Kreeft on philosophy

Following on from Kreeft on books, Brandon Vogt has compiled his philosophy book list.

Kreeft on books

Mr YouTube suggested I watch Peter Kreeft on the 10 books to read (before dying). Naturally he went on to more than 10, lots more.

I watched the video and noted the books.Then, in the comments I saw that others had done similarly.

I'll repeat them here for convenience, but Brandon Vogt captured them all. (I've marked those I've read <

Autobiography

    The Confessions by St. Augustine (Frank Sheed translation) <

    A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

Novels

    The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky <

    Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis <

Plays

    A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt

    Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Epics

    The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

    The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis <

Supernatural Fantasy

    The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis <

    The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis <

Science Fiction

    A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

    Brave New World by Aldous Huxley <

Spirituality

    The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence <

    The Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux

Apologetics

    Pensées by Blaise Pascal

    The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis <

Classic Philosophy

    Apology of Socrates by Plato

    The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius <

Popular Philosophy

    St. Thomas Aquinas by G.K. Chesterton

    Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton <

History

    The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton <

    Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness by Warren Carroll

Theology

    Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis <

    Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas

Poetry

    Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton

    The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot

Bonus Book Recommendations

Autobiography

    The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

    Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis <

Novels

    A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens <

Plays

    Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Epics

    The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Supernatural Fantasy

    Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams

Science Fiction

    The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury <

Spirituality

    Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Apologetics

    Miracles by C.S. Lewis <

Classic Philosophy

    Republic by Plato <

Popular Philosophy

    Ethics by Aristotle <

History

    City of God by St. Augustine <

    The Formation of Christendom by Christopher Dawson

    The Dividing of Christendom by Christopher Dawson

Theology

    Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West

Poetry

    The Dream of Gerontius by John Henry Newman

7 books - as foundation for Christian life and thought

In his recent podcast, Greg Koukl, of Stand to Reason gave a list of 7 books that together a sound Christian structure to thought and practice.

I've set out lists of recommended books, but Greg's is better. Mine are too 'me' and possibly not always helpful to others.

Here's Greg's list .

1. The basics of Christian faith

   C. S. Lewis - Mere Christianity*

   Greg Koukl - The Story of Reality*

2.  Single volume theological reference

   Millard Erickson - Christian Theology*

3. Christian Apologetics

   F. Turek and N. Giesler - I don't have enough faith to be an atheist

   W. L. Craig - Reasonable Faith*

4. Spiritual reflection

   C. Spurgeon - Morning and Evening

   A. Bennet - The Valley of Vision

5. Practical engagement

   G. Koukl - Tactics*

6. Spiritual life

   John Owens - Spiritual-mindedness

   C. Lungaard - The Enemy Within

7. Bible study

   G. Fee, Stuart - How to Read the Bible for all it's Worth

*I have in my library and have read them, except Erickson.

Classic Christian Books

While we are on books, lists of Christian classics:

Combs list:

Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis gave a series of radio talks during the World War II years in which he sought to explain and defend the basic beliefs of historic Christianity. Those radio talks later became Mere Christianity. Lewis superbly articulates these basic tenets in a manner that is instructive for the believer and persuasive for the unbeliever. Mere Christianity is truly unsurpassed as an apologetic for the post-Enlightenment West.

Confessions, by Augustine

Augustine was born in the mid-fourth century in modern-day Algeria to a Christian mother and a pagan father. He spent his early years rebelling against God, wandering to and fro the vast religious landscape of his day. In 386 BC he was converted to Christianity through the influence of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and through the reading of Romans 13:13–14. In Confessions, Augustine retraces his life and God’s activity in it, and he does so in the form of a prayer. Not only is this a powerful, reflective book for Christians, it is regarded by many as one of the first autobiographies, placing it among the most historically significant pieces of literature in the world.

The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s most famous work, The Cost of Discipleship, originated from his New Testament lectures at the University of Berlin. Bonhoeffer wrestles with the teachings of Jesus, specifically the Sermon on the Mount, and argues that, though grace is the free gift of God, it is not cheap. Grace is costly; in fact, discipleship costs us everything. Bonhoeffer was executed in a Nazi concentration camp on April 8, 1945. His discipleship—that is, his following after Christ—cost him dearly.

The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan

It is widely accepted that The Pilgrim’s Progress is the second best-selling book of all time, behind only the Bible. Written largely while author John Bunyan was in an English prison for preaching without a license, the book is an allegory for the Christian life. Its main character, Christian, travels to the Celestial City with every imaginable help and hindrance that believers face in life.

