Book Review: What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t Know (But Should) by Stephen Joseph Williams

41jFZINbeQLWhat Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t Know (But Should) is a quality introductory-level Christian apologetics book. One of the best ways to summarize the book is to reference the summary arguments placed near the end of each chapter, and so I’d like to start off with quoting them here:

Chapter 1: The Cosmological Arguments

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

Chapter 2: The Teleological (Design) Argument

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either law, chance, or design. 2. It is not due to law or chance. 3. Therefore, it is due to design.

Chapter 3: The “Hardware” of Life Argument

1. According to leading Darwinists, odds of humans evolving from a single-celled creature are 1 in 1024,000,000. 2. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050 is mathematically impossible. 3. Therefore, Darwinian evolution of human beings is mathematically impossible.

Chapter 4: The Software of Life Argument

1. The odds of the genetic information required to make the proteins for a minimally complex single-celled creature arising by chance are 1 in 1041,000. 2. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050 is mathematically impossible. 3. Therefore, a single-celled creature arising by chance is mathematically impossible.

Chapter 5: The Noological (Existence of Mind) Argument

Not a numbered argument but a clear summary:

Darwinian evolutionists claim that we are nothing but particles of matter in a specific arrangement, but the self-awareness and consciousness of our minds provide prima facie (“on its first appearance”) evidence that we consist of much more than that.


Chapter 6: The Axiological (Moral) Argument

1. If God did not exist, objective moral values and duties would not exist. 2. Objective moral values and duties do exist. 3. Therefore, God exists.

Chapter 7: The Argument from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

1. There are three established facts concerning the fate of Jesus of Nazareth: the discovery of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of his disciples’ belief in his resurrection. 2. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” is the best explanation of these facts. 3. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” entails that the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth exists. 4. Therefore, the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth exists.

Chapter 8: The Historical Veracity of Scripture

1. There are about 2000 predictive prophecies in the Bible that have been fulfilled, many of which are messianic, and refer to the first coming of Jesus Christ. 2. The odds against just 48 of these being fulfilled by chance alone is about 1 in 10158. 3. According to probability theorists, anything with lower odds than 1 in 1050 is mathematically impossible. 4. Therefore, Christ’s fulfillment of these prophecies is supernatural, and the other prophetic fulfillments add support to this conclusion.

Chapter 9: The Shroud of Turin

1. Imaging experts say that to create the 3D image on the Shroud, one would need an atomic laser controlled by a supercomputer. 2. Such a device was not available to an ancient forger. 3. Therefore, a radiation imprint from the resurrection is a better explanation.

Chapter 10: The Grand design to Dismiss Philosophy (Without Free Will!)

This chapter doesn’t have a numbered argument either. It is more of a defensive response to atheists’ (particularly Stephen Hawking) writings. One of the highlights is this:

A book called A Universe From Nothing making claims similar to Hawking’s was recently released by an atheist physicist named Lawrence Krauss. A brief word on that seems warranted: I’ve read several reviews, and listened to several podcasts critiquing it, and predictably, he follows the same pattern set by Hawking of dancing back and forth between different definitions of “nothing” (“non-being” vs. a fluctuating quantum field that “might as well be nothing”).

Following these ten chapters there is also a summary section and a list of references. The summary lists these arguments much like the quotes above. Unfortunately, the references section in the ebook version are not hyperlinked to the referenced portions throughout the text. This makes reading and linking the references quite difficult. Another weakness with the text is in chapter two. In chapter two there are two incredibly long lists that are particularly interesting. These lists are the most thorough listings of such information that I’ve ever seen. There are 93 different balanced constants for the universe and 154 different balanced features of the earth itself that are necessary for life to exist on Earth. These lists are tedious and it would probably have been better suited for an appendix, but the lists are powerful rhetorical tools. Another issue with the text is fairly minor, but it reads with a different tone in different sections. There are times when the text will sound more academic and at other times it sounds casual. The best example of this casual tone is in this parenthetical that ends with an emoji, “(whoops – self-referential echo chamber! ;^).”

Though it seems like this review only has negative things to say and that this is a bad book, but nothing could be farther from the truth. These “negatives,” with the exception of the issue with the hyperlinked references, are also positives. The text has, as mentioned, an impressive listing of incredibly balanced features of the universe and the Earth itself which leave no better explanation than God. Also, because the tone is somewhat relaxed this text is easily digestible and is readily available to casual apologetics text readers (the average layperson as well).

The ninth chapter, “The Shroud of Turin,” may seem somewhat out of place. However, it is an interesting inclusion and worthy of some further investigation. It also seems that the Shroud is an often overlooked piece of history. Perhaps this is because it’s shrouded in mystery (pun intended). However, the argument is interesting and there doesn’t seem to be much of a response from the skeptical crowd except perhaps to just cast doubt on the Shroud in general. There are weaknesses with the argument, mainly that there’s no clear proof one way or the other about the Shroud’s origins, but that is also a kind of strength because there’s no good non-miraculous explanation. It is, still, a mystery even with all of modern science trying to explain it. At the very least the existence of the Shroud is curious, which may get skeptics at least seeking.

Another feature of this book that impressed me was the simple ending. The summary section not only summed up the arguments from all the previous chapters it also included a simple presentation of the Gospel and a “sinner’s prayer.” Many apologetics books are heavy on arguments but light on evangelism. This simple ending ties the whole thing together. It lists the arguments and summarizes them, and then concludes that if these are true then it makes sense to accept Christ as one’s savior. This conclusion should be the conclusion of every apologetics text (I’m sure that it has been included in many, just not the ones I have read). It may be that this text is primarily aimed at skeptics and “seekers.” Most likely that’s why the author chose such a provocative title. Hopefully that plan worked and “seekers” will reach out for this text when they’re looking for answers.

Written by

Samuel Ronicker is a husband, father, Air Force member, and seminary student at Liberty University Online. Sam is originally from Ohio (The Heart of it All!) and is currently living in Okinawa, Japan. Sam has studied apologetics as part of his undergraduate degree and as a hobby for the last several years.

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