Kenneth Boa and Robert M. Bowman. 20 Compelling Evidences that God Exists. Second ed. Cook, 2005.

This book is exactly what the title suggests. It is broken into twenty chapters, each presenting a piece of evidence that indicates the existence of the God of the Bible is real.

It assumes very little of its readers. The first few chapters discuss questions of truth and reality. That is, the idea that truth exists and is knowable from reality. This does a fairly direct job of dealing with questions of relativism and subjectivity.

Each piece of evidence gets a little more specific: We exist; the universe has a beginning; the universe is remarkably fit for life. Once the reader gets this far, he or she can begin to see where things are going. How did life originate? Is there evidence for intelligent design?

And then it gets interesting. Perhaps the most pivotal chapter is entitled “Evidence of a Fallen World.” This deals with the question of good God, why evil? But it does it in a reasonable way.

I recall in my own life, an atheist friend in college asked me if I really believed in Adam and Eve. At the time I was still searching, but I had found the Bible to be pretty reliable. I told him that I did not know for sure, but the story of the Fall sure explains a lot of things about human nature.

From there it goes on to things that most Christian are pretty familiar with in any persuasive approach: the reliability and accuracy of the Bible, fulfilled prophecies, Jesus’ life and claims, Jesus’ death and resurrection, the witnesses and martyrs, and the uniqueness of Jesus’ claims.

In my own life, what finally pushed from the position of a searcher to born again believer were the remarkable fulfilled prophecies. (In my case, a friend lent me a copy of The Late Great Planet Earth back when that book was a bestseller.)

If a skeptic makes it to chapter eight of 20 Compelling Evidences that God Exists, I suspect he or she will read the rest of the book. As with any such approach, one can make a position crystal clear, but it still takes an individual’s willingness or openness to a new idea or to the working of the Holy Spirit to keep going. It is like what the author of The Ultimate Proof of Creation wrote, “If…we mean an argument that will persuade everyone, then the answer has to be no. The reason is simple: persuasion is subjective.” (11) The authors do style their book 20 Compelling Evidences that God Exists, but we all resist compulsion at different times.

Still, if a person has some intellectual or mental hangups or questions about the Christian God, this book could be effective. For the believer, it is always nice to have a little refresher. I read this book on a Kindle, so I am not exactly sure how many pages it has, but it is a pretty quick read. It is also well documented, so if the reader is a real thinker, he or she can be pointed to plenty of resources to confirm what the book has said or to find out more.

P.S. Amazon says there are 317 pages in the print edition, but probably just a little over 200 are actual text. The rest is notes.