Humility, by Andrew Murray

Published in 1895, Andrew Murray’s Humility is one of those rare books that applies to every person at every stage of life. The minute someone thinks they have perfected humility, they have found a new place to root their pride. If, as many theologians have argued, the root of all sin is pride, then the root of all holiness is a God-exalting humility. This book will point you toward that God-exalting humility.

A Grief Observed, by C. S. Lewis

Many books have been written in Christian history addressing the problem of suffering and pain. In fact, C. S. Lewis wrote a book addressing that problem—but it isn’t this one. While The Problem of Pain provides a theological and philosophical examination of suffering in the abstract, A Grief Observed is a window into Lewis’ actual suffering after the loss of his wife. Any Christian who has suffered or will suffer desperately needs companions, and one of the best is this book.

Knowing God, by J. I. Packer

J.I. Packer has been one of the most influential theologians in the West in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His bestselling book, Knowing God, is a basic primer on who God is and what a life of knowing him looks like. It is simultaneously theologically rich and accessible, a great theological introduction for the believer and unbeliever alike.

The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom

One of the most powerful biographical works in the church’s history, Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place tells the story of her life, particularly of her sacrifice to hide and protect Jews in the Netherlands after the Nazi invasion of 1940. Few books have displayed courageous Christian character in a more inspiring and convicting fashion than The Hiding Place.

Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton

Published in 1908 as a companion to his previous book Heretics, Orthodoxy provides a thorough examination of the Apostle’s Creed. One of the last century’s most influential Roman Catholics (though he was Anglican at the time this book was written), Chesterton sees the creed as a profound apologetic, as an answer to the riddle of all our human needs. Orthodoxy is clever and witty, timeless and profound.

The Valley of Vision

The greatest gifts the Puritans left the church were their detailed meditations on the Scriptures and their focused, intentional prayers. The Valley of Vision is a collection of some of those prayers. Countless Christians have read this collection, even adding it to their daily devotional time, and have experienced a new vitality and depth to their prayer life as a result.

Reading great books is a challenge. It would be much easier to turn on Netflix, to read tweets or Facebook posts, or to skim newspaper articles. But none of these are as rewarding as reading classic works—particularly classic Christian literature.

In his masterpiece on reading, Mortimer J. Adler said, “Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not.” Don’t let the fear of being inferior in your reading, your theology, or your discipleship keep you from conquering these classics. The only way to grow is to be stretched, and one of the best ways for a believer to be stretched is by reading the great books of Christian history.

Other lists that may be of interest, including from people who's theology I disagree with:

Piper's 25

Threlfall's top 10

Qaoud's Kindle cheapies

The full list of seminary books

The two big problems

Only 2?

Yes: the two big problems in the Church.

1. Biblical illiteracy, and

2. Theological illiteracy.

My solutions

1. Regular encouragement from the pulpit and in small groups to regular reading of the Bible, with various 'systems' given. Encouraged from youth groups up. Even from kids in Sunday School up.

In the edition of the Good News Bible that I have, there is a set of 'first 100 days' readings, and a system of readings for a year -- not the whole Bible in a year, just a year's worth of passage readings. Both of digestible length. Both of good theological scope.

Every Christian needs to do these.

After that others can follow: reading in slabs, quick reading, devotional reading, reading to study, reading different versions. It's all there.

2. Either in parishes or districts (i.e. regional groups of churches) having book clubs. There could be a number of them to cater for different levels of interest. To help people develop in this area, the clubs could also have members give book reviews.

My own 'quick reading plan' is reading the NT in advent, and the Octoteuch (Genesis to Ruth) from Epiphany to Easter. Thereafter I read at less speed portions of the remainder of the OT and small portions of the NT more thoughtfully.

Books - there are too many of them!

Soloman and I are one on this.

I was looking over some lists I'd filed of top 100 books: Australian, Novels, Non-fiction. Some great books in all lists and I was pleased to see that I'd read a number of them (and as far as I remember, I was pleased with the books that I had read.)

But what about theology, Christian books?

A quick look took me to Frank Viola's lists. Like him, I don't agree with everything on them, but they are not bad as far as lists go. Again, I've read some of the books on each list.

The only limit is they are all recent books. Nothing from before the 20th Century, yet there is some great, important and stimulating theology back then.

If I would remove any book from Frank's list of theology, I'd knock out Barth. Waste of time, space, and bookshelf, in my view.

Top 100 general Christian -- too much Watchman Nee, too little Francis Schaeffer. In fact, I'd swap the two in the list.

