True for You, But Not for Me

As a young man in my early 20s I read this book, it has grounded my Christian faith stronger than any other book on Christianity. The pure logic in here blew me away. Truth is truth no matter if anyone knows it. Or believes it. The only chapter u did not whole heartedly agreed with was the author clearly does not trust the bible when it comes to the creation account, he believes in evolution and old earth. In the subject of objective vs relative truth, he has done his homework. But when it comes to creation and the the definition of the Hebrew word YOM or day. He has obviously only listened to hugh Ross He could go a long way of just removing the chapter on old vs young earth. Because he comes across as he never researched the evidence of a young earth. But for a book on objective truth I give it 5 stars it's still a definite amazing read. I loaned my copy to so many people that it's falling apart. And every person I lent it to has bought a copy for themselves.

There is no better popular level treatment on the topics of moral relativism and religious pluralism than this book. Each chapter's title is an objection in the form of a slogan we have all seen or heard at some point. I appreciate though that within each chapter, Copan addresses the strongest arguments offered by scholars in favor of that particular objection. For example, in part 3 of the book, Copan responds to the main arguments of John Hick, who is seen as one of the best defenders of religious pluralism. His rebuttal to Hick's arguments is not only deeply thought out, and fresh, but goes far beyond any other popular level treatment of Hick that I have read. Copan's arguments are accessible to the lay reader, and includes as with his other books a chapter summary that is very helpful. I have used the material in this book to teach my Sunday school class, and they loved it. I highly recommend you read it and share with others.

Paul Copan's "True for You, But Not for Me" is an excellent resource for those Christians who have often found themselves stymied by the responses of those who don't believe in absolute truth or the claims of Christianity. Dr. Copan systematically dismantles the positions of non-believers by presenting a typical argument and then analytically destroying its premise. Dr. Copan takes the reader through refutations of moral relativism, religious pluralism, and finally, arguments against Christianity itself. He tells the reader what to expect in the introduction when he writes: "As True for You, But Not for Me unfolds, you will notice one final underlying message - that many of the relativistic or pluralistic slogans we hear are, in fact, absolute or exclusive. After all, a relativist believes that absolutists are wrong. The religious pluralist believes that the exclusivist views of Christians are wrong. Their belief systems are no more `tolerant' or `broadminded' than the beliefs of the Christian who claims to possess the ultimate truth about God and the meaning of life." This is a great book for those who want to improve their Christian apologetics. It not only gives understanding to the Christian about what they're dealing with, but gives effective counter arguments to combat those who have not thought through their position completely.

This book is going to be very useful in the future with the advancement of new age spirituality/ moral relativism/ and religious pluralism etc. This books sheds light on these beliefs and their pleasant sounding but empty words, logical failures, inconsistencies, incoherence and superficiality.

Copan's book, at its core, is simply a defense of the Law of Non-Contradiction. Consider the dilemma implied by the book's title. Is the statement "all truth is relative" a relative truth? If it's RELATIVELY true, then the statement itself cannot be trusted, since it may be untrue. If it's ABSOLUTELY true, then it contradicts itself, in that it simultaneously asserts and denies that there is at least one absolute truth. In other words, if it's true, it's false; and if it's false, it's false. Or consider the relativistic religious statement, "all religons lead to God." This is a logical impossibility, since many of them assert that there is only one way to God. So either all exclusivistic religions are false, in which case they do NOT lead to God, or else one exclusivistic religion is true, in which case NO other religion leads to God. In either case, the premise is disproved. I have a few questions for the reviewers who downrated this book: Mormons, JWs and Catholics, as well as evangelical Christians, all assert "truths" that contradict some of the "truths" of the others. So they can't all be right, can they? Copan's logical scalpel cuts deep; you can't reject his logic simply because you don't like its implications. HOW is it invalid? Perhaps one of you could supply some examples of the "twisted logic" or "empty semantics" that demonstrate the "sheer lunacy of religion" or the book's lack of "heart". Rhetoric is empty unless backed up with specifics. It all goes to show that you can't fool Mother Logic. A great book!

Lots of valuable arguments here if you want to build a more solid understanding of why you believe what you believe. Although sometimes the explanations are a bit windy and dense, Copan’s arguments have strong substance and really digs into the nitty gritty.

Paul Copan delivers a masterful critique of relativism which makes it an essential read for any Christian living in the Western world where relativism dominates popular and academic thought. Copan does so by addressing a number of the popular slogans made popular by relativists and using logic and reason shows that it is a self-contradictory and indefensible view to hold. It is easy to read with short chapters and a brief summary of the main points at the end of each chapter which make it a great resource to refer back to when needed. There are also suggestions for further reading and detailed notes at the end of the book, it also looks good and would be a great resource especially for youth groups where it can be enlightening to demonstrate the bankruptcy of relativism. In short, buy it, give to a friend and ignore the one star reviews from people who appear not to have actually read the book.