Review of: "On Guard"

When a world class philosopher writes a book, you would think the approach to the book would involve sound logic.  Right?  Well, that is the case with “On Guard” by William Lane Craig.  “On Guard” is a well reasoned approach to apologetics.

The material is presented in such a way that each subject lays the foundation for the next subject, moving from the existence of God to a more specific case for Christianity, and concluding with a relevant question in our culture:  "Is Jesus the Only Way to God?”  And, of course, in each subject the position which Dr. Craig defends is supported with sound, convincing, helpful, logical arguments.

William Lane Craig is a terrific communicator and he is able to write about deep subject matter in an understandable and, even, interesting manner.  This is an outstanding skill and it is not one that all Christian apologetic writers possess.  (Believe me, I’ve fallen into comatose states while reading many of these types of books.  In fact, I got a little sleepy just writing that sentence.)  “On Guard” is written with a lay audience in mind, but don’t take that to mean that it is unchallenging.  There is helpful material in this book even for those who’ve done a good bit of reading in the field of apologetics. 

“On Guard” is more personal than most of Dr. Craig’s works that are intended for a more scholarly audience and he includes what he calls a “Personal Interlude” a couple of times in the course of the book.  I found the personal interludes to be interesting. 

(But then again, I’m one of Dr. Craig’s close personal friends…on Facebook, so perhaps that’s my just my bias showing.)

One of the endorsements for the book comes from J.P. Moreland (who’s a pretty sharp thinker, himself) and he writes that Dr. Craig, “is simply the finest Christian apologist of the last half century, and his academic work justifies ranking him among the top 1 percent of practicing philosophers in the Western world.”  Pretty good.

The Bible says:  “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” 1Peter3:15.  If you take that challenge seriously, then this book would be well worth your time.