The Reason For God
Belief in an Age of Skepticism
By Timothy Keller
How could a loving God send people to hell? Why does he allow suffering? Can one religion be “right” and the others “wrong”? Responding to the questions of open skeptics and ardent believers, Keller draws from literature, philosophy, reason, and real-life conversations to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief.
In this apologia for Christian faith, Keller mines material from literary classics, philosophy, anthropology and a multitude of other disciplines to make an intellectually compelling case for God. Written for skeptics and the believers who love them, the book draws on the author’s encounters as founding pastor of New York’s booming Redeemer Presbyterian Church. One of Keller’s most provocative arguments is that all doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. Drawing on sources as diverse as 19th-century author Robert Louis Stevenson and contemporary New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, Keller attempts to deconstruct everyone he finds in his way, from the evolutionary psychologist Richard Dawkins to popular author Dan Brown. The first, shorter part of the book looks at popular arguments against God’s existence, while the second builds on general arguments for God to culminate in a sharp focus on the redemptive work of God in Christ. Keller’s condensed summaries of arguments for and against theism make the scope of the book overwhelming at times. Nonetheless, it should serve both as testimony to the author’s encyclopedic learning and as a compelling overview of the current debate on faith for those who doubt and for those who want to re-evaluate what they believe, and why.
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Reviews
The Reason for God
I think that this really an incredibly well written book. Tim Kellar tackles the questions that plaque most non-Christians, seekers and even many of the faithful. You do NOT need to read the whole book. In fact, it works very well as a resource. Each of the chapters can be handled individually. I highly recommend this book as a conversation starter.
Come in, check out the book, make copies of one chapter, hand them out and get ready for some seriously intense conversation!
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About the Author
Timothy Keller
Keller was raised in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Bucknell University (B.A., 1972), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1975), and Westminster Theological Seminary, where he received his D.Min in 1981. He became a Christian at university due to the ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, with which he later served as a staff member. He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and served as a pastor in Virginia for nine years, while also serving as director of church planting for the PCA. He also served on the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he and his wife Kathy were involved in urban ministry, and he continues as an adjunct professor of practical theology. Keller lives on Roosevelt Island in New York City with his wife, Kathy. They have three sons, David, Michael, and Jonathan.
Keller was asked by the PCA to start Redeemer in 1989 despite his relative lack of experience and after two others had turned down the position. The church grew from 50 people to total attendance of over 5,000 people each Sunday as of early 2008, leading many to call him “the most successful Christian Evangelist in the city.” His target audience consists mainly of urban professionals, whom he believes exhibit disproportionate influence over the culture and its ideas,[6] and in his preaching, “he hardly shrinks from difficult Christian truths, [but] he sounds different from many of the shrill evangelical voices in the public sphere.” Indeed, he shuns the label “evangelical” because of its political and fundamentalist connotation, preferring to call himself simply orthodox because “he believes in the importance of personal conversion or being ‘born again,’ and the full authority of the Bible.”
Redeemer started a church planting center in 2001 and has helped start over 100 churches of various denominations in the New York City area and around the world, and The New York Times reports that “pastors from around the world are beginning to come in a steady stream to New York City to glean what they can from Dr. Keller and Redeemer.” Keller, once the director of his denomination’s mercy ministries, has always emphasized Christian service and charity, both in his own church’s members and in those the center trains to plant urban churches.
Redeemer, according to Christianity Today, is “one of Manhattan’s most vital congregations, even includning a vibrant outreach to the NYC transit system’s ‘mole people’” and, according to a 2006 survey of 2000 American church leaders, is the sixteenth most influential church in America.[8]
Keller’s book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism was named Book of the Year for 2008 by World Magazine, a conservative evangelical news magazine. It rose as high as #7 on the New York Times Non-Fiction Best-Seller list in March of 2008.