Making the case for the Christian faith—apologetics—has always been part of the Church's mission. Yet Christians sometimes have had different approaches to defending the faith, responding to the needs of their respective times and framing their arguments to address the particular issues of their day. Cardinal Avery Dulles's A History of Apologetics provides a masterful overview of Christian apologetics, from its beginning in the New Testament through the Middle Ages and on to the present resurgence of apologetics among Catholics and Protestants. Dulles shows how Christian apologists have at times both criticized and drawn from their intellectual surroundings to present the reasonableness of Christian belief. Written by one of Catholicism's leading American theologians, A History of Apologetics also examines apologetics in the 20th and early 21st centuries including its decline among Catholics following Vatican II and its recent revival, as well as the contributions of contemporary Evangelical Protestant apologists. Dulles also considers the growing Catholic-Protestant convergence in apologetics. No student of apologetics and contemporary theology should be without this superb and masterful work.

ECPA Christian Book Award 2021 Finalist: Biography & Memoir Explore Apologetics through the Lives of History's Great Apologists The History of Apologetics follows the great apologists in the history of the church to understand how they approached the task of apologetics in their own cultural and theological context. Each chapter looks at the life of a well-known apologist from history, unpacks their methodology, and details how they approached the task of defending the faith. By better understanding how apologetics has been done, readers will be better able to grasp the contextualized nature of apologetics and apply those insights to today's context. The History of Apologetics covers forty-four apologists including: Part One: Patristic Apologists Part Two: Medieval Apologists Part Three: Early Modern Apologists Part Four: 19th C. Apologists Part Five: 20th C. American Apologists Part Six: 20th C. European Apologists Part Seven: Contemporary Apologists

The standard for Christian apologetics, this systematic approach presents both the methods and reasons for defending Christianity.

People are hungry for hope. They want to understand our human condition—its origin, nature, purpose, and destiny. The Christian faith offers hope for individuals and the entire universe, grounded in absolute truth. But how can we know that Christianity is true? And how can Christians confidently present their beliefs in the face of doubts and competing views? In this comprehensive text, Douglas Groothuis makes a clear and rigorous case for Christian theism. Demonstrating how apologetics must be both rational and winsome, he addresses the most common questions and objections people raise regarding Christianity. After laying a foundation with the biblical basis for apologetics, apologetic method, and a defense of objective truth, he presents key arguments for the reality of God, a case for the credibility of Jesus, and evidence for the resurrection. Groothuis also evaluates alternative views and responds to challenges such as religious pluralism and the problem of evil. The second edition of this landmark work has been updated throughout to address current issues and sources. It includes new chapters on topics such as doubt and the hiddenness of God, the atonement, the church, and lament as a Christian apologetic. To know God in Christ, Groothuis argues, means that we desire to make Christian truth available to others in the most compelling form possible. Students, ordinary Christians, and seasoned philosophers will all find a wise guide for this endeavor in Christian Apologetics.

For the first time in over one hundred years, the significant writings of history’s most notable Christian apologists are available in one ebook. The Anthology of Christian Apologetics seeks to represent a broad Christian spectrum, ranging from those as early as Saint Paul and Saint Augustine, Saint Teresa of Avila and Blaise Pascal, to more recent and present day apologists such as C. S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, and Pope Benedict XVI. Over fifty entries address key issues in the history of Christian apologetics. Introductions provide general overviews and guides to the topical arrangements of these issues. Photographs of the major apologists enliven the work and concise section headings clearly organize the material. Discussion questions, annotated reading lists, a bibliography, and author and subject indexes contribute to the suitability of this anthology as a textbook or supplemental reader. People interested in Christian thought, history, apologetics, philosophy, theology, or religion will find that the scope and depth of this anthology makes it an authoritative reference for key persons, concepts, issues, and approaches in the history of Christian apologetics.

The Historical Development of Legal Apologetics This book will indicate that legal apologetics has a history that is co-extensive with Christianity itself. It is unified by faith and reason and requires a fact-based defense that seeks probable judgment rather than absolute certainty but nevertheless would be conclusive in a court of law. It will provide a comparative examination of the legal model as a form of evidentialism and alternative models or "schools". There are many clear contrasts among apologetic approaches, for example evidentialism is definitely J.W.Montgomery's approach and presuppositionalism is definitely the approach of Cornelius Van Til. However this book is not only about the differences between evidentialism and presuppositionalism since there are other models to consider, each of which adopts a model different from both the evidentialist approach and the presuppositional approach. This work concludes with an assessment of how closely a Montgomery-type legal apologetic accords with the specific needs of the historical era in which it has emerged and ascended from the 1960's to the present. Apologetics is the response to the central claims that the faith faces from inside and outside the Christian religion. The resurrection of Jesus' is assaulted from many quarters. Furthermore large scale secularism and pluralism has resulted with the development of large scale multi-culturism in our society. Legal apologetics focuses squarely on proving the factual reality of Jesus resurrection and is an apologetic which is particularly well suited to our times with its emphasis on factual evidence. BILL BROUGHTON received his B.A. from Concordia University in Montreal Canada, his M.Div. from McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and his D.Min from Trinity Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana. He is a retired pastor in the United Church of Canada and lives in Arnstein Ontario with his wife Bonnie.