Copan, Paul Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of The Old Testament God. Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2011
Introduction
Paul Copan is a Christian theologian, apologist, and an author. He is also a professor in Palm Beach Atlantic University. Copan is a very successful author who has written and edited over 25 in the following areas: science and religion, theology, apologetics, philosophy of religion. Another big accomplishment was when he served six years as the president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.
This book review will be about Is God a Moral Monster? The book mainly focuses on how God is portrayed in the Old Testament and what some “New Atheists” have to say about it. In the introduction of this book Copan provides …show more content…
As for his second purpose, he presents scripture and arguments against some of these “New Atheists” and their views/declarations. There is nothing contradictory in the bible. Copan sets out to analyze the Old Testament and shed light on current events and topics in relation to the Old Testament in order to prove so. Copan successfully accomplishes these two goals throughout the book. In the following three paragraphs I will explain three things in which I enjoyed about the book, followed by things I think he did poorly.
First, Paul Copan tackles not only the arguments presented by the “four-horsemen”, but also major questions that are asked even between Christians. He does well from the title of the book, “Is God a Moral Monster?”, all the way to the last chapter of the book to ask questions even us Christians should be asking and informed about. Abraham and the “sacrifice” of Isaac is a famous controversy. A great example of this is seen in page 43 by a bestselling author Bart Ehrman,
“’The idea that suffering comes as a test from God simply to see if his followers will obey” is illustrated perhaps “more clearly and more horribly” in the offering of Isaac. Some scholars claim that Abraham failed the test by being willing to sacrifice his son; others wonder how this act could serve as a test for godliness. Should Abraham be loved or hated for what …show more content…
Using the same example from earlier, I think when Copan switches to the philosophical point he weakens his argument. He uses the example of the September 11 terrorist attack and ectopic pregnancy as examples to the Isaac and Abraham situation. In this specific case, his example by analogy is very similar to the famous watchmaker argument. He tried making an example by analogy between circumstances that were completely different. In doing so he implies that Isaac will die regardless if he obeys or not, so he might as well obey. Since this books purpose was to show how God is a moral God I think this specific example was very poorly
Introduction
Paul Copan is a Christian theologian, apologist, and an author. He is also a professor in Palm Beach Atlantic University. Copan is a very successful author who has written and edited over 25 in the following areas: science and religion, theology, apologetics, philosophy of religion. Another big accomplishment was when he served six years as the president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.
This book review will be about Is God a Moral Monster? The book mainly focuses on how God is portrayed in the Old Testament and what some “New Atheists” have to say about it. In the introduction of this book Copan provides …show more content…
As for his second purpose, he presents scripture and arguments against some of these “New Atheists” and their views/declarations. There is nothing contradictory in the bible. Copan sets out to analyze the Old Testament and shed light on current events and topics in relation to the Old Testament in order to prove so. Copan successfully accomplishes these two goals throughout the book. In the following three paragraphs I will explain three things in which I enjoyed about the book, followed by things I think he did poorly.
First, Paul Copan tackles not only the arguments presented by the “four-horsemen”, but also major questions that are asked even between Christians. He does well from the title of the book, “Is God a Moral Monster?”, all the way to the last chapter of the book to ask questions even us Christians should be asking and informed about. Abraham and the “sacrifice” of Isaac is a famous controversy. A great example of this is seen in page 43 by a bestselling author Bart Ehrman,
“’The idea that suffering comes as a test from God simply to see if his followers will obey” is illustrated perhaps “more clearly and more horribly” in the offering of Isaac. Some scholars claim that Abraham failed the test by being willing to sacrifice his son; others wonder how this act could serve as a test for godliness. Should Abraham be loved or hated for what …show more content…
Using the same example from earlier, I think when Copan switches to the philosophical point he weakens his argument. He uses the example of the September 11 terrorist attack and ectopic pregnancy as examples to the Isaac and Abraham situation. In this specific case, his example by analogy is very similar to the famous watchmaker argument. He tried making an example by analogy between circumstances that were completely different. In doing so he implies that Isaac will die regardless if he obeys or not, so he might as well obey. Since this books purpose was to show how God is a moral God I think this specific example was very poorly