Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics Quotes

“If you place [your bet] with God, you lose nothing, even if it turns out that God does not exist. But if you place it against God, and you are wrong and God does exist, you lose everything.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“We can't avoid reasoning; we can only avoid doing it well.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“An argument in apologetics, when actually used in dialogue, is an extension of the arguer. The arguer's tone, sincerity, care, concern, listening, and respect matter as much as his or her logic - probably more. The world was won for Christ not by arguments but by sanctity: "What you are speaks so loud, I can hardly hear what you say.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“We can't believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can't love what we believe to be unreal.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“Conscience is thus explained only as the voice of God in the soul.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“Argumentation is a human enterprise that is embedded in a larger social and psychological context. This context includes (1) the total psyches of the two persons engaged in dialogue, (2) the relationship between the two persons, (3) the immediate situation in which they find themselves and (4) the larger social, cultural and historical situation surrounding them.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“Only because a bird doesn't swim in the ocean but flies in the air can it enter the ocean from above; only because God is not temporal can he enter into time.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“The Church also seems to be in the social service business, the counseling business, the fundraising business, the daycare business-dozens of the same worthy businesses the secular world is also in. Why? What justifies these things? The Church's ultimate end for all these things is different from the world's end; it is salvation. This is its distinctive "product."
Why put out a product that is just the same as other compa-
vies' products already on the market? Why would anyone expect such a product to sell? That's why modernist or liberal Christianity, charitable as its services are, is simply not selling. The only reason for any of the Church's activities, the only reason for the very existence of the Church at all, is exactly the same as the reason Jesus came to earth: to save poor and lost humanity.”
― Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics