Book Review: The Absurdity of Unbelief

Jeffrey Johnson. The Absurdity of Unbelief.  Conway, AR: Free Grace Press, January 22, 2016. 350 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

There are books out there introducing Presuppositional Apologetics that focus more on the theory and the foundation of the Biblical method to defend the faith; but over time I want to read more books applying Presuppositional Apologetics in other areas and this include Presuppositional Apologetics’ critiques applied to other religions, philosophy and other various systems of unbelief.  I appreciate the author’s hard work in refuting false worldviews in this book.  Jeffrey Johnson is an author, teaching pastor and Presuppositional Apologist.

The book consists of six parts with a total of 28 chapters.  Part one covers what is the nature of belief with three chapters on what faith is not: Faith is not blind, nor subjective nor irrational.  Part 2 talks about what shapes beliefs and there are six chapters here that include chapters on how beliefs are shaped by our worldview and our presuppositions.  There’s only chapter in part three which is about how to test beliefs and the chapter is short and is titled “Cohesiveness is Mandatory.”  Part four is the meat of the book with ten chapters that presents “The Irrationality of Unbelief” and the chapters include the irrationality of Naturalism, Evolution, Existentialism, Postmodernity and other religions such as Islam and Eastern religions.  Part 5 talks about how Christian belief is grounded by truth and the seven chapters talk about in a more positive fashion of how Christianity is supported by various streams of truths such as historical record, God’s illumination, Presuppositionalism and cohesiveness.  Part 6 is on the call to believe and the one and final chapter here is appealing nonbelievers reading this to repent and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.

I realize Jeffrey Johnson has been attacked for writing against Thomas Aquinas and accused for not understanding Thomism.  I have not read his writings on Aquinas and in fact this is my first book I read by Johnson.  Here though I think in this book there’s a lot of good things he writes here.  His documentation of the first half of the book of quotes of atheists was really well done including his arguments against secular belief systems.  One can see the preacher in him as the book is laid out well with clear organization and at times they look like neat harmonious sermon outline points with the way his chapters are titled.  He makes a lot of powerful points and have good illustrations and does expose the problem of unbelief. Also the way he ended the book was a powerful preaching of the Gospel for unbelievers to be saved; that was mighty refreshing.

Still I do have questions after I read this book concerning chapters 19-20 concerning his argument about the Trinity as against unbelief in the form of non-Trinitarian religious systems.  I’ll have to go over it sometime slowly.  One such question I have is the author’s description that there is an eternal state of movements between the three Persons of Trinity on page 257.  I do think God is immutable and also the Members of the Trinity have relationship with the other Members of the Trinity but calling the relations as “movements” seems strange and not biblical.  But it might be helpful in the future Johnson explain what he means, if he has not done so already in other books or venues.

Overall a thoughtful food for thought on Christianity and the defense of the Christian faith.  Besides the two chapters that I mentioned as I have questions about the rest of the book was well done.