Introduction

Goal: equip students to address objections raised against the Christian faith and develop their competence to analyze surrounding cultures through a scriptural world-and-life view. A unique and central aspect of this course was its heavy emphasis on epistemology. It insisted that doing epistemology is critically important for theology, apologetics, and the Christian life.

Reading List

Core Philosophical and Epistemological Foundations

• Frame, John. Apologetics to the Glory of God. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1994.
• Magee, Bryan. The Great Philosophers. Oxford, 1987.
• Meek, Esther Lightcap. Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011.
• Pieper, Joseph. “What Does It Mean to Philosophize? Four Lectures.” In For the Love of Wisdom: Essays on the Nature of Philosophy. Edited by Berthold Wald; translated by Roger Wasserman. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995, 2004.
• Van Til, Cornelius. Christian Apologetics. Edited, with an introduction, by William Edgar. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2003.

Specific Apologetics Methodologies, Contexts, and Defenses

• Barrs, Jerram. The Heart of Evangelism. Wheaton: Crossway, 2001.
• Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith (3rd edition): Christian Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton: Crossway, 1984, 1994, 2008.
• Davison, Andrew, ed. Imaginative Apologetics: Theology, Philosophy, and the Catholic Tradition. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.
• Edgar, William. Reasons of the Heart: Recovering Christian Persuasion. Phillipsburg, NJ: 1996, 2003.
• Guinness, Os. Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015.
• Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008.
• Kettle, David J. Western Culture in Gospel Context: Towards the Conversion of the West: Theological Bearings for Mission and Spirituality. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011.
• Meek, Esther Lightcap. Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2003.
• Moreland, J. P. Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.
• Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
• Penner, Myron B. The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.
• Sennett, James F., ed. The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
• Wright, N. T. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
• Zacharias, Ravi. Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message. Nashville: Nelson, 2000.