Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller
I read my first Tim Keller book—Counterfeit Gods—back in November. It’s been a long time since I’ve been as convicted by a book as I was by that one; so when I finished it up, I decided I’d like to try another Keller book soon and settled on The Reason for God. I do occasionally have discussions with skeptics, after all, and I figured I could use some help.
Keller has written The Reason for God for both believers and skeptics. He wants all of us to examine why we believe the things we do. “Believers,” he writes, “should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts—not only their own but their friends’ and neighbors’.”
Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive.
The same thing goes for the skeptic. Skeptics, really, are just people who believe in “a set of alternate beliefs,” and it’s only right and fair that the skeptic question his own belief system in the same way that he questions the belief system of Christianity. I’d call The Reason for God a tool to help us all accomplish this by examining both the common objections to Christianity and the positive reasons for the Christian faith.
The first half of this book is taken up with various problems skeptics have with Christianity, drawing from Keller’s own real-life conversations with doubters. You’ve heard these objections before, too, I’m sure.
- There Can’t Be Just One True Religion
- How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
- Christianity Is a Straitjacket
- The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice
- How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?
- Science Has Disproved Christianity
- You Can’t Take the Bible Literally
How does Keller handle these? In a chapter for each, he points out where the objections are ill-conceived or based on questionable assumptions or come from the unrecognized bias of the objector. This is usually, I think, the best game plan in discussions with those who object to Christianity, and the discussions in The Reason for God are useful in giving us a basic pattern to follow. In a single book dealing with such a wide range of objections, we can’t expect to find everything we need to completely answer the objections of every single skeptic, but in this section of the book we are given good starting points and are pointed in the right direction.
The second section of the book builds the case for Christianity, giving us positive reasons to believe. Keller argues that there are clues that God exists; but more than that: Everyone of us already knows that God is there, something we prove when we live as if there is transcendent beauty and love and meaning and morality. Moreover, Christianity best explains what’s wrong with the world and with us, and gives the solution to it in the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection.
The last chapter—the epilogue—discusses how someone who has become interested in Christianity—who might want to put their faith in Christ—can proceed. How does one become a Christian? Here, Keller explains what it means to repent and believe in Christ. In addition, he stresses the importance of the new believer finding a church, and I’m pleased about that.
I didn’t always agree with the points Keller makes in The Reason for God. Sometimes he seems to give away too much to the skeptic—as in the case, for instance, of the history of Christian injustices—and sometimes he calls people true Christians that I wouldn’t and accepts things as true that I wouldn’t. This doesn’t diminish the book’s usefulness for a believer learning apologetic strategies, but it does mean that you will want to read it first before you decide to give it as a gift to your favorite doubter.
The best thing about The Reason for God is that Tim Keller has the heart of a pastor and the text show us his heart. As I read, it was obvious that he was writing to real people with real doubt and real barriers to faith, not just discussing ideas for the sake of intellectual exercise. He really does love the skeptics he writes for and that’s a wonderful thing. If you love unbelievers, too, I’m betting you’d find this worthwhile as you seek to help them overcome their intellectual barriers to Christianity.
- A quote from The Reason for God posted here a few months ago.
- The Reason for God at Monergism Books
- The Reason for God at Amazon