Top 30 Apologetics Books (#4): Augustine, The City of God
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We hope you had a great Fourth!
We’re busy working on the July issue of The Worldview Bulletin. We’ll have articles by Paul Copan, Paul Gould, Edgar Andrews, Rob Bowman, an interview with Sean McDowell on his and J. Warner Wallace’s new book So The Next Generation Will Know, plus all of our other regular features. Subscribe now and don’t miss this exciting issue!
Christopher Reese
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Quotable
Gen Z [young people 4-19 years old] has become the embodiment of an important (and disturbing) trend. Recent surveys and studies reveal that Gen Z is the least religious of all generations in America. In fact, “the percentage of teens who identify as atheist is double that of the general population.” This data is consistent with recent historical data. The number of young people leaving the church over the past twenty years is staggering. According to one study at UCLA, 52 percent of college students reported frequent church attendance the year before they entered college, but only 29 percent continued frequent church attendance by their junior year. A variety of studies report that 50 to 70 percent of young Christians walk away from the church by the time they are in their college years. Even those who don’t leave find themselves struggling to believe Christianity is true. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of students in youth groups struggle in their faith after graduation.
Researchers have been asking young ex-Christians why they leave the church, and their answers are enlightening. Here are the most popular student responses from four different studies:
“Some stuff is too far-fetched for me to believe.”
“Too many questions that can’t be answered.”
“I’m a scientist now, and I don’t believe in miracles.”
“I learned about evolution when I went away to college.”
“There is a lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator.”
“I just realized somewhere along the line that I didn’t really believe it.”
“I’m doing a lot more learning, studying, and kind of making decisions myself rather than listening to someone else.”
“Because I grew up and realized it was a story like Santa or the Easter Bunny.”
“As I learn more about the world around me and understand things that I once did not, I find the thought of an all-powerful being to be less and less believable.”
“I realized that religion is in complete contradiction with the rational and scientific world, and to continue to subscribe to a religion would be hypocritical.”
“It no longer fits into what I understand of the universe.”
“I have a hard time believing that a good God would allow so much evil or suffering in the world.”
“There are too many injustices in the history of Christianity.”
“I had a bad experience at church with a Christian.”
— Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace, So the Next Generation Will Know: Preparing Young Christians for a Challenging World (David C. Cook, 2019), 34-35 (citations omitted)
#4: Augustine, The City of God (ca. 413-426)
Note: Below, Dr. Rob Bowman continues his series on the 30 most important apologetics books in church history. See his earlier posts in the previous weeks of Useful Things.
In the early fifth century, pagan religions were on the wane yet still very much alive, while Christianity was on the ascendancy throughout the Roman empire. Then in 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome, an event that grieved both pagans and Christians throughout the empire and that provoked recriminations from pagans who blamed Christianity for Rome’s demise. A response to this complaint came from the greatest apologist and theologian of this period and indeed of the first millennium of Christian history after the New Testament, Aurelius Augustine (354-430), the bishop of Hippo. Augustine was won to the Christian faith after trying Manicheaism and Platonism, a story he brilliantly presents in his book Confessions (400). While his worldview was at first heavily Platonic, as he matured his theology and philosophy became significantly less Platonic and more and more biblical.
Augustine’s Christian philosophy was developed most fully in one of his last works, The City of God. Its 22 books are organized into two main parts. In Part One (books 1-10), Augustine critiques pagan religion and philosophy, while in Part Two (books 11-22), Augustine expounds and defends the Christian worldview via a comprehensive review of history from creation to consummation based on the Bible.
In Books 1-5 Augustine argued that the pagan gods had proved immoral, inept, and impotent to help their worshippers in this world, particularly in the fall of Rome. Nor was the fall of Rome the result of Fate (Book 5). In Books 6-10 he argued that the pagan gods were also unable to provide blessings in the world to come. Augustine showed that no pagan theology, even the sophisticated Platonist variety, could give true knowledge of God or bring people into a saving relationship with God.
