Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith | 
 enlarge | Author: Scott Hahn
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $12.36
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 2133
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0385509359
Dewey Decimal Number: 230.2
EAN: 9780385509350
ASIN: 0385509359
Publication Date: May 8, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This book unravels mysteries, corrects misunderstandings, and offers thoughtful, straightforward responses to common objections about the Catholic faith.
Bestselling author Scott Hahn, a convert to Catholicism, has experienced the doubts that so often drive discussions about God and the Church. In the years before his conversion, he was first a nonbeliever and then an anti-Catholic clergyman.
In REASONS TO BELIEVE, he explains the "how and why" of the Catholic faith—drawing from Scripture, his own struggles and those of other converts, as well as from everyday life and even natural science. Hahn shows that reason and revelation, nature and the supernatural, are not opposed to one another; rather they offer complementary evidence that God exists. But He doesn't merely exist. He is someone, and He has a personality, a personal style, that is discernible and knowable. Hahn leads readers to see that God created the universe with a purpose and a form—a form that can be found in the Book of Genesis and that is there when we view the natural world through a microscope, through a telescope, or through our contact lenses.
At the heart of the book is Hahn's examination of the ten "keys to the kingdom"—the characteristics of the Church clearly evident in the Scriptures. As the story of creation discloses, the world is a house that has a Father, a palace where the king is really present. God created the cosmos to be a kingdom, and that kingdom is the universal Church, fully revealed by Jesus Christ.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Careful work of an honest author July 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Scott Hahn is an extremely careful writer, who has been very patient to choose the wording for his arguments. The book is well written, easy to read and fulfilled my expectations.
Speaking from his heart, the author gives an honest report on his view of the protestant faith he once embraced and the Catholic faith he now pursues.
Having St. Thomas on the cover is a testimony of his intellectual honesty by admitting it is not easy to find the path to belief and salvation.
Not reviewed June 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I ordered this book because we are going to have a study class in Oct but I have not had a chance to sit down with it. I have other Scott Hahn books and all have been very good.
 Just a few words May 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a worthwhile read. It will take your basic apologetics skills one level deeper. The author really envelops the reader in the Old Testement in a way that is refreshing. Instead of looking soley at the teachings of Christ, the author includes how the Church today is a fullfilment of prophesy and in accordance with the whole book. The beginning of the book is helpful in dealing with other than Christian faiths, atheists and agnostics.
Sound reasoning - broad appeal! April 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Dr. Hahn has not just "done it again" as this book far exceeds what he's done in the past. As aptly summarized by other reviewers, the book is partitioned into three sections, each forming an eloquently persuasive apologetic appropriate for different groups: first, for unbelievers; second, for non-Catholic Christians; third, for Catholics themselves - though each of the book's sections has broad appeal and would prove beneficial to anyone reading them.
For instance, in one of the most surprising and impressive passages of the first part of the book, Hahn makes readily understandable the traditional proof for God's existence from motion (sic!). Though Aquinas calls this proof "the most evident," lately, various factors militate to render it "most obscure." Using the metaphor of a train with no engine, Hahn deftly shows that, no matter how long - no matter how many cars are added, the train will not move unless there is a "first mover" (namely, the engine or, with regard to motion in the universe, God).
I highly recommend this book for just about anyone - even high schoolers can benefit from it. It is useful for personal enrichment, for a course (in secondary or post-secondary school) on faith and reason, for an intro to Catholicism course, for parish adult-education programs, to give as a gift to friends and family members, and so on.
This is, by far, one of Dr. Hahn's best works - and that's saying much, since his other books are full of profound insights and fresh, helpful explanations of otherwise difficult doctrines.
 For Beginners only April 6, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is ok if you are either not a Catholic and curious, or a Catholic who is absolutely clueless about why we believe what we do. I bought this book thinking it would help me in the field of apologetics (should I come across a protestant who attacks Catholic doctrine: perpetual virginity, the Eucharist, etc). What I found, about fifty pages in, was that this was really an intro (and a watered-down intro at that) into the beliefs of the Church. One would be much better off with Karl Keating's "Catholicism and Fundamentalism." Or, if you are really hardcore, either Henry Denzinger's "The Sources of Catholic Dogma," or Jurgens' "The Faith of the Early Fathers" in three volumes. Both Denzinger and Jurgens provide excellent, the best I've come across so far, historical content, while Keating will teach you how to argue what you believe (mostly by presenting Protestant arguments and defeating them with the Catholic). This combination of books will prove very helpful for the Catholic who wishes to defend his faith against vicious anti-Catholic Protestanism--not attack the latter. You may also wish to supplement this with "The New Jerome Biblical Commentary" by Raymond Brown et al.
All that being said, if you have never read anything at all about why Catholics believe what they do, this is NOT BAD. However, you can do better.
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