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Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing for me, but worthwhile for some
Review: I am a guy who has been reading apologetics for years in an effort to recover a faith and confidence in Biblical Christianity that has been lost to me now for some time. I had hopes that this book would in fact turn the tide and I came to it with high expectations.Instead, what I got was an effort that was wrought with no small amount of confusion. R.C. Jr began with an excellent introduction to what I recognize as a standard presuppositional approach to apologetics. He subjects competing worldviews and philosophies to the test of whether or not they can pass even their own claims. For example, a statement such as "absolute and certain truth is unknowable" is in fact a statement that presents itself as a known and certain truth. This is good stuff, but it is no different than what Doug Wilson and other presuppositionalists do. As the book unfolds, each of the major competing worldviews (e.g. behaviorism, pragmatism, nihilism, etc.) is subjected in turn to this similar test, and each is blown away when subjected to its own standards. So far, so good. When he finally gets around to what I was most interested in, I finally get to discover his claim that he is on the other side of the debate as a classical apologist. He starts with the mind, not the Bible. On this point I agree, and was delighted that in spite of the presuppositional bent of the book up to this point, he begins to take the opposing side. And it was here that my disappointment became complete. Like many classical apologists, he sets forth sound arguments for the existence of God the Creator based on perception and logic. He does a good job here. But he never gets to the point I most wanted to see, which was an answer to the question: How do we get from "God the Creator exists" to "the Christian Bible is a supernaturally produced Book which reveals the true nature of God"? In fact, the book sort of ends inappropriately at the precise point where I most wanted him to continue. He does not start using the Bible to prove anything until the last couple of chapters, and while not intentionally trying to be mean, I can summarize his argument like this: "Since the apostle Paul agrees with everything I have written in this book up to this point, he must have been communicating God's very words to us. And if you disagree with me or Paul, you are merely suppressing a truth that you already know but are refusing to believe". Huh? That is not an apologetic. That is not "tearing down the strongholds" of anything. I have no doubts that God the Creator exists. But beyond what He has revealed of Himself to us in the created order, by what reasoning should I even suppose that He has gone out of his way to reveal any more of himself? And why would He use the method of oral tradition that finally gets written down centuries later, and then is copied over and over and over, and then is translated, etc. Why a method so wrought with exposure to human error and manipulation? And given that for centuries there were literally hundreds of these books of revelation, how is it that the idea of the "canon" came into being, and by what confidence can I trust the "yays and nays" of some council in the 4th century to have correctly picked the ones that God Himself wrote? Questions that still go unanswered for me. If R.C. Sproul Jr debated Thomas Paine, they would agree on just about everything in this book by Sproul. But Paine was not a Christian, although he believed in God the Creator having argued similarly in his own "Age of Reason", one of the strongholds that this book unfortunately does not tear down. But this book is great for a beginner who just wants to get their feet wet with some sort of introduction to apologetics.
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