Top 100 theology.

Two books not mentioned on either list, but very important.

1. Tactics, by Greg Koukl, and 
2. The Story of Reality by the same feller. Its also related in his Credo talk.

Greg's Credo talk presents a great summary of reality: God...man...Christ...crucifixion...resurrection.

I like this a little better than the 7 Cs: creation, crisis, confusion, covenant, Christ, cross, consummation, mainly because it can be run on the five fingers (of either hand). One is a bit stuck with 7, although 7 is the number of perfection in the Bible, so its good on that count.

The Koorong Catalogue

Koorong's Catalogue arrived recently -- my wife picked one up on the way home -- as always, I flicked through it with a mixture of interest and dismay.

The dismay arose from book titles like Piper's Don't Waste Your Life. Now that would attract readers, wouldn't it. Particularly people not Christian looking for something to lift them. How about 100 Things God Loves About You, seriously? Disciplines of the Godly Man. Not too bad sounding, but still about finger wagging.

One of the things about self-help and 'New Age' books, except for the really kooky ones, is attractive, upbeat 'come and take me' titles.

I didn't see any books that might be truly evangelistic: taking the gospel to people who are just seeking to get through life when they feel its tougher than they can handle. This would be books that  take from the Scriptures wisdom about who we are, being God's creation, and what life is really meant to be like and where the power for such life comes from.

Like (yes, I did find a title that might fit this) The Way of the Warrior, Hope in the Dark, When God Becomes Real. The 'best sellers' list had some good looking titles. I hope the general reader would find them stimulating. I hope they were written that way, for the 'general reader' market.

But then, the Bibles: so many 'red letter'. Or, as most print is rendered: the words of Jesus in brown! I hate such design. 10% of men are red colourblind: protanopic. It looks bad: the words of Jesus in dull beige!  Just cut it out. There is no theological or literary reason for the words of Jesus in weird colors.

Even for a normally sighted person such as me, it is irritating. The contrast on the page is bad, demanding high intensity lighting at night. All scripture is valuable, not just Jesus words. I am reading the NIV NT brown letter edition at the moment. The low contrast hard to read, pale red type is irritating to read, hard to read, and breaks the flow of narrative. Its BAD.

Trouble is, most Bibles out of the USA come with this tedious innovation. Proving that the market there is undiscerning and not all innovation is to be applauded!

Bibleworks 10

It's arrived! Yippee. My BibleWorks upgrade.

I've been using BW since version 3. Now we are at 10. The package has improved with each upgrade and the distance between 3 and 10 is vast.

Even if I didn't use it, I'd buy it because of this inscription on the Quick-Start Guide:

Thank you for using BibleWorks. May the Lord prosper your work for His greater glory and the eternal good of lost souls.

New Testament

As Solomon points out, the trouble with books is that there is no end to them.

So it is with New Testament theologies, introductions and commentaries. I've collected a few over the years, many are good reads. Dipping into the past I'm reading Leon Morris's at the moment.

Next buy is probably going to be Eugene Boring's NT intro and his 'People's' commentary.

I'm pleased that Boring has posted some videos of lectures on the topic. Would that others would follow suit.

Lists and numbers

With my recent posts on 'top'n'' lists of books (top 10, top100, etc). It occurs to me that we could Christianize list lengths.

The pinnacle of anything would be to be in the top 3: the number of the trinity;
Of course, the top 7 (the perfect number) would be to aspire to.
If we need to cast our thoughts more widely, it would be the top 12: the number of the inner circle of disciples, the tribes of Israel.
A more general list could be 40: the number of days of Yeshua's fast.

Yet another list: Grudem's

Wayne Grudem's list of 12 most influential books.

"After book (1) below, it is an impossible question for me to answer exactly. Many books have influenced me at different times. Here are eleven that influenced me quite early in my Christian life (all but #3 and #10 and #11 while I was still in college, before I went to seminary), plus #12, which influenced me many years later.

(1) The Bible, far beyond all other books combined.
(2) John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
(3) Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology
(4) J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
(5) Cornelius VanTil, The Defense of the Faith
(6) D. M. McIntyre, The Hidden Life of Prayer
(7) John Murray, Principles of Conduct
(8) John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied
(9) B. B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation
(10) B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible
(11) Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology
(12) John Wimber, Power Evangelism"

I've read most of them myself! Pretty chilling for a non-Calvinist.

