Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't

Gavin Ortlund

Description

It has never been more important to articulate the wonder and enchantment of the Christian message. Yet the traditional approaches of apologetics are often outmoded in an age of profound disenchantment and distraction, unable to meet this pressing need.This winsome apologetics book for a new generation makes the case that Christianity offers a compelling explanatory framework for making sense of our world. Pastor and writer Gavin Ortlund believes it is essential to appeal not only to the mind but also to the heart and the imagination as we articulate the beauty of the gospel.Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't reimagines four classical theistic arguments--cosmological, teleological, moral, and Christological--making a cumulative case for God as the best framework for understanding the storied nature of reality. The book suggests that Christian theism can explain such things as the elegance of math, the beauty of music, and the value of love. It is suitable for use in classes yet accessibly written, making it a perfect resource for churches and small groups.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Philosophy of religion

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493432455
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Endorsements
“In a few short years, Ortlund has become one of the world’s leading Christian scholars. This book delivers on its pledge to be both scholarly and inspiring. Writing from the heart, he shows us the eminent plausibility of the existence of God—and of the resurrection of Jesus. Ultimately, what sets this book apart is that Ortlund never overpromises and always engages the best counterarguments with scrupulous fairness, demonstrating in the process an amazing mastery of the Christian tradition and philosophical and scientific literature. A book to savor, and to pass on to friends and family.”
— Matthew Levering , Mundelein Seminary
“In this engaging book, Ortlund stirs our deepest hopes and longings for infinite beauty and perfect goodness, longings we often ignore or repress. He goes on to argue that there are good reasons to sustain these hopes and that truth, goodness, and beauty are ultimately aligned. This is the ideal book to give thoughtful unbelievers, and one that believers will find most useful as a model for intelligent evangelism in the twenty-first century.”
— Jerry L. Walls , Houston Baptist University
“In this remarkably lucid and engaging book, Ortlund asks us to reflect on the ‘affective’ dimensions of a belief in God as the supreme source of truth, beauty, and goodness. When listening to music, or reflecting on the laws of mathematics, or expressing profound moral convictions, we sometimes experience longings for a transcendent ‘beyond’ that cannot be contained within the realm of ‘the natural.’ The Christian story, Ortlund argues, offers us a profound story in which these deepest yearnings of the human spirit are satisfied. Ortlund’s compelling case is made with philosophical clarity, candor, and an impressive use of a wide variety of illustrations from fiction, poetry, and film.”
— Richard J. Mouw , Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, Calvin University
“Ortlund has written a marvelous, engaging book that defends the coherence, beauty, and power of the Christian story—the one story to rule them all. He effectively shows how the naturalistic story in particular fails to furnish an explanatory account of the nature of the universe, of human experience, and of the deepest longings of the human heart. Rather, all of these things hold together in Jesus Christ, whose resurrection grounds the hope that everything sad will become untrue.”
— Paul Copan , Palm Beach Atlantic University; author of Loving Wisdom: A Guide to Philosophy and Christian Faith
“Ortlund’s considerable talents applied to the ultimate question have yielded an impressive and eminently readable treatise that is both academically rigorous and deeply personal. Impressively researched and beautifully crafted, this book makes contagious the author’s obvious delight at exploring life’s mysteries, and it casts an animating vision of gripping beauty and enchanting transcendence. Without triumphalism it features epistemically modest yet hearty reasoning that invites readers into a conversation and into close consideration of existentially central threads of evidence—from math to morals—that end up weaving a lovely tapestry and providing a needed corrective to the postmodern fragmentation of truth, goodness, and beauty.”
— David Baggett , Center for Moral Apologetics, Houston Baptist University
