Why Good Arguments Often Fail: Making a More Persuasive Case for Christ (edition 2006)

James W. Sire is a bit like Ronseal, in that it does exactly what it says on the tin. This is a short book that tries to give some explanation for why our solid, rational arguments, don’t cause hundreds of people to immediately bow the knee, repent of their sins and seek the forgiveness that Jesus offers.

In Part 1, James W. Sire pulls off a stroke of genius, by giving a crash course in logical fallacies – a mistake in logic that invalidates the argument – via an explanation of a humorous short story entitled “Love is a fallacy!” by Max Schulman. Sire explains unqualified and hasty generalisations, causes, contrary hypotheses, false analogy and poisoning the well among others. By examining these errors, Sire hopes that we will test our own arguments to make sure our good arguments really are good arguments and equipping us to spot these errors in the arguments of non-Christians so that we can gently correct them.

Having covered logical fallacies in Part 1, Sire moves in Part 2 to examine why, if our arguments are good are they rejected so often by unbelievers? Sire provides a host of explanations, from our arrogant demeanour to the effects of an evolutionary worldview (see the related blog post here) to a deep love of personal sin in the life of the non-Christian. Sire addresses each of these issues in a separate chapter and tries to tease out how we can avoid these smoke screens. Parts 1 and 2 are brilliant and I certainly needed to heed the lessons they contain. I hope, God-willing, that by the end of the summer I will have an opportunity to sit down and revisit these areas.

There are some notable weaknesses to this book: firstly, in the annotated bibliography for framing effective arguments for the Christian faith, there is a conspicuous absence of notable Reformed Apologists such as John Frame or Greg Bahnsen. Sire hints in the book that the bibliography intentionally features these gaps, as he disagrees with some of what he perceives to be more aggressive forms of apologetics. But I think that detracts a little from the usefulness of the bibliography, particularly in the case of those who aren’t well read in the literature and are just starting out.

Secondly, Sire includes in Part Three, two chapters that he deems to be good arguments that work in defending the faith but both of these chapters left me somewhat puzzled. The first of these “I See You Are Very Religious: Paul in Athens”, attempts to take Paul’s speech to the Athenians in Acts 17 and turn it into a relevant method for today’s university setting. After reading the chapter I was no wiser as to how I could use a similar methodology today and more than a little perplexed. The second chapter, “So Why Should I Believe Anything? Christian Witness in a Postmodern World”, is the outline for an evangelistic talk to give on a campus somewhere. Whilst certainly useful to some, it struck me as a slightly odd thing to insert towards the end of this book, particularly when one considers the more general reader likely to pick up this book and the chapter didn’t seem to add anything to the book as a whole.

These though are fairly self-contained quibbles found only in the latter part of Why Good Arguments Often Fail. The book’s strength is in its short, accessible introduction to logical fallacies and its examination of the reasons why unbelievers resist the good news of Jesus Christ. The book is a moderately easy read and one I would recommend to an individual involved in regular apologetic conversations with unbelievers. ( )

http://ateam.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/2/18/2747381.html ( )