Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies, Edited by William A. Dembski and Jay W. Richards

Unapologetic Apologetics

Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies

Edited by William A. Dembski and Jay W. Richards
Foreword by Phillip E. Johnson
Afterword by James Parker III

Unapologetic Apologetics
paperback
  • Length: 280 pages
  • Published: January 05, 2001
  • Imprint: IVP Academic
  • Item Code: 1563
  • ISBN: 9780830815630

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As objective truth has come under suspicion in theological study during recent years, scholars and students have also begun to take less seriously the task of persuading others to believe. Apologetics has been neglected, misunderstood and misrepresented. Unwilling to accept this new status quo, editors William Dembski and Jay Wesley Richards, along with their team of expert contributors, firmly hold that apologetics once again deserves our attention.

The editors and contributing scholars, all one-time students at Princeton Theological Seminary, squarely meet some of the most vexing issues in contemporary theological studies

  • pervasive contextualism
  • the question of error in Scripture
  • feminist challenges to our concept of God
  • the nature and coherence of the incarnation
  • the presumption of universalism
  • incursions of science into theology

Taking up in turn foundations, Scripture, Christology, theology and science, the essays comprising Unapologetic Apologetics expose the tenets of naturalism and other philosophical systems that too often permeate theological studies without remark, let alone critique or debate. Dembski, Richards and their contributors expertly administer their cure for false ideas--not quarantine but inoculation.

Contributors include Michael D. Bush, Raymond D. Cannata, Gary W. Deddo, William A. Dembski, Matthew Frawley, Phillip E. Johnson, James Parker III and Leslie Zeigler.

For seminarians and anyone pursuing theological study, Unapologetic Apologetics will become a trusted guide to the philosophical and cultural forces at work in religious education today.

"Dembski and Richards have created what deserves to be called the mother of all seminary peer groups, an apologetics seminar where the tough issues are debated even in front of outside critics."

Phillip E. Johnson (from the foreword)

"This guide should be required reading not merely for seminary students but for all who are in any way responsible for their care and feeding. It offers valuable insights and much-needed correctives in a straightforward style and with uncompromising conviction. I regret that I graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary before Dembski and Richards helped begin the Princeton apologetics seminar. The stimulating essays they have drawn from the seminar and collected in this volume would have been a welcome supplement to my course work. No seminary-bound evangelical should leave home without this book."

Robert P. Mills, associate editor, The Presbyterian Layman

"Unapologetic Apologetics is another sign of the coming of David and the doom of Goliath. David represents young, vibrant and unanswerable Christian orthodoxy, while Goliath is the reigning liberal/modernist theological establishment. Here are students at a large, 'leading' seminary making more sense than their professors. Goliath cannot stand for long."

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy, Boston College

"My first reading of Unapologetic Apologetics sent an electric shock through my body. I have been waiting for twenty-five years for someone to write this book, and finally my wait is over! This book is not only a first-rate piece of orthodox Christian scholarship but also an absolutely unique book in its aim and scope. Dembski and Richards address a host of issues--biblical authority; the nature, aim and scope of apologetics; naturalism and its impact on theology and biblical studies; feminism; postmodernism and others--that seminary students and, indeed, Christian leaders must engage if they want to approach their development with an eye on the culture they are called to minister in. This book will be of special interest to those who work on secular college campuses, attend seminary, do graduate or undergraduate work in philosophy or religious studies, or regularly interact with those on the left of the intellectual spectrum. Every evangelical who attends seminary must read this book before he or she graduates."

J. P. Moreland, professor of philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
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CONTENTS

Foreword - Philip E. Johnson

Introduction: Reclaiming Theological Education - William A. Dembski Jay Wesley Richards

Part 1: Foundations
1. The Task of Apologetics - William A. Dembski
2. The Fallacy of Contextualism - William A. Dembski
3. History of Apologetics at Princeton Seminary - Raymond Cannata

Part 2: Scripture
4. The Problem of Error in Scripture - William A. Dembski
5. Naturalism in Theology Biblical Studies - Jay Wesley Richards
6. Old Princeton the Doctrine of Scripture - Raymond Cannata

Part 3: Christology
7. Is the Doctrine of the Incarnation Coherent? - Jay Wesley Richards
8. Christology and the "Y" Chromosome - Michael D. Bush
9. Can a Male Savior Save Woman? - Jay Wesley Richards

Part 4: Theology
10. Christianity or Feminism? - Leslie Ziegler
11. Jesus' Paradigm for Relating Human Experience Language About God - Gary W. Deddo
12. A Pascalian Argument Against Universalism - Jay Wesley Richards

Part 5: Science
13. What Every Theologian Should Know About Creation, Evolution Design - William A. Dembski
14. Reinstating Design Within Science - William A. Dembski
15. The Challenge of the Human Sciences: The Necessity of an Interactive Dualistic Ontology - Matthew Frawley

Afterword - James Parker III

Contributors

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William A. Dembski

William A. Dembski (PhD, mathematics, University of Chicago; PhD, philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago) is senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He has previously taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University, and he has been a National Science Foundation doctoral and postdoctoral fellow.

Dembski has written numerous scholarly articles and is the author of the critically acclaimed The Design Inference (Cambridge), Intelligent Design (InterVarsity Press), and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (Rowman and Littlefield).

Visit the Discovery Institute for more information about intelligent design and other recent scientific research.

Richards (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary; Th.M., Calvin Theological Seminary; M.Div., Union Theological Seminary) is a research fellow and director of institutional relations at Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, MI. He has published articles in philosophy of religion (Religious Studies), theology (Christian Scholars' Review) and science (Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith). His books include The Privileged Planet (Regnery, 2004), Are We Spiritual Machines (Discovery Inst. Press, 2002), The Untamed God (IVP, 2003), and Unapologetic Apologetics (IVP, 2001)..