The Absurdity of Unbelief: A Worldview Apologetic of the Christian Faith

What is the meaning of life? Can your worldview answer that question sufficiently and consistently?The Absurdity of Unbelief helps us to see the answers to the above questions.I'm not sure how much I can add given the overwhelmingly positive feedback already written about Dr. Johnson's book. I can say this: I am currently dialoguing with an atheist friend via email whom I've known for a while but we've been out of touch since high school. This book has really helped me to challenge some of his own atheistic presuppositions and to show him the true absurdity that is the outcome of suppressing the truth of the reality of God. Obviously, as Dr. Johnson affirms in his work, it is only the Holy Spirit who can truly awaken a person's heart to embrace the gospel. But in this day in which we live Christians ought to be better equipped to give answers to some of the challenges that are thrown our way. This book helps equip the church to do just that.As you read this book you will soon learn that Dr. Johnson is very familiar not only with the Christian perspective but also the other side, which manifests itself in a variety of futile worldviews such as naturalism, existentialism, post-modernism, Non-Trinitarian Religions, etc., etc... Non-Christian worldviews are allowed to speak for themselves through direct quotes of those who hold these various positions, and then they are dismantled by sound Christian logic based on the authority of Scripture. Another bonus of this is to actually be able to understand the presuppositions of some of the people you interact with every day. The banker, the grocer, your professor, or even a family member. They may not articulate that they are an 'existentialist' so to speak, but reading this book will help you to see some of the presuppositions those around you have so that you can help give them a truthful and biblical response.Not only is this book well researched, and well written, it is also easy to read. Don't get me wrong, you'll have your mind stretched in some places! But it is not so 'technical' and filled with so much 'philosophical jargon' that you the common reader can't benefit from it. Dr. Johnson does an excellent job of introducing new concepts that the reader may not be familiar with and defining terms so as to keep the reader engaged instead of having to go google words to figure out what they mean. In other words, this isn't just a book for pastors, but for anyone desiring to grow in his or her ability to do apologetics better, or to simply be a better gospel witness to those you interact with on an everyday basis.If you are a Christian you should buy this book in order to help sharpen your mind so that you may give a reasonable answer to those who reject or even try to suppress your faith. If you are not a Christian you should buy this book so that you may see "we were created to walk with God. If we evict Him from our lives, we drive ourselves into captivity. God does not need us in order to be happy...We, on the other hand, will never find purpose, meaning or happiness without Him. No amount of power or money will ever satisfy us" (pg. 196). Believer and Unbeliever alike: You will see through reading this work that the Christian worldview is not just 'one option' among many. Rather, if you desire internal cohesion and logical consistency and if you desire the truth, it is the only worldview plausible for us to hold because of the reality of the Triune God. To hold to anything else is absurd.

Greg Bahnsen is one of the best proofs that God loves atheists, because if God hadn't called Dr. Bahnsen home in 1995 at the age of 47, I'm not sure there'd be any atheists left. His debating prowess was unparalleled, as evidenced by the legendary "The Great Debate: Does God Exist?" versus Gordon Stein, or his excoriating takedown of Eddie Tabash. After those performances, almost no leading atheists at the time were willing to take him on. At each of those public events he powerfully established that God must exist due to "the impossibility of the contrary." I have never heard an adequate refutation of his arguments (and despite the sincere efforts of many accomplished atheistic scholars, I doubt there can be). Still, although the worldview of atheism was seemingly demolished in Bahnsen's wake, the door of doubt was left open with regard to other non-atheistic worldviews. Given time, I'm sure he would have addressed those doubts as well.That's what makes Jeffrey D. Johnson's book so enlightening. Using similar presuppositional methods employed by Dr. Bahnsen, he tackles virtually every additional worldview, including empiricism, relativism, pluralism, postmodernism, skepticism, existentialism, even unitarian monotheism, and others, demonstrating inescapably that only the God of the Bible is left standing. Particularly fascinating to me was his section on the irrationality of non-trinitarian religions. The mystery of the trinity may never be fully grasped, but he astonishingly shows that it nevertheless must be so.Johnson's writing is clear and understandable, but given the deep philosophical methodology I found it helpful to occasionally pause or re-read sections in attempts to further wrestle with the concepts argued. Anyone interested in the search for ultimate truth will benefit greatly from this book.

I was a skeptic. Going into reading this book I had some very strong beliefs regarding the creation account that I knew this author disagreed with. I knew I was probably going to be called absurd for my evolutionary way of thinking, but I was ready to disprove some of his assertions. At a certain point, I actually started crafting a response to e-mail the author, Jeffrey Johnson, about how he was wrong and should make more room for viewing my beliefs as intellectually credible, or in the least, plausible. But instead of finishing the e-mail and sending it, I decided to at least finish reading the book (for I wasn’t even a quarter of the way in). As I continued reading, I started to see Dr. Johnson’s assertions as truly coming across as the more logical, and rational approach to life's beginnings. And the craziest thing happened - I became convinced that I was in fact wrong. Now The Absurdity of Unbelief does more than tackle the incoherency of macroevolution though, it truly does prove, and with an unparalleled stamina, the intellectual absurdity of any worldview that is not the biblical one. I praise God for this man and this book, and I hope it has the same affect on other people skeptical of clear biblical truths, as it did on me.If you are a doubter, then please read this book! You’d be glad you did.

Jeffrey Johnson explains every aspect of what could so easily have been a difficult topic to grasp with total and wonderful clarity. I simply couldn't put this down, every page was full of such impactful insights which have made me more understanding of the world we live in and the authority of Holy scripture as the only coherent and sensical explanation of everything. Brilliant!

Excellent work, thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Where Mr. Johnson excels is his knowledge of philosophy. The middle chapters are worth the price of the book alone. So why only three stars?I recommend skipping the first couple of chapters, and the last several, because while he makes good points in them, they are essentially using scripture to prove scripture, which is a little circular, and less compelling than his exhaustive knowledge of the major philosophers in the middle sections. If he were to drop those chapters, I'd recommend 5 stars for the middle chapters (as its own book) without hesitation. The middle section arguments deal with why the Trinity makes logical sense, why the evolution debate will rage forever, why man's ability to reason can only be trusted if there is a Creator, and more. Again, worth the price, but skip the beginning and the end for the best read.

I'm an open minded reader and I was hoping for some actual rebuttals to common atheist digs at religion but instead it seemed to be more about reassuring Christian readers that atheists are wrong, Jesus was/is awesome, and everything will be okay. The entire book boils down to all arguments against religious belief are futile because of the bible. Oh well in that case I guess our work here is done and we'll be sure to hit the lights on the way out.

If I were asked to recommend a single book on Christian apologetics this is the one I'd recommend.