The Reason for God by Tim Keller

I want to begin a series of posts interacting with Tim Keller’s book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. I want to do this for two reasons. First, I love apologetics, and this promises to be a very interesting read. Second, Keller is PCA and his book is now on the New York Times bestseller list, I believe, around number twenty. This is pretty rare in our day and age, and so I thought I’d take the time to offer some thoughts on the book. I’ll begin in this post with the introduction.

Keller begins the book by debunking the myth that skepticism is on the rise and faith is on the decline. Though it may seem from our limited perspective that faith is declining, Keller point outs, globally Christianity seems to be on the rise. One need only look at countries like Africa, and China. What is happening, Keller points out, is not a world in which faith is declining, but a world which is polarizing over religion. It is getting both more and less religious at the same time.

From here Keller recounts his own upbringing in both liberal and conservative churches in which he himself was faced with the opposing views of each camp. One in which the center was a call to political activism and a criticizing of everything wealthy, the other which emphasized the traditional tenets of the Christian faith. Looking back on it, Keller realized that as he struggled between these two views there were three barriers which laid across his path. First, there was the intellectual barrier; second, there was the personal barrier; third there was the social barrier. The intellectual barrier involved myriads of questions about Christianity and its relation to other religions, questions about evil and suffering and judgment. The personal barrier involved his actual experience of God’s presence in which he came to grips with his own, “needs flaws and problems” (pg. xiii). The social barrier involved Keller’s need to find what he called a third camp, christians who grounded their faith in the nature of God rather than subjective feelings, but also had a concern for justice in the world, love for their neighbor, etc. These barriers eventually came down and in the 1980’s Keller found himself moving to Manhattan, seeking to accomplish what most people said was impossible–planting a conservative Christian church in downtown NYC. Now Keller’s church has over 5,000 attenders, has spawned more than a dozen daughter congregations and is impacting New York in a way nobody imagined.

Keller then moves on to say that it is when we recognize that both religious belief and skepticism are on the rise that we will be able to make any progress with one another. He then adds that something more is required. Both believers and skeptics must look at doubt in a radically new way. Believers must admit that they have doubts, wrestle with those doubts, and seek resolution to them. In that process, they should also put themselves into the shoes of their friends and neighbors so they might understand their neighbor’s and friend’s struggle with faith.

But looking for reasons behind their faith is not only the job of believers, but skeptics/unbelievers as well. They too must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their beliefs and reasoning. All doubts, Keller rightly points out, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs and come from a type of faith in one’s worldview. Keller rightly points out that comments like, “I can’t accept the existence of moral absolutes which Christianity” are statements that cannot be proved to someone who doesn’t share it.  They are leaps of faith.

Keller then goes on to lay out what he hopes to accomplish in the book, which is “review the seven biggest objections and doubts about Christianity.  I will respectfully discern the alternate beliefs beneath each of them.  Then in the second half of the book we will examine the reasons underlying Christian beliefs.”

There is a lot to commend Keller’s introduction.  He comes out of the gate with a fury, seeking to unmask the “faith” that is involved in many statements made by skeptics, and urge them to become epistemologically self-conscious.  He encourages mutual respect and dialogue between believers and unbelievers, which is certainly in line with Christian love and humility.

With these things said, I believe a word of caution is in order about Keller’s call to look at doubt in a radical way.  Although we are called to deal with out doubts, and even admit them, doubt is not a virtue.  It is not something we should wear as a badge of humility, and the Scriptures do not commend to us an attitude of doubt.  It might be tempting to think that doubt might make Christians more “accessible” to unbelievers and display humility, but doubt in the Creator of the world is not something that is to be commended or encouraged.  It is a reality that we must grapple with in our sinful world, not a character trait to be emulated.  I’m not saying that Keller believes that doubt is a virtue, but there is certainly nothing wrong with boldly asserting the truth of Christianity and the foolishness of unbelief.