 18

I interview Dr. Greg Ganssle on fittingness arguments for God's existence and God of the Gaps arguments.  We discuss what fittingness arguments are, what fittingness arguments there are for theism, what fittingness arguments there are for atheism, and Greg responds to the arguments for atheism.  We finish off by giving an analysis of "God of the Gaps" arguments and responding to the charge that arguments for theism are God of the Gaps arguments.

Listen to the audio here.

The AK47 Podcast Season 1: Episode 14

In this episode, I interview Dr. Chris Gadsden on religious epistemology and the rationality of theism and Christianity.  A lot of the things we talked about can be their own individual podcasts!

Listen to the episode here.

For more from Dr. Gadsden, check out his website, Ground Belief.

Apologist Recommendation: Timothy McGrew

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.

Reading Recommendations for the Winter Break

This article was originally featured on ResistanceTV.

Many of our readers may be students who are still in college.  The nice thing about the university is that there is often an entire month off during this time of year.  This gives one time to read books that one does not have time to read during the semesters.  Even non-students like people working in ministry will be benefited from reading.  These are my top apologetics book recommendations.  I will be focusing on beginners material, but I will also suggest higher level books to move onto once you finish these books.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller

This book, written by the well-known pastor in New York, is a good introductory apologetic for people who have not exposed themselves to the topic before.  In the first half, Keller responds to various criticisms of Christianity like “How can a good God send people to Hell,” “There can’t be just one true religion,” “How could a good God allow evil,” “Science has disproved Christianity,” and many more.  In the second half, he gets into some arguments for the truth of Christianity.  This book will challenge readers who have never exposed themselves to apologetics before, but it is incredibly readable too.  Those who are more familiar with apologetics may be aided by this book because, as a pastor, Keller can put things in a way that is understandable and relatable to many people.

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl

This book isn’t so much about apologetic content as it is about apologetic skill and strategy.  This book is all about how to engaged in a winsome and intelligent way with skeptics of Christianity by asking good questions that help guide the conversation.  Greg also gets into how to deal with people who are much smarter than you, people who are rude and condescending, and other challenging situations.  The content in this book is valuable for everybody and for every discussion you will have, even if you are discussion issues with other Christians, like whether Calvinism is true.

On Guard: Defending your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig

Dr. Craig is one of the most well-known Christian apologists of our time.  He has been in countless debates and has written countless books on the defense of the Christian faith, so any book by him is going to be worth looking into.  This book is his most accessible.  He gives several arguments for the existence of God and the arguments for Christianity in particular.

After this: Read Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics by William Lane Craig

Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan

Many objections to Christianity are aimed at the apparent moral depravity of the Old Testament.  What do we do about the conquest accounts, slavery, treatment of women, and countless other moral problems in the OT?  Even many Christians avoid the OT because they don’t know how to handle it.  Paul Copan looks at each one of these moral challenges and responds to them.

After this: Read Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God by Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan

I hope these resources can get you started.  God bless.