I’m a Lee Strobel fan, and would put his trilogy of The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator near the top of my apologetics list. The book that is the subject of this post follows the same template as his others: The author makes an intelligent division of the relevant subtopics, and then visits and interviews a series of distinguished and impressive experts on them. Strobel is an ex-journalist specializing in legal matters as well as an ex-atheist, not a wide-eyed innocent, and he asks the tough questions and then lets the experts reply at length.
It’s an effective approach, and The Case for Heaven is another good book — not in the same league as the trilogy cited above, but still worth reading. There are chapters on the near-universal human desire for immortality; evidence for consciousness after death — that is, a soul; near-death experiences; Chad Meister’s “apologetics pyramid”; what Heaven might be like; why Hell, alas, is plausible; and why reincarnation probably doesn’t. As you can see, the book has a lot more about why the Christian concept of Heaven makes sense than about empirical evidence we have for its existence, so the book’s secondary title is perhaps a bit misleading.
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Additional notes:
- I was pleased to learn that I can claim Lee Strobel as a fellow Texan (265).
- There are plenty of C.S. Lewis cites and quotes but, alas, none to Blaise Pascal. Still, the more there is evidence for Heaven, the more powerful the arguments are for his Wager. As Strobel says in his introduction (4-5), there’s no more important question than what happens to our eternal souls — and whether we have them — so how can we not wrestle with that question and, having answered it, order our lives here accordingly?
- I sensed, perhaps, a lighter touch in this book than in some of Strobel’s others, and enjoyed his humor (e.g., 121-22 on there being dogs, but “of course” no cats, in Heaven) and willingness to acknowledge forgetting to bring a relevant book to one of his interviews (195).
- I’ve noted on this blogsite elsewhere that, when it comes to near-death experiences and other miracles, it is not enough for materialists to show that some or most or even nearly all such claims are false: They must show that they all are. This point is likewise made in a couple of places in Strobel’s book (39, 54).
- There’s research showing that, if you believe in an afterlife, you’re considerably less likely to die from suicide, drugs, or alcohol (12).
- An expert interviewed notes that he’s never run across a near-death experience involving Hindu beliefs (58-59).
- It’s common for people with near-death experiences to observe things when they are out of their bodies, and one study found them to be 92 percent correct (66).
- The chapter on near-death experiences (chapter 3 at 71-72) concludes that, indeed, “the best explanation for the totality of the evidence is that there is a postmortem existence of some sort. After our brain stops working, after our heart stops beating, after the doctors declare us dead — we still live on. Our consciousness survives. We survive.”
- In the interview with Chad Meister, there’s a very good discussion of the historicity of the Resurrection, and in it Strobel notes (93-94): “What’s more [re this topic], we also have two strong nonbiblical sources who knew some of the eyewitnesses. First, there’s Clement. The early church father Irenaeus reports that Clement conversed with the apostles, and Tertullian says Clement was ordained by Peter himself.” The passage continues: “Second, there’s Polycarp. Irenaeus says Polycarp was instructed by the apostles, and Tertullian confirms that John appointed Polycarp as a bishop. Both Clement and Polycarp specifically confirm that it was the actual resurrection of Jesus that motivated the disciples.”
- There were a couple of powerful passages toward the end. There’s this (207-08):