Reason for the Hope Within
Reviewed by Paula R. Kincaid, November 9, 1999
“But why do you think that?” This question begins the introduction to Reason for the Hope Within.
It’s easy to answer the question by saying, “Because the Bible says so.” Or in place of “Bible” one could insert “pastor,” “Sunday school teacher,” or “parents.”
Reason for the Hope Within was written to give Christians a “good grasp of their faith, a grasp that will allow them to share confidently with others.”
The book features the work of younger Christian philosophers who address difficult questions facing modern Christians. Chapters such as “God, Evil and Suffering,” “Divine Providence and Human Freedom,” “The Incarnation and the Trinity,” “Heaven and Hell,” and “Religion and Science,” wrestle with issues that trouble Christians and non-Christians alike.
Christianity and ethics
For example, Frances Howard-Snyder of Western Washington University, who wrote the chapter on “Christianity and Ethics,” discusses the “seemingly near-universal belief that ‘ethics is relative,'” and offers Christian responses to such challenges.
If one believes that ethics are relative to the society or to an individual, then, says Howard-Snyder, “The ethical relativist has to allow that all sorts of terribly intolerant behavior is perfectly morally acceptable. Timothy McVeigh’s behavior [bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City] is judged acceptable and even encouraged by individual ethical relativism although it is hardly tolerant behavior. Moreover, if the majority decides that all the members of a minority religion who live amongst them ought to be executed, then group ethical relativism endorses the practice.”
Howard-Snyder says that the fact that Christianity denies ethical relativism is “a mark in its favor rather than an embarrassment.”
In the two great commandments found in Matthew 22:37-40, Christianity offers a distinctive unifying principle, says Howard-Snyder. Loving one’s neighbor as oneself, combined with loving God with one’s heart, mind and soul “constitute, in some sense, a complete morality.”
Not beach reading material
Murray admits that the book is not “beach reading” material. “We want you to stretch here. As a result, this is a book that is to be read with pencil in hand, in a quiet place, alone, a full chapter at a time. … While we have done our best to fill the text with pointed illustrations and helpful examples, the topics under discussion here are deep and hard.”
Murray is right, the book is a hard read. I had to go back and re-read many sections to get a full grasp of what was written, but it is worth reading – not only to have an answer ready the next time an unbeliever asks, “But why do you think that?” but also to develop a closer relationship with God, by loving him with all our heart and soul and mind.