That's Just Your Interpretation: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge Your Faith

Rating:
Summary: Good clearly laid out arguements.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book very much even though I found some of the arguments a bit too simplistic to stand against a hostile opponent who has thought some of these issues through..
The biggest weakness is the author's use of the Moral Argument without laying it out effectively. A few sentences destroying a straw man of relativism does not prove theistic absolutism nor does the existence of moral outrage prove that there are objective moral principles.
The book does however demonstrate an approach for the thinking Christian but is far more effective in dealing with the lunatic fringe of Christianity who advocate "Creation Science", violence, racism etc. in the name of their God than it is with dealing with a determined critic of Christianity.
The open minded skeptic will find much of interest in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Accessible and clear presentation
Review: Paul Copan does an admirable job of presenting arguments that will prove useful especially to the general reader. He strikes a nice balance between real substance and accessibility. It's true that here and there the author might have strengthened his premises and thus his conclusions. However, by doing this he would also have moved the treatment of relativism beyond the grasp of some general readers--those who would profit most from the book. In response to the Mormon reviewer below, I have to respectfully disagree with his criticism of Copan's treatment of the Trinity. There is no possible way that Copan can be construed as veering into polytheism--or, a plurality of gods. In line with historical Christian orthodoxy, he understands that there is no contradiction in the classical doctrine of the Trinity. And, emphatically to the contrary, St. Thomas Aquinas presented one of the most lucid and logical expositions Trinitarian doctrine. To say that there are three persons in one divine substance is no contradiction. The categories of "person" and "essence" (or "substance") are distinct. The doctrine of the Trinty does not say that there is one God who is three gods, nor that there are three persons who are one person. It accepts from biblical revelation that there is One God (one divine substance), and three persons or centers of consciousness. Logically, this is to say that there is one "A" and three "B"s--logically distinct, and thus coherent categories. What WOULD be irrational would be to claim that the "godhead" is comprised of three finite beings, with a mere unity of will but not of Being. Copan is not guilty of such a silly blunder, and it misrepresents his thought to suggest it. In short, the book will prove useful, because accessible, to a wide range of readers.

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes Irony ...
Review: This is a good book, it is informative, accessible, concise and even prolific in some places. It has good answers to good questions and will certainly be utilized as a good apologetic tool. However, the author engages in quite a bit of interpretation, which is ironic considering that the point of the book is to establish some objective basis for truth. His chapter on Predestination is ultimately speculative, an interpretation of the text, and by no means is it the only credible interpretation of the texts involved. If ultimately Christians look to the Bible to construct their absolute truth, what do they do when there are two, sometimes even several valid interpretataions of many texts. Calvinists and Arminians will both claim truth, but who's right...and how do we know for sure? The Biblical language could go both ways...sometimes the meanings of individual words are skewed beyond certainty, not to mention the fact that Paul was an idiosyncratic individual. People use the same words in different ways all of the time. Nevertheless, it is still a first rate work, even if it is just another interpretation.