Parchment & Pen Blog

I’ve never blogged before, and I’m amazed at how some bloggers keep up with all the comments and inquiries they get day after day. So I guess it’s probably a good idea to post something just once a month! I’m grateful to the folks at Reclaiming the Mind Ministries for asking me to participate. They told me to mention something about myself and some of the books I’ve written and edited. So here’s my intro.

I have a precious wife and family (five children), who are a great source of joy and encouragement. I am the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. (I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Marquette University in Milwaukee as well as an M.Div. and an M.A. in philosophy of religion from Trinity Seminary.) I am the current president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, whose journal is Philosophia Christi. (If you want to keep up with the very latest in Christian philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and apologetics, please do subscribe: www.epsociety.org.)

In addition to being a professor, I speak at other university campuses and at also at Christian conferences; I frequently give lectures and seminars on defending the Christian faith. I stress that how we give a reason for the hope within (1 Peter 3:15) is a vital component to our witness. For example, I just came back from the Future of Atheism conference in New Orleans, where I had the privilege of speaking alongside theologian Alister McGrath and philosopher William Lane Craig. We had excellent interactions with the atheist/evolutionist Daniel Dennett (author of Breaking the Spell and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea) and a couple of other prominent atheist philosophers.

I write/edit for scholarly audiences (e.g., The Rationality of Theism, Creation Out of Nothing, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues, etc.). However, I try to make philosophy and apologetics accessible at a popular level as well. As Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga declares, Christian scholars shouldn’t leave their work “buried away in professional journals.” They should make their work available to the broader Christian community. If such scholars “devote their best efforts to the topics fashionable in the non-Christian philosophical world, they will neglect a crucial and central part of their task as Christian philosophers.”

Some of my popular-level books tackle tough questions and slogans (“That’s just true for you, but not for me”; “Why does God allow slavery or command the killing the Canaanites?”; “How can God be three and one?”; “How could God become man?”; “Isn’t God just a psychological crutch?”; “Is the soul nothing more than the brain?”). I cover these and many other topics in “True for You, But Not for Me,” “That’s Just Your Interpretation,” and “How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong?” I’ve also (co)edited three books on the historical Jesus—another area of interest. If you want to know about these books and read various articles I’ve written, you can check out my website at www.paulcopan.com.

I look forward to future opportunities to blog at Reclaiming the Mind Ministries.

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• Paul Copan on Christian Doubt
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