The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism | 
 enlarge | Author: Timothy Keller
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  85 reviews
Sales Rank: 85
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0525950494
Dewey Decimal Number: 239
EAN: 9780525950493
ASIN: 0525950494
Publication Date: February 14, 2008
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Product Description
The End of Faith. The God Delusion. God Is Not Great. Letter to a Christian Nation. Bestseller lists are filled with doubters. But what happens when you actually doubt your doubts?
Although a vocal minority continues to attack the Christian faith, for most Americans, faith is a large part of their lives: 86 percent of Americans refer to themselves as religious, and 75 percent of all Americans consider themselves Christians. So how should they respond to these passionate, learned, and persuasive books that promote science and secularism over religion and faith? For years, Tim Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced doubts skeptics bring to his Manhattan church. And in The Reason for God, he single-handedly dismantles each of them. Written with atheists, agnostics, and skeptics in mind, Keller also provides an intelligent platform on which true believers can stand their ground when bombarded by the backlash. The Reason for God challenges such ideology at its core and points to the true path and purpose of Christianity.
Why is there suffering in the world? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Why isnt Christianity more inclusive? Shouldnt the Christian God be a god of love? How can one religion be right and the rest wrong? Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God? These are just a few of the questions even ardent believers wrestle with today. In this book, Tim Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations and reasoning, and even pop culture to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 80 more reviews...
 Airbrushed Reason for Unsophisticated Faith July 8, 2008
2 out of 8 found this review helpful
I suppose if you already have "The Truth" in your back pocket, it wouldn't hurt to read this book. I have seventeen pages of gripes against this book, but I'll try to keep this short. The very premise of the book is flawed, because reason and faith have nothing to do with each other. Faith - no matter what idiosyncratic ideas we use to define it - is, fundamentally, to believe something to be true without having or needing a verifiable reason. Religious faith is not based simply on whether something has been or can be proven by empirical means; having faith means that proof or the lack thereof has no bearing on the validity of the belief itself. Yes, you can find reason for a belief in a Christian god, but your belief is not contingent on reason, but rather on faith - what is doctrinally considered a higher virtue. Faith trumps all. Reason doesn't support faith any more than wheels make a plane fly(The Wright brothers made bicycles and indeed used wheels to get their planes off the ground, but they didn't make history with landing gear, as that was apparently beside the point). The biggest error Keller makes is assuming that beliefs based on faith are on a level playing field with beliefs based on reason. There is a very important distinction between the two, but Keller glazes over it under the assumption that a majority of his readers won't notice. Unfortunately, it's probably a safe assumption.
Secondly, Keller poses counterarguments against several atheist authors (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris) that are dubious in that, having actually read books by these authors, it leaves me wondering if Keller bothered reading any of their material. He offers simplistic, uninformed rebuttals to the scrupulous arguments posed by these authors, which leads me to think he probably just cherry-picked a few quotes for his own purposes. If you really want to learn something about skepticism and reason, read books by the authors Keller attempts to rebuff; as long as you're willing to read "The Reason for Faith" to satisfy your intellect, why not read something that's actually is intellectually satisfying. If Keller doesn't completely fail at this objective, one can easily see that he's not the best at it, so why waste your time.
It's also a bit annoying how Keller seems to refer to C.S Lewis a little too often, apparently valuing the clever wit of a popular Christian writer over real, substantive arguments. The problem, of course, is not with C.S Lewis, but with Timothy Keller's habit of cherry-picking quotes here and there, turning brilliance into mere novelty.
 Is there really a Reason? July 6, 2008
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
The Rev. Tim Keller offers up a number of "war horse" arguments for his particular belief system, namely, a fairly standard variety of Christianity, and attempts to deliver them in an apparently even-handed, apparently tolerant fashion. Unfortunately, he seems to be what is known in the 'trade' as a 'True Believer', and so has a hard time actually finding the opposing views to be credible.
His chapters all start off with quotes from persons who he represents as 'skeptics' of one sort or another, none of whom seem to be the 'cream of the crop', as their views often lack much depth, or else are what I would consider narrow quibbles with some particular contention about God and/or Christ and/or Bible stories. It's possible that these are all people who have attended his church, or maybe he has met, personally, in the course of his work as preacher. So, maybe it is less than fair to expect these people to have deep, analytical, robust, and difficult challenges to the tenets of Christianity. Rather, the contrary views expressed seem to be the kind of run-of-the-mill, garden variety doubts that most Christians have probably considered at one time or another, in the course of their church-going lives. You're not going to find the kind of hardened skepticism exemplified by Dawkins or Harris, and hence, you are not going to find adequate refutations of such views, either--if that is what you were hoping for.
I imagine that a lot of Bible-believing Christians will find Keller's arguments to be more arrows in their quivers, when it comes time to assault the non-believers with their prosyletizations. Unfortunately for them, the Atheists they aim for are likely to have already been through similar battles, and will have adequate defensive armor, stout enough to repel such dull, weakly-delivered barbs. It may be that a very few mild agnostics will succumb to such tactics, but I would think that such folk were mostly there, already.
In any event, if you are a mildly logical, thoughtful skeptic, you will find these arguments quite easy to poke all kinds of holes in. On one page alone (p23), I was able to give 4 different analyses, each of which independently constituted a refutation of his claim that "Evil and Suffering isn't Evidence Against God", IMHO. I wrote him a letter to that effect around a week ago, but have yet to hear any counter argument. I presume I am not the sort of skeptic he would have started off a chapter by quoting. (Maybe he is getting a lot of this kind of mail? I hear the book is doing rather well on the sales front. More power to him! I'll assume that, one day, he'll get back to me. "First come, first serve" is fair, I suppose.)
One last observation: Anyone who is interpreting the title in a literal way--that is, looking for an ontological explanation as to why God exists, in the first place (assuming He does exist, which isn't demonstrated in this book)--is just not looking in the right place. Tim Keller simply assumes God does exist, and tries to offer up reasons to believe. So much for truth in packaging!
Stands to reason... July 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
If somebody had to write this book, I'm glad it was Tim Keller. So many evangelicals who tackle this debate do so very condescendingly and without actually answering many of the questions posed by atheists, but rather by throwing out maxims and propositions. Now, I'm not opposed to maxims and propositions, but they have to be given within reason.
I think this book should really serve as a primer for the discussion rather than a closing argument. In just over three hundred pages, Keller is only able to touch the tip of the iceberg concerning each argument both for and against faith in God. I would love to see many others pick up these subjects where Keller left off and continue the conversation.
The best part of the book, in my opinion, was the first half, where Keller tackles various objections to the Christian faith. I have noticed throughout my life that the most volatile and ungracious debaters are often not on the Christian side. While atheists would claim to be more gracious and reasonable, there seems to be a blind arrogance to many atheist arguments. I'm glad Keller addressed that the way that he did. I also personally find it interesting that many atheists go out of their way to disprove something they don't believe in. They spend their time fighting what is, in their mind, nonexistent. I find the fact that so many atheists are haunted by even the notion of God to be fascinating.
All in all, a very good read, but I wouldn't treat it as the final word.
 Excellent June 30, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Dr. Keller distills logic, common sense and historical proofs into a book that will be viewed as a masterpiece of early 21st Century writing.
Similar to CS Lewis, he provides clear arguments for both sides and, in keeping with a basic tenet of Christianity, leads the reader to a clear choice--that they either freely accept or reject the scriptures.
If you are an atheist, agnostic, Christian, deist, or practice another religion, it will make you think about the radical claims of Christ. He addresses the difficult "claims" of Christianity" and provides answers to those questions many struggle with. If you dont want to address difficult questions in your life, dont read this book. If you want a challenge, read the book.
An Excellent, Comprehensive Overview of the Christian Faith June 28, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Let's consider issues generally not developed by previous reviewers. Also, it's incorrect to fault Keller for providing answers instead of raising more profound questions, as Jesus sometimes did. Note that, when the Pharisees asked Him which of seven successive husbands would be married to the woman after death, Christ didn't ask any deeper question. He plainly told them that they were wrong, and why they were wrong, in their conception of the afterlife.
"Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself. It holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more enlightened than the beliefs of most major religions." (p. 8)
A common theme throughout Keller's book is how cultural expectations shape out attitudes. For instance, we find God's unilateral forgiveness attractive and hell offensive. In other cultures, it's the exact opposite. (p. 72) The anti-abolitionists who cited Ephesians 6:5 as justification for 19th-century chattel slavery didn't realize that it was incomparably more severe than the indentured servanthood which Paul had in mind. (pp. 109-111, 266-267) We learn that magic was uncommon in the middle ages; it didn't peak until the 16th-17th centuries--at the same time that modern science got started (p. 70)
The early-church-made-everything-up assertion is contrary to reality. The New Testament mentions unflattering things such as Peter's denials, the disciples' jealousies, etc.--the exact opposite of writings designed to promote and popularize a new religion. (pp. 104-105) Furthermore, we now realize that the ancients were very careful to separate fictional and factual writings (p. 204). Also, Jewish thinking anticipated a final resurrection of many people, not just One (p. 207). 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 was written soon after Christ's Resurrection, and it would've been self-defeating and self-refuting to mention 500 witnesses to the Resurrected Christ if such witnesses didn't exist. (pp. 203-204) Pointedly, "'Jewish revolutionaries whose leader had been executed by the authorities, and who managed to escape arrest themselves, had two options; give up the revolution, or find another leader. Claiming that the original leader was alive again was simply not an option. Unless, of course, he was.'" (p. 208) Finally, Gnosticism couldn't possibly be an "alternative Christianity" because the earliest Gnostic gospel wasn't written until at least a century after the four canonical ones. (pp. 102-103)
Keller cites many examples of Christian-led social reform. For instance: "In the late twentieth century the Catholic church in eastern Europe refused to die under Communism. Through `patience, candles, and crosses' it began the chain of events that brought down all those totalitarian regimes. The Polish priest Jerzy Popieluszko...When he was murdered by the secret police, 250,000 people came to his funeral...Many of those who went to his funeral marched past the secret police headquarters with a banner that read `We forgive'. The Christian underpinnings of the resistance movement were unmistakable." (p. 65).
The essence of the Christian faith is: "God did not, then, inflict pain on someone else, but rather on the Cross absorbed the pain, violence, and evil of the world unto Himself." (p. 192)
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