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Don't Think, Just Believe? That's the mantra in many circles today--whether the church, the classroom, the campus, or the voting booth. Time for a Reality Check Nancy Pearcey, bestselling and critically acclaimed author, offers fresh tools to break free from presumed certainties and test them against reality. In Finding Truth, she explains five powerful principles that penetrate to the core of any worldview--secular or religious--to uncover its deepest motivations and weigh its claims. A former agnostic, Pearcey demonstrates that a robust Christian worldview matches reality--that it is not only true but attractive, granting higher dignity to the human person than any alternative. Finding Truth displays Pearcey's well-earned reputation for clear and cogent writing. She brings themes to life with personal stories and real-world examples. The book includes a study guide shaped by questions from readers, from teens to college professors. It is ideal for individual or group study.
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook (March 1, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781413087
ISBN-13: 978-0781413084
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.4 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (129 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #39,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #55 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Churches & Church Leadership > Pastoral Resources #69 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Ministry & Evangelism > Evangelism #99 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Comparative Religion
Nancy Pearcey is the director of the Christian Worldview Center at Houston Baptist University. She is the author or coauthor of six other books, including Total Truth, Saving Leonardo, and How Now Shall We Live (with Chuck Colson.)Many Christian philosophers and apologists have written effective critiques of worldviews that compete with Christianity in the marketplace of ideas. In that sense there is nothing new in Pearcey’s book. The beauty of Finding Truth is in how Pearcey offers a systematic way to evaluate these worldviews in a way that exposes their weaknesses, and shows Christianity to be a viable alternative.Working from the text of chapters 1 and 2 of Paul’s letter to the Romans, Pearcey outlines a five-step process for evaluating worldviews that compete with Christianity. She notes that every worldview has an ultimate concern, or something that has the status of divinity, hence the first step is to identify what this is for the worldview. What stands in for the God the worldview denies?Every God-substitute turns out to be something within the created order, and therefore smaller than the God who is. Pearcey shows how all competing worldviews entail some form of reductionism. She then helps the reader identify it. If you think of a worldview as a box, only Christianity has one big enough to contain reality. All others are too small, and therefore they must deny, dismiss, or ignore aspects of reality that do not fit in the box.Having noted the aspects of reality that must be denied, the third step is to compare the view with how one experiences the world. How well does the worldview make sense of the world as we find it?In the next step, we examine the worldview to see if it passes its own test. Ultimately, worldviews contrary to Christianity are self-refuting.
Nancy Pearcey’s bestselling and award-winning book "Total Truth" made quite a mark on my life. It was, to my memory, the first book I had ever read on worldview, and its explanation of the way our world divides the sacred and the secular has not only stuck with me, but has helped me better understand and explain the culture around me. Though Pearcey has written another book between then and now, I consider her new work, "Finding Truth," the true sequel to "Total Truth."In "Finding Truth," Pearcey offers 5 principles meant to unmask our culture’s endless worldview alternatives to Christianity—secularism, atheism, and the like. There are all kinds of books that make a similar promise, but this one has a noteworthy difference: Pearcey looks to Romans 1 to find a kind of apologetics training manual for identifying and challenging any other worldview.At the start of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, he claims that all humanity has access to evidence for God’s existence, and then describes what happens when people refuse to acknowledge him. As people turn away from God, they suppress the truth that God makes known to them through creation and through human nature. People hide from God by creating idols, God substitutes. These are not merely idols of wood and stone, but also ideas, any idea that provides an alternate explanation for the meaning and purpose of life. Idols have consequences, and God gives up those who worship them to a debased mind, so that they become futile in their thinking and dishonorable in their behavior. While most explanations of this text dwell on behavior, Pearcey focuses on the mind, showing the ways in which the unbelieving mind is affected by sin so that an entire worldview becomes completely opposed to God.
By presenting her system for recognizing and refuting false religions, Nancy Pearcey has made an important contribution towards making people ready to give an answer to the hope that is within them 1 Peter 3:15.Like any human authored book, there are minor, side-issue mistakes in it that I noticed. With other books, I have seen how enemies latch onto minor, side-issue mistakes and even typos to try to disparage the whole book, but that attempt is in itself a logical fallacy. The central theme of her book is valid.Nancy’s core message is that she developed a five step method to recognize and refute the teachings used to attack a young Christian’s trust in Jesus. It is based on Romans 1:18–2:16. These are not only for personal use, but also to teach others what to look for. Those five steps are:1) recognize what is a person’s true religion, his true beliefs, what is most important in a person’s life, which Nancy calls “identify the idol.” Even Christians can take something as most important in their lives, more important than God, in other words to take on idols 1 John 5:21 while still thinking they are Christians. An “idol” is anything that is taken as most important in one’s life, whether an object or a belief.2) “identify the reductionism” where non-Christians suppress truths of their existence to fit their beliefs. When something other than God is most important in one’s life, the value of everything else is reduced to fit that belief.3) compare the non-Christian’s core religion, his beliefs, with reality, showing where his religion falls short. In other words, where the religion, following reductionist false idols, fails to account for the life that we live. Nancy quoted people who admitted that they could not live according to what they believe.
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