Between Heaven and Hell, Peter Kreeft, Three Stars

Entertaining but not as persuasive as Kreeft probably thought. Kreeft took advantage of the fact that President John F. Kennedy and authors C.S.Lewis and Aldous Huxleydied within hours of each other to set up a sort of Socratic dialogue between them in the hereafter. Kreeft has C.S. Lewis using logic and deduction to make supposedly irrefutable arguments, and many of them are, but any chink in such a chain ruins the whole thing. For instance, when C.S. Lewis insists that Jesus is a type of guru, there is nothing inevitable about JFK or Huxley accepting that characterization, nor is there an empirical standard for such things. Therefore Kreeft's rendering of the "crazy, evil, or Son of God" argument actually weakens it in comparison to other tellings, especially because his defense against "Jesus didn't really say that" is also weaker than some others. Kreeft clearly enjoys setting up and employing Socratic dialogue, and no doubt such a format can clarify otherwise abstract arguments. As entertainment or explanation, this works fine. As persuasion, this book is a non-starter. It's definitely not one of Kreeft's stronger works, but still worth reading if the subject interests you.