Reasons for Faith

This book has been written because a friend, whose suggestions have always carried the force of commands with me, a long time ago urged me to write it. He knows this field far better than I, and since he said that there was a need for such a work, I assumed it was true. It did not follow that I was the one to attempt to meet this need. My friend, for one, was far better qualified than I, as I told him more than once. But since his suggestions are my commands, not mine his, I wrote the book. I laid down one stipulation, however: that he read and criticize the manuscript. This he has done, for which I am most grateful. He has also done me another and still greater favor in permitting me to dedicate the book to him. He disavows that he deserves the honor, but since I think it is the book, not he, that is honored, the matter stands. There were others who have encouraged me, helped me by criticisms, and by their over-all contribution kept the volume from being even more unworthy than it is. I refer to the one who is my helpmate in every thing, my wife—no mean apologist, I may add. Also, I would thank my dear friend Addison H. Leitch for his good offices. Nor would I forget to acknowledge those academic guinea pigs at Campus-in-the-Woods, Ontario, Canada, August 1958, who very graciously read several chapters to let me know whether I was speaking, non-technically, to mid-twentieth-century collegians. They thought that I was. I hope that they were right, for though this book is meant for everyone in general, it is meant for college students in particular. One technical note needs to be added. Those learned in philosophy and theology will immediately recognize that this book takes the position of the older, rather than the more recent, Christian apologists. This I do, not because I prefer the old as such, and certainly not because I have not read and wrestled with the new, but simply because I am not persuaded by the less rational approaches of today. I do not much discuss these intramural differences, not because they are not important, but simply because they seem to have no proper place in a volume meant for the general thinking public and not for the specialists.