Product Description

A single-volume accessible summary of answers to the most commonly raised apologetic questions by some of the foremost evangelical apologists to equip lay persons as well as Christian leaders with biblical and practical answers to tough questions about the Christian faith, as well as its relationship to other faiths in an era where many listen with their eyes and think with their emotions. Companion book to Is Your Church Ready?: Motivating Leaders to Live an Apologetic Life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8412 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310247104
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
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From the Back Cover
In the quest for the truth, you need to know what you believe and why you believe it. Who Made God? offers accessible answers to over 100 commonly asked apologetic questions. Bringing together the best in evangelical apologists, this guide is standard equipment for Christians who want to understand and talk about their faith intelligently.

Part one answers tough questions about the Christian faith such as: • Who made God? • How can there be three persons in one God? • What is God’s ultimate purpose in allowing evil? • Where did the universe come from? • How long are the days of creation in Genesis? • Did Jesus rise from the dead? • Are the records of Jesus’ life reliable? • Does the Bible have errors in it?

Part two answers tough questions about other faiths, including Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism, Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, Reincarnation, Buddhism, and Black Islam. Relevant stories, questions for reflection and discussion, and a comprehensive list of suggested resources help you dig deeper so you can be prepared to give careful answers that explain the reasons for your faith.

About the Author
For over thirty-five years Ravi Zacharias has spoken all over the world in great halls and universities, notably Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford. He is listed as a distinguished lecturer with the Staley Foundation and has appeared on CNN and other international broadcasts. The author of several books for adults and children, he powerfully mixes biblical teaching and Christian apologetics. His most recent works include Walking from East to West, a memoir, The Grand Weaver, an exploration of God’s intention and pattern in both the ordinary and the startling elements of life, and The End of Reason, a rebuttal of the claims of the so-called New Atheists. His weekly radio program, Let My People Think, is broadcast over 1,500 stations worldwide, and his weekday program, Just Thinking, is on almost 400. He is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have three grown children and reside in Atlanta.

Ravi Zacharias, master en divinidades de Trinity International University, es un orador reconocido así como presidente de Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Su programa semanal de radio, Let My People Think, se retransmite por más de mil quinientas emisoras de todo el mundo. Es autor de varios libros para adultos y niños. Su último libro, De Oriente a Occidente, fue editado por Editorial Vida en el año 2006. El Dr. Zacharias y su esposa residen in Atlanta, Georgia.

Norman Geisler (PhD, Loyola University) is president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and author or coauthor of over fifty books including Decide for Yourself, Baker’s Encyclopedia of Apologetics, and When Skeptics Ask.

Norman Geisler (PhD, Loyola University) es presidente del Seminario Evangélico del Sur y autor de más de cincuenta libros, entre los que se destacan Decide For Yourself, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics y When Skeptics Ask. Fue también coeditor de Is Your Church Ready? Un libro asociado a ¿Quién creó a Díos?

Customer Reviews

Excusable Superficiality, Worth it for the Footnotes
This book can a very useful tool for those Christians who are bombarded with skepticism both from within and from without. I view this only as an introductory work, with the arguments being necessarily superficial (for brevity's sake), but the footnotes and further reading list are probably the most valuable part of the book. Reading it will give you a chance to see if apologetics is an area that you would like to explore, and then it will show you what additional books to launch into for each of the different categories.

As far as the substance goes, I believe William Lane Craig's writings are the star of the show. Although I have a liberal arts background, his chapter on science really makes me want to read more from authors like Polkinghorne about the only-recently-uncomfortable relationship between science and theology. It is fascinating to read that much of academy in cosmology is pointing back towards intelligent design theory and eschewing much of the previous postulations by Hawking or Weinberg.

I have been a big fan of Ravi Zacharias for a long time, so I was anxious to read the writings of his mentor, Norm Geisler. I hate to admit it, but I was somewhat dissapointed. I found his writing to be repetitive, circuitous, and sometimes even tautological. There are about three chapters that Geisler wrote that could have easily condensed into one. I know that Geisler is a prolific writer in apologetics and considered one the genre's mainstays, so I still do look forward to reading something of his that is more single-minded. I suspect that my complaints are a result of the constrined format.

It also should be noted that Zacharias himself did not pen any chapter, and acted only in an editorial capacity. I believe this to be a real loss for this book because few can match the eloquence, persuasiveness, and compassion of Zacharias.

