Reviewer's Introduction
I was introduced to astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross (president of Reasons to Believe) in the early 90's but did not really begin investigating his model of origins until the mid 2000's when my view of origins and my Christian worldview was beginning to be challenged by observations of scientists in many different disciplines. I was hit by the higher critics who wished to interpret Genesis in a metaphorical (and not historical) light. Some of their points seemed valid, but others were questionable. I found Dr. Ross' approach of integrating all of Scripture with all the sciences quite intellectually attractive. It offered the possibility to reconcile the findings of modern science and the research of the higher critics with the Genesis accounts. However, before I was willing to change my view of origins from young-earth (universe is 6,000 - 10,000 years old), despite the observational evidence, I had to see a proper interpretive treatment of the Genesis accounts of creation that recognized them as historical events, granted the poetic writing style, understood the ancient cultural context, and consistently preserved all the essentials of Christian theology (including original sin and Christ's atonement). All those requirements have been satisfied, and Navigating Genesis: A Scientist's Journey Through Genesis 1-11 shows how it is accomplished through a careful examination of the Genesis accounts.

This review is a chapter-by-chapter summary, so it is lengthy. But it will give the reader a taste of the range of content in the book. This review, by no means, is a substitute for reading the book as it contains much more content in higher detail than what I have presented here.

In God, Freedom, and Evil Alvin Plantinga (AP) attempts to rebut the logical problem of evil [i], which posits that the following two propositions [i] are inconsistent:

(1) God (an omnipotent and perfectly good being) exists
(2) Evil exists

Where is the Inconsistency? 
AP spends the first section of the book attempting to demonstrate an inconsistency between the two premises. He argues that (1) and (2) are neither explicitly nor formally [ii] contradictory, and (following J. L. Mackie) decides that the most promising course for the atheologian [iii] is that the propositions are implicitly contradictory. A set of premises is implicitly contradictory if one or more of the terms violates a logically necessary truth. What the atheologian is looking for, then, in pressing the logical problem of evil is a necessary truth which, when added to (1) and (2) above, yields a contradiction.

In a culture where elders are to be obeyed, not questioned, and where abandonment of one’s religion can be punished by death, it is a significant challenge for a Muslim to walk away from his or her faith. Nabeel Qureshi outlines the long and often painful process that led him to do just that in Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.

He begins by describing a rather lonely childhood. He was born in Pakistan, but his family immigrated to the United States when he was still very young. His father was in the U.S. navy and was stationed in a variety of American cities as well as in Scotland for awhile. Wherever they went, Muslims were in the minority. Qureshi notes that he was always aware of being different and that his Muslim heritage was a deterrent for many would-be friends and their families (32).

The author notes that Muslims believe Christians are an immoral and promiscuous lot. For this reason, immigrants like his parents are fearful of their offspring being Americanized. Therefore, the Qureshis would not allow their son to spend time with non-Islamic children outside of school. It also meant that they spent a great deal of time and energy indoctrinating Nabeel and his older sister in the ways of Islam.

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of Christianity’s most central, distinctive, and profoundly mysterious claims, and so it is hardly surprising that it often comes under attack by critics on all sides. Christian apologists have long found themselves facing charges that the doctrine of the Trinity is not taught (either explicitly or implicitly) in Scripture and that, at any rate, it is incoherent. It is with respect to the latter charge that Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity (hereafter PTET) will be of interest to apologists. This collection of essays, edited by Thomas McCall and Michael C. Rea, brings together some important recent work in philosophical theology on the doctrine of the Trinity. The primary concern for most of the contributors in this volume is the issue of coherence, and consequently the majority of them either defend or critique various attempts to model the Trinity in a logically consistent and orthodox way. The result is an impressive collection of papers on one of the most difficult theological questions, and an important contribution to analytic theology.

I have been quite excited to read Scott Klusendorf's The Case For Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (paperback, Kindle, Video Trailer, Interview, Life Training Institute). From my elementary school days, I have been exposed to pro-life Christians who have faced ridicule, fines, physical harm, and even jail time for their commitment to the unborn's right to life. It was not until my exposure to Christian apologetics that I became aware that the fight was more than each side just emoting at one another. In this book, Klusendorf provides the scientific case for the humanity of the unborn and the objective moral wrongness of killing them. He addresses many common and powerful challenges to the prolife position. The book is divided into four parts and is 243 pages in length. This review will provide a chapter-by-chapter summary then conclude with my comments.