In Books 11-22, Augustine contrasted the “Earthly City” with the “City of God,” representing two kinds of people in age-long conflict that will end with the final glorification of God’s people. The metaphor of two cities is dependent on the Book of Revelation, in which the city of Babylon the Great (which in Revelation is typified by Rome) falls under divine judgment while the city of the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven.
Augustine’s book The City of God is rightly regarded as one of the five or ten most important books in the history of Western thought.
—Rob Bowman Jr. is an evangelical Christian apologist, biblical scholar, author, editor, and lecturer. He is the author of over sixty articles and author or co-author of thirteen books, including Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ, co-authored with J. Ed Komoszewski. He leads the Apologetics Book Club on Facebook.
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(*The views and opinions expressed in the articles, videos, podcasts, and books linked to do not necessarily represent the views of the editors of The Worldview Bulletin.)
eBook Deals
Note: These deals were valid at the time this message was written, but prices may change without notice.
Eerdmans Publishing runs an ebook sale every month, and this month you can find deals on 30 titles. See the complete list here.
WHAT IS MAN?: Adam, Alien or Ape? by Edgar Andrews - $3.99
Intellectuals Don't Need God and Other Modern Myths: Building Bridges to Faith Through Apologetics by Alister McGrath - $2.99
Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell - $3.99
The Creator Revealed: A Physicist Examines the Big Bang and the Bible by Michael G. Strauss - $3.03
Star Struck: Seeing the Creator in the Wonders of Our Cosmos by David Bradstreet and Steve Rabey - $2.99
Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes by Nancy Pearcey - $0.79
Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God by John Kilner - $2.51
The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities by Darrell Bock - $2.99
The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White - $1.89 (A standard reference book for writers, packed with good advice.)
Videos
Author Bias and the Credibility of the Gospels
Is abortion a human right? Ryan Christopher vs Barbara Ntume
Alister McGrath - What's the New Atheism?
How Did The Bible Become Compiled Into One Volume? Mike Licona
Fred Sanders, Systematic Adamology in Trinitarian Perspective
What role do emotions play in apologetics? (Summit Ministries / Alan Shlemon)
Inexplicable? Five Types of Near-Death Experience (Gary Habermas)
No, the Kalam Has Not Been "Debunked" (response to Rationality Rules - Part 1)
Origin of Life: Intelligence Required (Science Uprising 05)
Does Science Point to Atheism? | Dr. Satyan Devadoss & Dr. Conor Mayo-Wilson
Audio
Here’s What Makes the ‘First-Century Mark’ Saga Complicated
Lewis Ayres: “Is Nicene Trinitarianism ‘in’ the Scriptures?”
The Circumstellar Habitable Zone Just Shrank
Ravi Zacharias – And the Logic in Believing or Not Believing in God
The Doctrine of Creation and Human Dignity with Dr. Paige Comstock Cunningham
Author Interview with Abdu Murray (RZIM)
A Youtube Response to the Resurrection, Part One (Reasonable Faith)
Questions on God's Infinity and the Moral Argument (Reasonable Faith)
Helpful Resources
Check out biblicaltraining.org where you can listen to course lectures presented by notable evangelical scholars, free of charge. See the full list of courses here. These are great for listening to while commuting, traveling, exercising, or doing house work. Among the 130 courses are 10 on worldview issues.
Check out the Library Extension, available for Firefox and Chrome. “As you browse books and e-books, the Library Extension can check your library's online catalog and display the availability of that item on the same page.”
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Part two of Paul Copan’s popular article Apatheism and the Unexamined Life—How should we respond to those who say it doesn’t matter whether God exists?
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Free Download: Cultural Apologetics
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Cultural Apologetics sets forth a fresh model for cultural engagement, rooted in the biblical account of Paul's speech on Mars Hill, which details practical steps for reestablishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination.
With creative insights, Cultural Apologetics prepares readers to share a vision of the Christian faith that is both plausible and desirable, offering clarity for those who have become disoriented in the haze of modern Western culture.
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The Dictionary features over 140 evangelical contributors and 450 entries on key concepts, theories, terms, movements, individuals, and debates in relation to Christianity and science.
