Review: Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy

Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy by Graham Oppy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Standard disclaimer. I got an advanced copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank them and Zondervan For the ability to be able to read it in advance.
I think in getting this book I bit off a little more than I could chew. That is why it took me so long to read it.
A few semesters ago, I took a Introduction to Philosophy class and have become fascinated with the idea that Philosophy and Christianity have so much in common yet be so different. I was approaching this book as a way for me to explore Christianity in respect to philosophy. I was not really prepared for what I was reading in that respect. That does not make the book bad, just not what I was thinking when I requested it.
The book is a compilation of four ways to look at the two subjects.
Conflict view - philosophy is better than Christianity
Covenant view - the exact opposite
Convergent view - philosophy confirms Christianity
Confirmation view - trying to make philosophy in a Christ centered fashion.

Of the four I feel that the author of the Conflict view did the best in explaining and defending his point of view. Of the four, the confirmation view was the one I tend to adhere to and felt it was handled fairly well.

Each author gives his point of view, the other three get a chance to make their comments and then the original author gives his rebuttal to the comments they have made.

I liked the format, but as I said, I had to take a lot of time to read as I was not fully understanding some of the terms. This is not for the average reader. While good, it is more something that I would expect to see in a classroom.
I do recommend it, but make sure that you have a good grasp of both the theology of Christianity and the understanding of how Philosophy works.

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