Calvin is a great read: his brilliance shines through, even though his Stoicism does as well.
Berkhof, Machen and VanTil also mainstays of early to mid C20 calvinistic protestantism, but still good education for a young Christian; although I find VanTil's apologetic enterprise obscure, to say the least.

I've not read (7), and may have read (8). The title and author very familiar from my Capernwray days. I've also not read (12) and have no plans to.

The most stimulating of all of them (saving (1), of course) was Vos. Difficult and intense, and maybe that's why.

The great frustration was that as I was reading these books I had no one with whom to discuss them, not even the minister of my church was suitable (no, not you Bob, RK).

Some years later I and a pal read and discussed Thielicke's Evangelical Faith, at least for a few chapters, and that was  truly wonderful experience.

Theology resources

Adding to my lists:

New Testament Gateway

Old Testament Gateway

Church Fathers

Theology on the Web, Robert Bradshaw's site.

Biblical Studies on the Web, another Bradshaw site.

A couple of theology sites that I browse from time to time (not endorsing or necessarily agreeing, but some 'good for thinking' resources):

After Existentialism

Trinity Foundation

Euanelion

Christian library

While pecking around the Internet looking for lists of Christian books, I came across some good links to libraries:

Online Christian Library

Christian Classics

12 books - 2

More to add to my list of 12 great Christian books.

In my previous list I had 8 books by 7 authors, so I need to add four more books:

The fact that these books come easily to mind suggest their significance in my reading:

Hans Kung: Does God Exist? and On Being Christian
Frederick Dale Bruner: A Theology of the Holy Spirit
Donald Crowe: Creation without Compromise

There, that's 4. I was also impressed with Carl Henry's God Revelation and Authority, and plan to re-read it...one day. I also have fond memories of  Helmut Thieleke's The Evangelical Faith (and plan to read Michael Bird's book of the similar name Evangelical Theology).

I know Kung has some aberrant ideas, but those books did fuel a lot of thought for me, and they were a breath of fresh air in the arid intellectual environment of the church I was in during my early 20s.

Theology books

I'm on to lists of books.

I've blogged on my top 12 (the first 7, anyway), and what other people think in general Christian books, but now here's the serious crowd: theology.

The Christian Theologian's reading list

Good Reads Christian (popular) theology

Frank Viola's 100 Christian academic books (some real goodies here)

Worthy Discussion's list of 10 (he mentions some baddies as an addendum)

Christian Century's list of lists for the last 25 years

Westminster Theological Seminary recommends (good, but excessively Calvinistic)

Best books

I started listing out my 12 best Christian books a little while ago, then thought to see what Mr Google had on the topic.

Lots, as it happens.

Some lists of 100, from which one might extract a top 12, some talk about a 'top 10' but I prefer 12 as the creme de la creme as it is the number of apostles.

All the lists I saw included books I would exit from such lists: too popular (ephemeral or circumstantial), too narrow, as in protestants excluding great RC books,  or too catholic, including books that waste paper.

I was pleased, though, that I've read a number of the books listed, and even a number of my list of 7 appeared on the lists that the clever people had compiled.

Here are some that I found:

Church Times 100 best Christian books

Jeremy Myers best Christian books read

Top Ten Christian Books of all time

Christianity Today's top 50 that influenced evangelicals

Life in Grace blog top 10

Frank Viola's Best 100

9 Classic Christian books

10 books for a deeper faith

25 Christian classics from the Huffington Post (of all places)

50 great Christian books (too much Piper and Lewis for my taste)

10 books that every Christian should read (too many light weights)

Top 25 spriritual classics (again, a few too many modern light weights)

and, lastly, a list I didn't like at all being merely popular in my view, apart from two goodies at the end of the list:

10 Christian best sellers.

12 books

On INC there's an article listing the '12 books that Steve Jobs wanted you to read'. Happily, I've already read a number of them; I don't know that my free time extends to some of the others he lauds. Four of them are Eastern religious books...very cool to mention (but I wonder what the long term result of homage to the East will bring, given that it disdains the ordered thought that has brought us freedom, productivity and discovery). There are a couple of businessy books, and novels. I might read some of them; for instance, Moby Dick. Its often mentioned, so perhaps a read one day.

But, what would my 12 books be? Off the top of my head, there are more than 12, so let's stick to Christian books.

Without giving it deep thought, my list begins:

Augustine: Confessions and The City of God
Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People
C. S. Lewis: Mere Christianity
G. K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy
Francis Schaeffer: The God Who is There
Ratzinger: Introduction to Christianity
Jurgen Moltmann: The Crucified God

More later.