RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter (Tyndale House, 2024).

—. The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Thomas Nelson, 1999).

Dr. Norman Geisler, When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties (Baker Books, 1992)

—. When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook of Christian Evidences (Baker Books, 1990).

James Goll and Julia Loren, Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Experiences (Destiny Image, 2007).

Dr. Jack Deere, Why I Am Still Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.

—. Why I Am Still Surprised by the Voice of God.

Dr. Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2006). This is considered the top evangelical, Bible believing, “maximalist” book on defending the historical truthfulness, accuracy, and reliability of the Old Testament narratives.

Dr. Shelton Smith, Why I Still Believe the Bible (Sword of the Lord, 2000).

Dr. Raymond Barber, The Bible Is Right (Sword of the Lord, 2007).

Randall Price, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology (Zondervan, 2017). In the world of Bible scholars the “maximalists” are the people who generally take the Bible on faith value as a reliable source for the history of Israel–and assume that it’s telling the truth in good faith. This is generally the position taken by Bible scholars in the fundamentalist, Reformed, and conservative evangelical tradition. This archaeology handbook is by Zondervan and is probably evangelical and maximalist, like myself. Its the “minimalists” who are the agnostic Bible scholars: they generally doubt the historical truth of the Bible; and will only skeptically believe some aspect about it if they can find some archaeology evidence for it. This is to put more faith in archaeology than Scripture; and is essentially the position of liberal Christians on the subject of creation: they adopt theistic evolution because their priorities are flipped: they exalt the opinions of the scientific community, which is anti-Christian and atheistic in bias, above the authority of Scripture. This leads minimalists to entertain the most outrageous unbeliever speculations, such as saying none of the major figures of the Bible even existed, that every supernatural occurrence in the Bible is a myth or legend, that Christianity used to be a cult just like the Jim Jones cult, and that Christian theology is no different than a human philosophy, some man-made ideology, like Socrates would have made up.

John Blanchard, Does God Believe In Atheists? (Evangelical Press, 2011).

—. Evolution: Fact or Fiction? (Evangelical Press, 2016).

—. Dealing with Dawkins (Evangelical Press, 2015).

Ray Comfort, God Doesn’t Believe In Atheists (Bridge-Logos, 2004).

—. Nothing Created Everything (WND Books, 2009).

Such a life is that of the Atheist, the man “without God in the world.” What a thick veil is between him and the invisible world, which, with regard to him, is as though it had no being! He has not the least perception of it; not the most distant idea. He has not the least sight of God, the intellectual Sun; nor any the least attraction toward him, or desire to have any knowledge of his ways…He tastes nothing of the goodness of God or the powers of the world to come. He does not feel (as our Church speaks) the working of the Holy Spirit in his heart. –John Wesley, “On Living Without God,” 1.8

Wikipedia, “The Teleological Argument” (or the Argument from Intelligent Design).

—. “The Argument from Religious Experience.” From what I know, the Bible only advances two arguments for the existence of God: 1. The Teleological Argument (Romans 1:19-20). 2. The Religious Experience Argument (implied by every encounter with God, prophetic dream, or vision of God in Scripture, and also implied in 1 Corinthians 2:14, where it says that a “natural man,” or an atheist, is a person who knowingly and willingly “receiveth not” the gifts, and experiences, and feelings of the Spirit of God. Its not that all atheists are people who have never had any spiritual experiences, its more an issue of them resisting them (Acts 7:51), and explaining them away as hallucinations, that seems to be the problem in this case. And since this is often the case with cessationists, I have to think that such people are close to a kind of Christian atheism.)

Dr. John R. Rice, Evolution or the Bible–Which? (audio).

Kent Hovind, Lies in the Textbooks. (video presentation).

Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution. (video presentation).

Ron Rhodes, Answering the Objections of Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics (Harvest House, 2006). I like how Rhodes refers to atheistic views as “objections” to Christianity. Unlike McDowell and Geisler, Rhodes’ book title seems to imply that such perspectives are deliberate, on purpose suppressions of Biblical truth, motivated by unrighteousness and selfishness, as Paul says in Romans 1:18. Whereas the other titles seem to imply that atheists are just intellectually honest skeptics who have innocent questions about Christianity that have been left unanswered. And that if their questions would just simply be answered, then they would become Christians immediately. I think about atheism the same as the apostle Paul and John Wesley did: that atheism is primarily a motivational problem, and secondly an intellectual one. The so-called endless “questions” that atheists raise against Christianity and the Bible are not innocent; or based in some type of information gap. Their “questions” are more like an intellectual smokescreen for their personal rebellion against God. The atheist smokescreen gives off the appearance that they have plenty of legitimate reasons to question the truthfulness of Christianity. But because of the morals and self-denial required by the Christian life, the state of unbelief that atheists willingly put themselves into, is mainly created by an impenitent heart that wants to run its own life, and set its own standards. It has nothing to do with faith seeking understanding; or true spiritual curiosity seeking to know if there is such a thing as genuine Christian faith validated by the supernatural. Piles of apologetics books and videos by people like Rhodes, McDowell, and Geisler could be dropped on their desks, and most of the time the atheist will probably just throw it all away in the trashcan; and come up with some reason not to spend his time on any of it, preferring his old habits of watching porn, Fox News, ESPN, and Nat Geo. Most atheists are probably atheists by choice, because they are living in rebellion against God, and atheism has become their favorite idol to justify their rebellion: especially since they can appeal to “science” as support for their rebellion. 1 Timothy 6:20-21: “Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”

—. The 10 Things You Should Know About the Creation vs. Evolution Debate (Harvest House Publishers, 2004).

Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask (Living Books, 1986).

Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks, When Skeptics Ask (Baker Books, 1990).

Augustin Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer (Kegan Paul, 1910).

Harold Horton, The Gifts of the Spirit (Gospel Publishing House, 1975).

Norman Geisler, The Big Book of Christian Apologetics.

Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God, chs. 17-18.

—. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.

John Sherrill, They Speak With Other Tongues.

John R. Rice, Evolution or the Bible–Which?