All of this is not to say that I did not enjoy this book or found it useful, but once one is versed with the basics of this book, it is unlikely to be a reference point for deeper arguments, but I repeatedly find myself shopping for books from the "Further Reading" and footnotes chapters.

Offers answers to questions on the Christian faith
This book offers answers to over 100 commonly-asked questions about Christianity in an easy-to-read format. The editors bring together the world's leading Christian apologists and present their knowledge on each subject. The book is organized by topics, with several questions and answers listed under each topic. Part One of the book covers the most fundamental questions about Christianity, including the deity of God, Jesus Christ, the validity of the Bible, evolution/creationism, evil, etc. Part Two delves into more complicated topics and examines the differences between Christianity and other world religions, such as Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism, Transcendental Meditation, Buddhism, etc. Each chapter also ends with discussion questions, which are quite thought-provoking and beneficial for small-group study.

This book is a good starting point for those who wish to understand more about the Christian faith. It's fairly basic, so the editors list several more books and Web sites at the end for deeper study. This is a good reference especially for people who are curious about the Christian faith or are new believers.

Informative, good introduction to apologetics
This is a good introduction to apologetics, packed with useful info, written by many experts. However, it may be just a little too short and condensed. There are better books like this out there like Samples' "Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions" , Strobel's "The Case for Faith" and "The Case for a Creator," etc.

I do take issue with Rhodes discussion on evil & pain. In an otherwise great discussion, he equates all of pain & death with evil, being evil or being nonexistent before evil entered the world. This is problematic in a number of ways (I quote the following from Dean's book "Is the Truth Out There?"):

Even plants "suffer" and experience "death,"...Did these plants suddenly appear after Adam's sin? According to the fossil record they did not. Science has also shown us that animal death is necessary for stable ecosystems. "No death before Adam" also violates the laws of physics. There is no life, or no work, without decay and death. In any given moment, cells are dying and food is decaying in our bodies so life may continue. Is this death and decay evil? If death was inherently evil, what of God who killed animals to clothe Adam and Eve and the deaths he caused throughout the Bible (in punishing people)? If death is inherently evil, then so is God.

Would not a caring creator prepare the world in the best possible way for man, the crown of creation? There are billions of tons of oil, coal, limestone, marble, topsoil and kerogen on Earth. All are valuable, and some necessary, for the maintaining and improvement of human life and all were created by decaying life. Would not the creator - knowing that man would sin by virtue of the fact the creator is outside of time and could see man's future - prepare the world accordingly? Was not the preparation of these materials good?

There is also the illogical claim that God did not create the laws of physics until after man sinned. Why would God create the laws after he created the universe? Those who believe death before Adam is evil explain the existence of carnivores by claiming that creation was already prepared to become meat-eaters since God knew what was coming. If this were true, the fossil record must be a deception, because it shows animals were already eating meat. Adam and Eve were not eating meat (which Genesis 1:29 and Genesis 9:3 seem to indicate) because it is healthier for people with their long life spans. With all the vegetation in Eden, meat would be unnecessary. When mankind's lifespan later decreased, he could eat reasonable amounts of meat without much worry (assuming meat is not the only food you eat, its good properties will outweigh the bad in our relatively short life spans).

When God gave man meat (Genesis 9:3) he did not say anything about changing the animals' diet. One could infer from this omission that the former guideline for animals (Genesis 1:30) was applicable only in Eden or was not completely forbidding carnivorous activity among animals. If Genesis 1:30 were forbidding all carnivorous activity, why does it only refer to the life types man would be interacting with inside Eden (land and airborne animals, see also Genesis 2:20) and not ocean dwelling creatures? To get really technical, read Genesis 1:29-30 again and notice how it is not forbidding anything, but seems to be a recommended guideline. Also, since God specifically told man he could eat meat in Genesis 9:3, here is another obvious point that the death of animals is not inherently evil.

Now consider how Genesis states Eve's childbearing pain was increased after the fall. This tells us two things: 1. There was pain before the fall; and 2. She may have had children before the fall. Also realize that pain is a defense mechanism, so it can not be a construct of evil.

People often ask why some people are taken from this world when they are. Granted, we do not have the larger perspective to see how everyone's life fits together, but consider that God may take people so they do not have to experience our corrupt and evil world anymore. On the other side of things, God limited the life spans of man so he could cause less death and destruction to each other. In other words, death serves larger purposes from a perspective beyond our own.

Once we strip away the emotion of death and look some of the realities of death, we find that the death tautology loses its strength. Not only through physical reality, but it does so through a careful reading of scripture as well.