Peter Kreeft

I've given thousands of lectures around the country to engaged, thoughtful, curious university and church audiences and have always made it a practice to allow for as many questions as possible. Here are the most interesting ones I've been asked, and the answers I gave.

Of course, as real questions from real people, they're an eclectic mix, ranging from questions about God and sex and sin and suffering to those about heaven, my favorite movies, even surfing! Some of the questions and answers are easy, some hard; some profound, some silly; some tragic, some funny; most of them thought-provoking and all of them, I hope, entertaining.

Join me now as I answer scores of questions I've been asked over the decades, including the following:

Kreeft provides thoughtful, lucid, and persuasive answers for believers, unbelievers, and seekers to consider. As always, Kreeft is insightful, inspiring, and entertaining. This book is ideal for those exploring faith for the first time, as well as for confirmation and religious education classes. It's an intellectual and spiritual feast! This is vintage Kreeft.

The good news of the Gospel is as exciting as a murder mystery. For at its heart there is a murder: the murder of God two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. And this God is the greatest of mysteries: who He is and why He put us here, and why He came here and what His plans are for us. The story is literally a matter of life or death - eternal life or death.
-- Peter Kreeft

Be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you.
-- 1 Peter 3:15

What would happen if Christians and a Muslim at a university talked and disagreed, but really tried to understand each other? What would they learn?
That is the intriguing question Peter Kreeft seeks to answer in these imaginative conversations at Boston College. An articulate and engaging Muslim student named 'Isa challenges the Christian students and professors he meets on issues ranging from prayer and worship to evolution and abortion, from war and politics to the nature of spiritual struggle and spiritual submission.
While Kreeft believes Christians should not learn extremism or unitarian theology from Muslims, he does believe that if we really listened we could learn much about devoted religious practice and ethics.
Here is a book to open your understanding of one of the key forces shaping our world today. It's a book that just could make you a better Christian.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."-- Hamlet

After William Shakespeare's Horatio sees the ghost of Hamlet's father, and scarcely believes his own eyes, Hamlet tells him that there is more to reality than he can know or imagine, including ghosts.

Hamlet's statement suggests that the walls of the material world, which we perceive with our senses and analyze with our intellects, have doors that open into the More beyond them. Philosopher Peter Kreeft explains in this book that the More includes "The Absolute Good, Platonic Forms, God, gods, angels, spirits, ghosts, souls, Brahman, Rta (the Hindu ontological basis for cosmological karma), Nirvana, Tao, 'the will of Heaven', The Meaning of It All, Something that deserves a capital letter."

With razor-sharp reasoning and irrepressible joy, Kreeft helps us to find the doors in the walls of the world. Drawing on history, physical science, psychology, religion, philosophy, literature, and art, he invites us to welcome what lies on the other side so that we can begin living the life of Heaven in the here and now.

My title explains itself.

But it's misleading.

There are more than 40 reasons.

In fact, there are at least ten to the 82nd power, which, I am told, is the number of atoms in the universe. And that's just in ordinary matter, which makes up only 4.9% of the universe, the rest being dark matter and dark energy.

Each of my reasons is an independent point, so I have not organized this book by a succession of chapters or headings. After all, most readers only remember a few big ideas or separate points after reading a book. (I've never heard anyone say "Oh, that was a good continuous-process-of-logically-ordered-argumentation" but I've often heard people say, "Oh, that was a good point."

Which takes me back to my main point: "Why are you a Catholic?" is a good question.

A good question deserves a good answer.

Here are forty of mine.

Posing the hard questions about love that rankle the heart, Peter Kreeft never settles for easy answers. He exposes today's superficial attitudes about love to lead people to a deeper understanding of what it means to be loved by God, addressing these issues and many more.

An expanded, Catholic edition of the popular book Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is full of the wisdom and wit, clarity and insight of philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. This is an informative and valuable guidebook for anyone looking for answers to questions of faith and reason. Whether you are asking the questions yourself or want to respond to others who are, here is the resource you have been waiting for.

The battle lines have been drawn. Many Christians have fallen into the trap of proclaiming Peace! Peace! when there is no peace. Hiding their eyes from the pressing issues of the day, they believe that resistance to the prevailing culture is useless. At the same time, other Christians have been too quick to declare war, mistaking battlefield casualties as enemies rather than victims. In How to Win the Culture War Peter Kreeft issues a rousing call to arms. Christians must understand the true nature of the culture war--a war between the culture of life and the culture of death. Kreeft identifies the real enemies facing the church today and maps out key battlefields. He then issues a strategy for engagement and equips Christians with the weapons needed for a successful campaign. Above all, Kreeft assures us that the war can be won--in fact, it will be won. For those who hope in Christ, victory is assured, because good triumphs over evil and life conquers death. Love never gives up. Neither must we.

In this unusual book on the Gospel of Mark, the brilliant and prolific Peter Kreeft presents 252 contemporary questions that modern man asks about every aspect of the meaning of life, faith, love, suffering, friendship, death, eternity, God, Jesus and more.

He then gives an answer to each question taken directly from Mark's Gospel, which are always pointed and often suprising, and makes us ponder more deeply about the meaning of the Scripture passage in relation to our own lives. Kreeft says that Mark's Gospel is "the quickest and 'busiest' of the four - the Gospel for Americans." He describes the book as "a series of sudden shocks and surprises because that is how Jesus appeared to Mark and others who followed him - full of shocks and surprises."

Kreeft's goal of this book is for us to allow Jesus to speak more directly to us, to answer our questions in a personal and profound way, so that we will learn more about ourselves, and about Him. And thus how to know, love and follow Him more closely in our lives.

To learn more about J.R.R. Tolkien visit

Wh ile nothing can equal or replace the adventure in reading Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, Peter Kreeft says that the journey into its underlying philosophy can be another exhilarating adventure.
Thus, Kreeft takes the reader on a voyage of discovery into the philosophical bones of Middle earth. He organizes the philosophical themes in The Lord of the Rings into 50 categories, accompanied by over 1,000 references to the text of Lord.Since many of the great questions of philosophy are included in the 50-theme outline, this book can also be read as an engaging introduction to philosophy. For each of the philosophical topics in Lord, Kreeft presents tools by which they can be understood. Illustrated.

Saint Thomas Aquinas has been admired throughout the ages for his philosophical brilliance and his theological sanity, but author and professor Peter Kreeft thinks the practical spiritual wisdom of Aquinas is just as amazing.

In this book, Kreeft brings together 358 useful, everyday insights from Aquinas' masterpiece the Summa Theologiae. He pairs these easily digestible quotes from the Summa with his own delightfully written commentary in order to answer the kinds of questions real people ask their spiritual directors. These 358 passages from the Summa have helped Kreeft in his own struggles to grow closer to the Lord. His practical, personal, and livable advice is the fruit of his labors to apply the insights of Aquinas to his own quest for sanctity, happiness, and union with God.

Written in a practical, yet inspirational manner, this book addresses important areas like: finding the time to pray, praying when you don't feel like it, using the prayer book God wrote, how to overcome sin through contemplation, and how to see God everywhere. Kreeft communicates a vision for prayer that becomes a profound conversation with the God who created, redeemed and sustains us--a conversation that is the most important experience in human life.

Prayer: The Great Conversation will benefit anyone who finds it hard to pray or to read books about prayer. Kreeft's stimulating insights and ecumenical, "mere Christianity" approach make this a unique book about prayer that should appeal to Christians of all denominations.