Part 1- Pro-Life Christians Clarify The Debate
Chapter 1- What Is The Issue?
Klusendorf begins by clarifying that there is one issue that is up for debate- the one issue that will make or break the case for the pro-life position. He explains that every other issue in the discussion is a red herring if this one issue is not resolved first. The key question that anyone must ask before they decide to act on something is "What is it?" In the context of the pro-life/abortion debate the action is killing and "it" is the unborn. We must determine if the unborn are human or not before we decide if it is justifiable to kill it. Klusendorf points out that if the unborn are not human, then there is no more justification needed to remove it than is necessary to remove a tooth (and any efforts to lower the number of abortions is really worthless); however, if the unborn is human, then no justification is sufficient to deliberately kill it.

The Soul Hypothesis is a collection of 9 essays from authors of diverse backgrounds (i.e., philosophy of mind, philosophy of physics, brain science, linguistics). While this sort of eclecticism often leads to very uneven work, this is most definitely not true in this case. The editors and authors do an excellent job of maintaining continuity among the essays, primarily by providing ‘bridging’ commentaries between the chapters which allow for the reader to see the emerging themes. In attempting to replicate this thematic consistency, I’ve been forced to discuss the book’s contents in an ‘out of order’ fashion.[i]

Themes. It will be helpful to first sketch the two main themes of the book. The first theme is that there is no one soul hypothesis (henceforth SH).[ii] This means that falsifying one version of the SH does not entail that no version of the SH is true. [iii] This also means that the extent to which “the” SH is judged plausible will vary according to which specific SH is being proffered. Likewise, there is no single version of the materialist hypothesis (MH) [iv]. Arguably, as with the SH, this means that falsifying a version of the MH does not entail that no version of the MH is true, nor that all versions of the MH will be judged equally (im)plausible. Despite this caveat, I will for simplicity of exposition use ‘the’ SH or ‘the’ MH language, and relegate finer-grained discussion to the last footnote of this review. However, at various points in the text the authors argue against the ‘softer’ forms of materialism as well.[v]

In Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Pain, Michael J. Murray outlines and assesses the adequacy of various defenses of theism in light of ‘the Darwinian picture’. The Darwinian picture consists, roughly, of the following claim:

For hundreds of millions of years—long before man arrived on the scene—non-human animals capable of experiencing real and morally significant pain have inhabited the earth.

The conflict between the Darwinian picture and theism I shall henceforth call ‘the problem of animal suffering’ (or PAS). PAS is, in Murray’s estimation, worth investigating because it a version of the problem of evil that has been relatively untouched in philosophy, because it makes suffering a central component of the development of life[i], and because he thinks that the standard responses to other versions of the problem of evil are largely impotent when it comes to animal suffering.

Movies are an interesting part of today's culture. They address hot issues by connecting to people through the arts. They are the products of fallen people created in God's Image thus they will contain both good and bad elements, with imbalances on both sides. Many Christians do not think very deeply about these realities of this form of entertainment, so they often take extreme views of either over-indulgence or avoidance, and few see movies as open opportunities to discuss the Gospel with skeptics.

In his book The Message Behind the Movie: How to Engage With A Film Without Disengaging Your Faith Doug Beaumont attempts to address these issues. He divided the book into three "Acts" that deal with cinematic theory, evangelical application, and personal application. The book is subdivided into eleven chapters and is a mere 159 pages. This review is intended to be a chapter-by-chapter summary to give the potential reader a taste of the book's content.

Editors Matthew Barrett and Ardel B. Caneday offer yet another installment in Zondervan’s Counterpoints series.  This one is on the historicity of Adam with essays by Denis O. Lamoureux, John Walton, C. John Collins, and William D. Barrick.

Lamoureux kicks off the discussion with his evolutionary creation view and the rejection of a historical Adam.  He sums up his beliefs saying, “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit created the universe and life, including humans, through an ordained, sustained, and intelligent design-reflecting natural process” (37). The author dismisses scientific concordism, that is, the assumption that the facts of science align with the Bible.  He asserts that statements in Scripture about nature are from an ancient phenomenological perspective and that “Holy Scripture makes statements about how God created living organisms that never in fact happened” (46).  Does this mean that God lied?  No, he says.  It means that “the Holy Spirit used the biology-of-the-day as an incidental vessel to reveal inerrant spiritual truths” (57).

In Epistemic Justification (henceforth EJ) Richard Swinburne wants to answer two basic questions: first, what is justification, and second, what types of justification are worth having. While easy to state, the questions are very difficult to answer. This difficulty stems from several factors, including the history of epistemology, the failure to make distinctions, and the connections between justification, warrant, and knowledge.

The History of Epistemology

There’s nothing like a good debate. But while Robert B. Stewart’s volume Can Only One Religion be True? is subtitled “Paul Knitter & Harold Netland in Dialogue,” their lively discussion only occupies the first of this book’s ten chapters. Meanwhile, starting at about chapter five, it is tempting to see John Hick’s brand of pluralism as the book’s focus, rather than the Knitter-Netland Dialogue. But I suppose this can be excused, as there is no doubt that Hick has been the most influential figure in recent discussions of pluralism. Even the editor observes, “ reading a book on pluralism without John Hick is like playing chess without the queen.”[1] Altogether, this volume proves to be an interesting exploration of the contemporary debate about religious pluralism.

