Best Christian Apologetics Books: 13 Classics, Free to Read
ApologeticsBible StudyTheology
If you're wrestling with doubt, or you want to answer a friend who is, start with Arthur T. Pierson's Many Infallible Proofs. Pierson wrote it after coming through a season of doubt himself, and he lays out the evidence plainly: fulfilled prophecy, miracles, the Bible's moral beauty, and above all the person of Christ. If you want something deeper and stranger, read Blaise Pascal's Thoughts, the notes a brilliant scientist left for a defense of the faith he didn't live to finish.
The old apologists didn't think faith and reason were enemies. "It is a great mistake," wrote Archibald Alexander, "to suppose that religion forbids or discourages the right use of reason." They argued from history (the New Testament can be tested like any other ancient record), from prophecy, from the change Christ makes in people, and from the resurrection. But they also knew that arguments alone don't make a Christian. Pascal said the heart has its reasons. Henry Drummond said Christ treated honest doubters gently and hardened unbelief sternly. The aim was always to bring a person face to face with Jesus.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
1 Peter 3:15
Here are thirteen of the best apologetics books in TheWay Library, all free to read.
Start here
1. Many Infallible Proofs, by Arthur T. Pierson
Fourteen chapters on the evidences of Christianity, written for the ordinary reader. Pierson takes Christ's prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem as a test case, asks whether miracles are possible, weighs the Bible's accuracy and moral beauty, finds Christ in the Old Testament, and ends with the mystery of the God-Man. In the preface he describes coming out of his own doubts.
It was like finding one's way out of a dense wood into the full light of day.
Many Infallible Proofs, preface
See who Arthur T. Pierson was. Read Many Infallible Proofs.
2. The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal
Pascal's Pensées, in two parts. The first shows man's greatness and wretchedness without God: a creature who can think about the stars and yet can't sit quietly in a room. The second urges the reader to seek the truth, sets out the famous wager, and gives proofs from prophecy, miracles and Christ.
Man is but a reed, weakest in nature, but a reed which thinks.
The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, The Greatness and Littleness of Man
The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not, as we feel in a thousand instances.
The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, Various Thoughts
They're notes, not chapters, so read a few at a time. Read Pascal's Thoughts.
3. "Dealing with Doubt," by Henry Drummond
This short address in The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses is the best thing in the library on how to help a doubter. Drummond, a scientist and evangelist who worked among university students, urges patience and honesty, and points to how gently Jesus dealt with honest questioners.
Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief.
The Greatest Thing in the World, Dealing with Doubt
The evidence from history
4. The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, by Thomas Chalmers
Chalmers applies the ordinary rules for weighing historical testimony to the New Testament. Are the books authentic? Do the writers show marks of honesty? What did the first witnesses and their enemies say? His point about the enemies of the gospel is a sharp one.
Their silence in not asserting the miracles, is perfectly consistent with their truth; but their silence in not denying them, is not at all consistent with their falsehood.
The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, chapter 5
He ends by calling the reader to submit to what the evidence shows. See who Thomas Chalmers was. Read The Evidence and Authority.
5. Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration, and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, by Archibald Alexander
The first professor at Princeton Seminary gives a full, orderly case: the right use of reason, the need for a revelation, the credibility of miracles, the spread of the gospel, prophecy, internal evidence, inspiration and the canon. It's the most complete single book of evidences here. See who Archibald Alexander was. Read Alexander's Evidences.
6. The Origin of Paul's Religion, by J. Gresham Machen
A scholar's answer to a claim still made today: that Paul invented Christianity out of Jewish speculation or pagan mystery cults. Machen tests every rival theory and finds that only the risen Christ explains Paul.
Christianity ceased to be merely faith in God like the faith which Jesus had; it became faith in Jesus.
The Origin of Paul's Religion, The Lordship of Jesus
It's demanding, but it's the strongest historical argument in the library. Read The Origin of Paul's Religion.
7. The Fundamentals, Vol. 2
Eighteen essays from the famous series of the 1910s by writers such as James Orr and B. B. Warfield, defending the inspiration of the Bible, the existence of God, the deity and virgin birth of Christ, and His bodily resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the corner-stone of Christian doctrine.
The Fundamentals, Vol. 2, chapter 14
See our guide to The Fundamentals and the article on the deity of Christ in The Fundamentals. Read The Fundamentals, Vol. 2.
Answers to the great objections
8. The City of God, Volume I, by Augustine
When Rome fell to the Goths in 410, pagans blamed the Christians for abandoning the old gods. Augustine answered in the greatest apologetic work of the early church. The first ten books show that the gods never protected Rome and weigh the pagan philosophers; Book 11 begins his story of the two cities.
In God's eternity is its life; in God's truth its light; in God's goodness its joy.
The City of God, Book XI
See who Augustine was. Read The City of God, Volume I.
9. The Astronomical Discourses, by Thomas Chalmers
Seven sermons that packed out a Glasgow church in 1817. The objection: in a universe of countless worlds, why would God send His Son to this small one? Chalmers answers that the size of creation makes God's care for us more wonderful, not less, and he urges the modesty of true science. The question hasn't gone away. Read A Series of Discourses on the Christian Revelation.
Is the Bible God's Word?
10. The Bible Not of Man, by Gardiner Spring
Spring argues from inside the Bible: its intellectual greatness, its superhuman spirit, its moral rectitude, its doctrines, its unity across many writers and centuries, and its fitness for human need.
Not until the heart of man corresponds to the heart of God, is God known.
The Bible Not of Man, The Divine Origin of the Scriptures Attested by Christian Experience
11. Inspiration, by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield
The classic 1881 statement of what it means to call the Bible inspired: how God and the human writers worked together, what verbal and plenary inspiration mean, the Bible's own testimony, and answers to critical objections. About an hour. See B. B. Warfield's books. Read Inspiration.
12. Stumbling Stones Removed from the Word of God, by Arthur T. Pierson
A short handbook on the Bible's hard places and apparent contradictions. Pierson sorts the difficulties into kinds, gives rules for reading them, and argues that God uses them to train patient, humble readers. Read Stumbling Stones Removed.
13. The Bible and Modern Criticism, by Sir Robert Anderson
The head of Scotland Yard's detective branch, writing as a layman used to weighing evidence, argues that the critics' theories about the Old Testament rest on assumptions, not proof, and that Christ's own testimony to Scripture settles it for believers. His short Daniel in the Critics' Den applies the same method to Daniel.
But as God has no language of His own, He speaks to men in theirs.
The Bible and Modern Criticism, chapter 7
See who Sir Robert Anderson was. Read The Bible and Modern Criticism, or Daniel in the Critics' Den.
More in the library
R. A. Torrey's The God of the Bible sets the God of Scripture against Theosophy, Christian Science and the other new religions of the 1920s. Torrey's The Bible and Its Christ and Talks to Men, both on the Bible and the resurrection, are in our guide to Christian books on the resurrection. H. Clay Trumbull's How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters is in our guide to books on assurance. For Sir Robert Anderson's study of Christ's deity, see the person of Christ.
More by these authors: Arthur T. Pierson, Thomas Chalmers, J. Gresham Machen and Sir Robert Anderson.