True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World

This one is different, but fun. When I think of apologetics, I generally think of logical arguments to prove the existence of God. Skeel is a lawyer, so he doesn’t think in straight lines. He dances around unexpected topics, letting us build a feeling about the truth of Christianity rather than bludgeoning us with hokey evidence.

It’s apologetics with a twist. Soft arguments in contrast to hard science or logic. I like it.

The two topics which most intrigued me were (1) the mystery of beauty and (2) the paradox of justice. The discussion of both was interesting and engaging, if not fully convincing. His goal is not only to defeat materialism but to lift Christianity above other religions as the best fit, and I didn’t quite get show more there. Yes, Christianity matches our observations of the world, but the fact that Christianity built its belief systems around observations should hardly surprise us. (The universe is beautiful, so a good God must have made it. The world’s justice systems are lacking, so a good God will one day swoop in and make everything right.) Nevertheless, Skeel’s approach leaves us feeling hopeful that something magnificent is behind life on earth, even if we haven’t figured it all out yet.

Skeel is a different kind of Christian than I am; I felt that immediately. He writes often of what “Christians believe” (not this Christian, David) and seems to use the word “faith” in a different manner than I do. This leads to a discussion about heaven in the closing chapter which felt like it just didn’t belong. But again, I realize as I come to the close of the book that I’m not supposed to be drawing equations, but feeling. Skeel is right about this: it feels like there must be more to life than birth and death and purposeless pain in between. There has to be more.

Intervarsity Press, © 2014, 175 pages

ISBN: 978-0-8308-3676-5 show less

An excellent and thought-provoking book - a refreshing example of respectful apologetics. It left me hungry for more. My only disappointment - not enough to make me drop a star - was in its treatment of justice. While it covered the limitations of justice well, I felt it left undone the other side of justice - the need for legal restrictions in a fallen world. While Christianity teaches that law cannot make us holy, but can only reveal our need for a Savior; and we are told in Scripture that human anger (or self-righteousness or intellect, for that matter) can't bring about the righteousness of God, his treatment of Justice left me with the question, "Why then have any legal system at all, since no system can guarantee the better show more society it aims to create?" But then, Christianity itself argues for working to better the world, not to make it perfect (as in "put an end to" whatever, poverty, abuse, etc), but to make it better. The human record of creating a perfect world is depressing, but the efforts of those (of all faiths, and even of some who claim no faith) who simply want to leave the world better than they found it offer hope, and fit in with the more realistic goals that Christianity, rightly understood, would foster. show less

The complexity of the contemporary world is sometimes seen as an embarrassment for Christianity. But law professor David Skeel makes a fresh case for the plausibility and explanatory power of Christianity. The Christian faith offers plausible explanations for the central puzzles of our existence, such as our capacity for idea-making, our experience of beauty and suffering, and our inability to create a just social order. When compared with materialism or other sets of beliefs, Christianity provides a more comprehensive framework for understanding human life as we actually live it.

We need not deny the complexities of life as we experience it. But the paradoxes of our existence can lead us to the possibility that the existence of God show more could make sense of it all. show less