Life is tragic.

With that statement, Pastor/Author Tim Keller embarks on a study of evil and its ramifications in Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. As he notes, nobody can avoid troubles and it’s impossible to cope with them entirely on our own. We need help and the best help, Keller asserts, comes from God. However, while suffering drives some people to the Lord, it drives others away from him. Keller explains how and why God is trustworthy in the midst of pain.

The author presents his case in three parts. He begins with a theoretical look at the phenomenon of suffering and the variety of ways different cultures and religions throughout history have sought to deal with it. Whether moralistic in nature (Hindu), transcendent (Buddhist), fatalistic (Muslim) or dualistic (a battle between good and evil), these approaches to the subject see the world as both material and spiritual and suggest that something good can out of suffering, usually in terms of human improvement.

This reviewer writes quite often about the importance of internal theological discussions to apologists. Eschatology (end times) tends to be one of the most fascinating, heated, and damaging debates within the Church. As prophecy enthusiasts keep attempting to predict the date of Christ's return (and fail), it makes the Christian worldview appear to be falsified from the perspective of unbelievers. In order to address these challenges, it is important that Christians think carefully about eschatology. Kenneth Samples (Reasons to Believe) attempts to provide a starting point for responsible thought and discussion in his most recent book, Christian Endgame: Careful Thinking About The End Times.

This is a short book of only 59 pages divided into eight chapters, plus three appendices. This review will provide an abbreviated chapter-by-chapter summary in an effort to not give away all the content of the book.

Reading this book review will be challenging–and possibly frustrating for some–because it addresses topics rarely addressed in evangelical circles. Although it does not appear as such, this is a work of apologetics. It aims to defend the results of historical criticism against evangelicals who fear its conclusions.

The book aims to challenge evangelical students, pastors and scholars to consider the implications of historical criticism for their faith. Throughout the volume, the various authors address major issues such as the historicity of Adam & Eve, the historical reliability of the Exodus tradition, pseudopigraphy in the Bible, revised prophecies and the historical Jesus. The chapters seek to address how best to engage and accept the outcomes of critical scholarship, and whether to actively pursue critical scholarship as evangelicals.

For Christian apologists, the publication of Divine Evil?: The Moral Character of the God of Abraham and the 2009 conference that gave birth to this volume together constitute an exciting development. Since September 11, 2009, the so-called “New Atheists” have not been shy about their objections to the moral atrocities committed in the name of religion throughout history. Among these moral atrocities are apparently evil commands issued by Yahweh in various Old Testament passages. But despite this persistent New Atheist critique, a thorough response from the apologetics community has not been immediate. When Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster? appeared in 2011, he wrote in his first chapter that “Despite the strong intellectual response to the New Atheism, one area left unaddressed is that of Old Testament ethics.”[1] Copan’s book was a long-awaited and important step in addressing this neglected area. Although Divine Evil? first appeared around the same time and addresses the same subject as Copan’s book, it has something different to offer. The editors, Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea, have produced a scholarly discussion of the character of the God of Abraham that offers an opportunity for some of the greatest minds in the philosophy of religion to directly interact on the salient Old Testament[2] passages. While discussion of these passages has long existed in other fields, in Divine Evil? we finally see the attention of contemporary Christian philosophers turning more fully to this important dispute.

In Hume’s Abject Failure, John Earman (henceforth JE) levels several complaints against Hume’s argument against miracles, of which I will focus on only one: Hume’s treatment of inductive reasoning.[i] JE takes some pains to stress that his critique derives from what he sees as objective flaws in Hume’s argument and not from an antipathy to Hume’s conclusions.[ii] JE poses a couple of criteria for an adequate epistemology—criteria which, he feels, Hume’s account of induction cannot meet.[iii]

JE argues that the most reasonable reading of Hume’s argument against miracles is as follows. Say we have seen a long succession of some event A occurring. Further stipulate that in all known instances of A, it turns out that A was also B. On JE’s reading of Hume, this makes the statement ‘All As are Bs’ a presumptive law of nature.[iv] This yields the conclusion that we should assign the likelihood that the next A will also be a B to 1. In other words, we should possess absolute certainty that the next occurrence will not be a violation of our presumed law of nature. Put into Bayesian terms[v], this can be expressed as follows:[vi]

This reviewer has long been interested in the discussions about the existence of agents. Since the teleological argument depends on the existence of design being a legitimate concept, and that being dependent upon the existence of agents, Angus Menuge's book Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science was quite appealing. This reviewer balked at the price on Amazon, but it was given as a gift, and this reviewer was ecstatic delve into it immediately. The book is 215 pages divided into eight densely packed chapters. This review is designed to be a chapter-by-chapter summary to prepare the reader to tackle this challenging text.

