The Morals of the Story: Good News About a Good God by David Baggett

The Morals of the Story: Good News About a Good God Reviews

• 
  Mark Harris

  Great book! The Baggetts take on some of life's most important questions, about God, morality, why we are here, why we have a moral sense, and more. And they clearly and thoughtfully convey answers to these questions, taking us with them along the way, careful not to lose us. Deep questions and issues, but down-to-earth explanations and answers. And wonderful bits of humor weaved in, throughout the whole thing--including some of the footnotes (so don't pass those by!). They take into account and address a number of opposing viewpoints as well, always treating them with grace even while they point out flaws in logic and thinking. Thought-provoking questions for us at the end of each chapter too. Your brain will be exercised without being overwhelmed! Enjoy.
• 
  J.J. Richardson

  Amazing and accessible.
• 
  Michelle Van Loon

  I grew up as a young believer in the era where apologetics was not unlike a contact sport, beloved among a certain stream in the Church that was dedicated to scoring points in debates with opponents. I think the last apologetics book I tackled was Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
  
  The Morals of the Story by Liberty University philosophy professor David Baggett, and wife Marybeth Baggett, an English professor at Liberty, is not a book about scoring points, but about opening hearts. While this is an academic book targeting both students of philosophy and theology that assumes its audience possesses a base of knowledge about Western philosophy, it is not a dense, dry read. In fact, the touches of humor and the meaningful examples from contemporary life and classic literature make this an engaging volume. Moral apologetics is an approach to explaining and defending the Christian faith, leaning heavily on general revelation, defined in the book as “what God has revealed about himself through nature and the human condition”.
  
  After laying a groundwork where they define terms and look at the history of moral apologetics before, during, and beyond the Twentieth Century, the Baggetts explore questions surrounding moral goodness, moral obligations, moral knowledge, moral transformation, and moral providence, with the goal of pointing readers to the God who has revealed himself to us in the Old and New Testament. While I do not have the academic background in philosophy to analyze their arguments, I can affirm that The Morals of the Story challenged me to consider the way in which I think about the world in which I live and the God I’ve committed to serve. Plato said, “An unexplored life is not worth living”, and I would amend this to include the idea that an unexplored faith is not worth having. (In fact, I wonder if it is really faith at all.) The Baggetts challenge the readers to consider life and faith with questions and arguments that are well-constructed, respectful, and inviting.
  
• 
  Jimmy Reagan

  How powerful are moral arguments to prove the existence of God? They have always struck me as overwhelmingly persuasive, yet this book is still my first foray into really digging out that concept. I have more of a theological background while this presentation tilts more toward the philosophical side. That’s not to say there isn’t some wonderful theology along the way. There’s plenty of theology as well as deep scholarship as you might imagine from this husband-and-wife scholar team. The scholarship is such that this might not work for beginners yet they do a good job of making it all accessible. As a bonus, they exhibit a pleasant sense of humor throughout. The authors strike me as teachers who would be enjoyable to hear lecture. Some of the historical explanations of where philosophers have moved over the years might bog you down some, but you will end this book with a firmer belief that the moral argument bolsters the affirmation of God’s existence.
  
  The book is divided into three acts. The first one sets the stage in four chapters. Preceding the first act you have a description of the players, the playbill, and the spotlight on Socrates and Paul in Athens. The first two chapters succeed in orienting you in this discussion while chapters 3 and 4 slow down some with a great deal of historical background and scholarly review.
  
  Act two has five chapters that break down moral goodness, moral obligations, moral knowledge, moral transformation, and moral providence. To my mind, the chapter on moral transformation packed the most punch. If you can grasp this section, you will have a working knowledge of all the facets of the moral argument.
  
  Act three is called “enacting the comedy” and is really a concluding chapter that together with the “encore” shows how this material can lead us to some powerful apologetics.
  
  This is an important book that succeeds in what it sets out to do. Its target audience will love it, and we can all glean from it. Our hearts know that if there is no God there are no morals and that cannot be possible!
  
  I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
• 
  Zachary Houle

  Almost 25 years ago, I was a first-year journalism student at Ottawa’s Carleton University who took an introductory course in philosophy at the suggestion of a high school guidance counsellor before I’d graduated from said high school. That course wound up being one of the most frustrating courses I ever took, because the professor was someone willing to play Devil’s Advocate. We’d read some Immanuel Kant, and then be subjected to holes punched through Kant’s arguments. We’d read some Ludwig Wittgenstein, only to find out that Wittgenstein himself had doubts about his philosophies. Just when you thought you were getting the answer to life, the universe and everything, that professor would come along and pull the rug out from under you.
  
  I never took another philosophy course at Carleton.
  
  Anyhow, flash forward to now and you have me reading a deeply philosophical work that has a religious underpinning. Written by the husband and wife team of David Baggett and Marybeth Baggett, The Morals of the Story is a book that seeks to answer the question, Is God Real? And, if He is, why do we have morals? It is because God wills us to act in a good, upright fashion (and what God wills us to do is inherently good), or is acting in a good, upright fashion the means to which we’ll find favour with God? Well, I’ve read the book and I still don’t have the answer to that. The Morals of the Story is basically like 10 books shoved into one. Each chapter could easily be its own book.
  
  Read the rest here:
  https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...
• 
  Dorothy Greco

  Many followers of Christ would greatly benefit from this offering. The Baggetts do an incredible job presenting various schools of thought connected to morality and Scripture. It's a dense book, not light reading, but incredibly informative. I seldom spend much time thinking about how I might engage with someone who would intelligently dispute Scripture. (My social circles don't include someone like Richard Dawkins!) After reading this book, I feel more equipped and compelled to continue learning. The only reason I'm not giving it a 5 is that it's academic and I am generally not a huge fan of academic books. That said, the authors, a husband and wife team, include humor and don't seem take themselves too seriously, which I appreciate.
• 
  Mike Klein

  Most entertaining book dealing with the subject matter that you'll find. While the lightness gets close to distracting from the message at some points, overall it works. Well worth the read.
• 
  James Tetley

  Review to follow