The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism – Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics and non-believers bring to religion. Using literature, philosophy, anthropology, pop culture, and intellectual reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God is, in fact, a sound and rational one. To true believers he offers a solid platform on which to stand against the backlash toward religion spawned by the Age of Skepticism. And to skeptics, atheists, and agnostics he provides a challenging argument for pursuing the reason for God.
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Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God” is a book that may seem only apologetic in nature at first, but is so much more. While the first half of the book does address many common questions and issues posed by non-Christians, it was the second half of the book that really ministered to me, where Keller discusses key Christian concepts that I’ve found myself taking for granted in my short time of being a Christian. For example, what does it really mean that “God is love?” Sure, it’s a neat quote that sounds nice and is often used to describe him, but Keller dives into this topic and so much more. While the first half of the book equipped me with apologetics knowledge, the second half was the highlight experience of reading “The Reason for God.” It definitely goes to show that while someone can have all the head knowledge in the world of the tough apologetics questions, the issues of grace, sin, love and the cross go way beyond just knowing information.
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2nd time reading through this book. Something I enjoyed in this book is how Keller unites the common objections and doubts Christianity, along with the evidence for the faith, to communicate the power of the message displayed on the cross. Through Keller’s reasoning, his ways of relating to differing beliefs, and his own conversations, Keller provides a nice model of engaging with skeptics and our culture. As Chris Liu mentioned above, what I appreciate about The Reason for God is that it is a book that is far more than an apologetic resource, as Keller elaborates and describes in detail about the nature of God in addition to Christian life.
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Even though I believe in God and his teachings, I have always some concerns that seemed to discourage me from actively participating. I encountered many of my concerns in “The Reason for God” but his rebuttal/explainations have helped me cast my doubts. In particular, I was drawn to a section titled “Freedom is not Simple.” It talked about how limiting freedom was actually liberating in some ways. For me, this was a concept that I spent a lot of time thinking about and I even discussed it with my siblings. It seemed so contradictory and so wrong but I could not deny that Keller’s logic made sense. I see myself as ambitious (in many aspects of my life) and I have always feared that being Christian would limit me because I always feared that God’s plan for me could be totally contradictory to what I wanted. Somehow, I felt some type of distrust towards God but I did not consider how God wants the best for me and He knows me better than anyone else. Keller explains it with an example of a fish. A fish’s freedom is restricted by water but it would not be able to survive on land. In this way, its constraint allows for the fish to survive–thrive even. In the same way, I should see God way of living as a way for me to receive true moral and spiritual growth. In the end, this is the most fulfilling part of life.
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