How to defend the Christian faith

The “new atheists” have often been accused of being ignorant of theology. Not so with Loftus, a former minister who earned several degrees, and studied theology and philosophy of religion. Even if you accuse someone like Dawkins or Hitchens of failing to do their homework before rejecting faith, you can’t say the same about Loftus.

Indeed, while there are plenty of books and web sites that catalog arguments for the existence of a god, and whether those arguments hold any water, Loftus’s book looks at the field of theology. That is, instead of classifying arguments into evidential, presuppositional, etc., he classifies apologist’ tactics into special pleading, gerrymandering for God, punting to possibilities (aka “you can’t prove that there’s no God”), making excuses for God, and so on. Look for these the next time you read apologetics.

The book stumbles in two respects, though: one is editing. I kept running into typos and misplaced apostrophes that should have been caught early on. Expressions like “blind skepticism” that should have been at least questioned by an editor, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing could have been organized better.

The second fault is tone: Loftus is ostensibly concern-trolling: he is notionally pulling aside a prospective theology student and telling him what apologetics is really like: that if you follow the evidence where it leads, you’ll have to abandon most or all of the arguments for God. And conversely, that if you want to make a living as an apologist, you’ll have to engage in deceptive or dishonest argumentation: ignoring evidence, setting up double standards, perhaps even lie to defend your faith.

And that’s a valid approach. The problem is that Loftus can’t seem to stay in character for more than a few pages at a time. At times, his disdain at bad ideas looks like disdain for people. And that’s a shame.