But something has changed. Zach has come out as an atheist and Thomas has no idea how to respond. He believes in God but how does he process the intellectual challenges Zach now proposes?
This is how the stage is set for Dan DeWitt's new book, Christ or Chaos. He uses the fictional friendship of two college students as a launching pad to engage the presuppositions and basic beliefs of the new atheists.
Christ or Chaos isn't really about Thomas or Zach at all. It's about worldview and knowing how to stand up for the truth. It's about how Christianity demands our faith and our intellect. It's about a fundamental choice every human has to make - Is life Christ or chaos?
Winsome Intellectualism for College Kids
Dan DeWitt is a smart guy and a really good writer. I liked his first book, Jesus or Nothing, a lot and I liked Christ or Chaos just as much.
A marvelous strength of DeWitt is his ability to write about intellectual and scientific arguments in a down-to-earth way. I have a weak background in science and a lot of technical jargon can swim above my head, but there's none of that here.
DeWitt writes for college kids like Thomas, those of us who are encountering and considering these arguments and ideas for the first time.
DeWitt covers epistemology and the origin of the universe, morality and matter, evil and suffering, the Bible's historicity and the very idea of God, optimism and human nature. And I understood it all. I appreciated it all. He quotes from piles of atheists and contemporary scholars, being precise about his responses.
Sentences I Wish I Had Written
I recently heard someone give an important piece of advice to writers. They said, "Read as many sentences as you can that make you go, 'I wish I had written that.'" There are lots of sentences like that in Christ or Chaos.
Like these ones:
"[Chance] scoffs at our misplaced confidence in evolution to lead us anywhere except into more illusions. And as the sun reaches the zenith of its fury, we read the last word on the last page. 'Despair,' we read aloud, as the Red Giant snuffs out what little life—if ever we should have called it that—remains on our little planet. The End" (130-131).
I love articulate and masterful writing, and so I love to read Dan DeWitt. As Russell Moore summed it up, "Dan DeWitt is a sharp, rigorous thinker who can communicate deep truths in a way people can grasp."
Give This Book to Young People You Know
Graduation season will be upon us before you know it and I think this is an excellent book for the high school and college graduates out there. Students would eat up this book from Boyce College's dean. It's fun and readable and challenging and intellectual and biblical.
Buy Christ or Chaos here.
*I received a copy of this book from Crossway through their Beyond the Page review system. I was not required to give a positive review.