“If you’ve long thought that Christianity is unsophisticated and by the looks of things a boring way to live, and yet every now and again you find yourself wondering, But just what if there is something to it? then Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t is a book you should read. Gavin Ortlund avoids the overreach of attempting to ‘prove’ God. Instead, he argues that belief in God and the Christian story is more rational and desirable than believing in atheism and the story that naturalism tells about the world. Ortlund serves as a careful guide through the arguments, engages the other side fairly, and admits he knows what it feels like to doubt. At the core of Christianity are the claims that there is a God and that Jesus rose from the dead. If true, they change everything. If false, they are some of the biggest errors of all time. Either way, these claims are worth your attention. This book will help you consider how wagering on God and Jesus might surprisingly make sense to you after all.”
— Josh Chatraw , executive director, Center for Public Christianity
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2021 by Gavin Ortlund
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3245-5
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
The author is represented by the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates.
Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.
Dedication
For Isaiah, Naomi, Elijah, and Miriam, whom I often feel I love more than my own life: I wish peace, goodness, strength, and joy upon each of you, forever.
Epigraph
The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian’s faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true.
—Hans Urs von Balthasar
Contents
Endorsements i
Half Title Page iii
Title Page v
Copyright Page vi
Dedication vii
Epigraph vii
Preface xi
Introduction: Beauty, Story, and Probability in the Question of God 1
1. The Cause of the World: Why Something Is More Plausible (and Much More Interesting) Than Nothing 17
2. The Meaning of the World: Why Things like Math, Music, and Love Make More Sense If There Is a God 57
3. The Conflict of the World: Why Good and Evil Shape the Plot of Every Story You’ve Ever Heard 113
4. The Hope of the World: Why Easter Means Happiness beyond Your Wildest Dreams 163
Conclusion: Moving Forward with Probabilities 209
Author Index 215
Subject Index 219
Back Cover 226
Preface
T his book comes from my heart, more than anything else I have ever written.
Don’t get me wrong: It’s an academic book. It seeks to be rigorous in argumentation and deep in the relevant secondary literature. Some passages get technical. At the same time, as it has overflowed from personal excitement, this book has also taken on a tone and quality that I hope will have a broader and more personal reach. I have labored to make it an accessible and enjoyable read, for any thoughtful and sincere reader, as much as possible. Down with boring books! Down with obligatory reading! The subject matter at hand is too enthralling. If we are not captivated and delighted along the way, something is amiss.
I tell you that I’ve given you my best effort as a writer so that I may invite you to give the book your best effort as a reader. We live in an age of distraction and sound bites. The careful reading of books is not our defining strength. But if you will give me your attention from cover to cover, I will do everything I can to make it worth your effort.
My passion for this book derives from my own experience. Over the last several years I have become utterly absorbed in philosophical literature pertaining to the question of God. I remember the day in December 2018, browsing around at Barth’s Books (a famous bookstore where I live in Ojai, California), when I first self-consciously resolved to give myself to this task as my next great intellectual effort. I’d been a bit depressed, having just completed several other book projects in historical theology (my area of formal training) and wondering where to turn my energies next. Philosophy had been my first intellectual love—it was in college, reading Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein and Camus, that I first understood how fun it could be to think . And for several years my interest in apologetics had been steadily brewing, though fueled more by YouTube debates than academic reading.
That day I came across several of the so-called new atheist books: Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion , Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great , and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith . I vividly remember the longing that came over me as I leafed through them. It felt like my feet finding the path again. I knew what my next adventure would be. I bought all three books and headed to the park.
Since that day, philosophical questions of a religious nature have become a central absorbing passion in my life, occupying my mind on bike rides, during swims and hikes, while playing soccer with kids in the backyard, and at various sleepless hours of the night. More than once since then I have prayed, Lord, if you give me anything else to accomplish in my life, please let me write this book!
In the process, I have come to feel that the needs of the times call for a slightly different approach to apologetics, which I explain in the introduction.
A couple of brief explanatory matters are in order, in the hope of avoiding misplaced expectations for your sake and one-star Amazon reviews for mine. First, as I explain in the introduction, this book is not a comprehensive treatment of all worldviews, but especially