Preface
Dr. Menuge begins the preface of the book by stating that his purpose behind writing Agents Under Fire is to defend the existence of agency (a non-natural entity capable of reasoning and purposing). He explains that this is a pivotal question in debates about intelligent design, for if there is no agency then there is no agents to design anything (to compare the "designs" in nature to)- design even is an illegitimate concept and should be completely discarded.

With a title like The Philosophy of History: Naturalism and Religion, it is not surprising to find that the theses James Stroud defends in this book pertain to historiography and the impact of historical method on the assessment of religious claims. But what is surprising about a book with this title and focus is its similarity to the myriad introductory works of apologetics available today, which present an accessible treatment of common apologetic issues, ranging from the origins of the universe and the grounding of morality to the historical Jesus.

Stroud has two central theses in The Philosophy of History, one of which gets more attention than the other. His primary thesis is the claim that naturalism should not be assumed a priori in historical and scientific studies; an “open” methodology which allows for both natural and supernatural explanations should be employed instead of the currently popular “closed” methodology wherein only naturalistic explanations are tolerated. Stroud also defends a secondary thesis, which claims that there is a greater overlap or unity between science and history than is often recognized. In particular, he argues that certain “past singularities” (one-time historical events) such as the origin of the universe, of life, and of humanity, are, though often classified as matters of ‘origins science’, equally at home under the umbrella of history. Stroud repeatedly makes statements like “Origins science is really ‘history’ (or history as a weak science[1]…)”[2] and “…the historian is more capable of addressing questions of origin science with philosophy as an aid than the operation scientist.”[3] “Moreover,” he says, “weaker sciences such as anthropology and sociology as well as linguistics all fall under the much larger umbrella of ‘history.’”[4] This second thesis receives the most attention in the fourth chapter, “What about History?” Though interesting, this point apparently lacks methodological import, for as Stroud ventures into historical and scientific issues later in the book, they are treated in pretty much exactly the same way that they have typically been treated in recent discussion, even to the point of employing unaltered or mostly unaltered versions of arguments used by William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Stephen C. Meyer, Gary Habermas, and others.

In Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, Richard Swinburne makes the case for the veracity of the Christian revelation. He does this by proposing four criteria that any purported revelation must pass, and then mounts a case for the Christian revelation successfully meeting those criteria—and doing so better than rival theistic revelations.

Assumptions and a priori probabilities. As with all of his books, Swinburne presupposes conclusions arrived at in earlier works. Here he is not concerned so much with merely assessing the Christian religion in a worldview vacuum, but rather assumes that there is at least some significant prior probability that the God of classical theism exists.[i] Given that God exists and that he is perfectly good, it is likely that he would give us a revelation. This expectation means that the evidence required for us to justifiably believe in a revelation is less than it would otherwise be (that is, if we did not already have some evidence that there is a God who would be likely to give such a revelation).

Introduction. In The Coherence of Theism (henceforth CoT), Richard Swinburne is concerned with examining whether the central doctrines of classical theism[1] are coherent (that is, free from contradiction). It is important to understand what this limited goal means for the theist/atheist debate. If the atheist can convincingly claim that theism is incoherent, then the game is over: theism cannot be true. For the theist to show that theism is coherent is only a partial victory. Then theism is in some sense possibly true. Further grounds would have to be given to show that it is in fact true. [2]

Part I: Religious Language. In Part I, Swinburne sketches various criteria for coherence. The basic means for testing whether or not some proposition is (in)coherent is to ‘unpack’[3] the concept and see what results. This is necessary because while some contradictions are explicit (The author of Hamlet did not write Hamlet) many others are implicit. Swinburne closes out this section by tackling a handful of topics, including ways in which theology involves ‘mundane’ uses of words (i.e., theological terms are defined using words that are close to their more pedestrian, ‘every day’ usages) and more ‘analogical’ or ‘stretched’ uses of words. Even when theology is using words in more mundane ways, the properties involved (e.g., power, goodness) may involve those properties occurring in unfamiliar combinations[4]. Swinburne helpfully notes that this occurs not only in theology, but also in science.[5] Using non-religious examples, Swinburne illustrates how mundane language implies only similarities, not absolute sameness. Although myself and my desk are alike in some ways (we both are composed of matter, have weight, occupy space) we are very different in other ways (I am made of flesh and bone, can lose weight through diet and exercise, and breathe—none of which apply to my desk).