Why did God create humanity? Which is it? In 1968, this was heady stuff. We have neither the Western Christendom of the past nor the secular, religionless society that was predicted for the future. I want to make a proposal that I have seen bear much fruit in the lives of young New Yorkers over the years. “Don’t tell people they have to believe in Jesus—that’s considered narrow-minded here.” They were incredulous when I explained that the beliefs of the new church would be the orthodox, historic tenets of Christianity—the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the necessity of spiritual regeneration (the new birth)—all doctrines considered hopelessly dated by the majority of New Yorkers. But my experience as a pastor in New York has given me another incentive to write this volume. Keller's writing is lucid and accessible, and uses arguments which are intellectually convincing. It was almost like being instructed in two different religions. Helps me see things in a different light. What follows are several of these axioms and the problems with each. So much to read, digest and think about. Which Rationality? How could a good god allow suffering: A good human would attempt to elevate unnecessary suffering of other humans. There are more Presbyterians in Ghana than in the United States and Scotland combined. Tim Keller's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (TRG, hereafter) is the result of the many questions about God and Christianity pastor Keller has received over the years during his time at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York. One student insisted that what mattered was to believe in God and to be a loving person yourself. When I found that “band of brothers”—and sisters ( just as important! Liberate the oppressed and sleep with who you wanted! A nice book with compelling information and philosophical arguments, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2017. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2018. But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. In many religions God is also conceived as perfect, all-powerful and all-knowing, and the source and ultimate ground of morality. Church most of all meant belief, but Manhattan was the land of skeptics, critics, and cynics. But I kept asking the question, “If morality is relative, why isn’t social justice as well?” This seemed to be a blatant inconsistency in my professors and their followers. This required not so much knowledge of techniques for prayer, but a process in which I came to grips with my own needs, flaws, and problems. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2018. This leads to a strange conclusion. Those who deviate from them are stigmatized as foolish or dangerous. But robust religious beliefs dominate the world. The speaker is betting his or her life that no God exists who would hold you accountable for your beliefs and behavior if you didn’t feel the need for him. TWO. The conversation was courteous, intelligent, and respectful in tone. Surely that should lead to self-examination. Thus whoever doesn’t believe is denounced as an enemy of the truth. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and Cornelius Van Til’s Why I Believe in God, rather than being an apologetics textbook, The Reason for God presents as a conversation piece for Christians and unbelievers. All major religions1 and cultic groups2 reject the doctrine of deity of Christ. One survey showed that in the last several years more than a hundred churches had been started in New York City by Christians from Africa alone. Yet now I saw the stark contradiction in the traditional churches. It may surprise you that though I am a Christian minister I agree with this. Something went wrong. Couldn’t we find ways to urge all of our citizens, whatever their religious beliefs, to admit that each religion or faith is just one of many equally valid paths to God and ways to live in the world? It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Arguments depend on having commonly held reference points that both sides can hold each other to. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. The history and philosophy departments were socially radicalized and were heavily influenced by the neo-Marxist critical theory of the Frankfurt School. The main body of the book is broken up into two main parts—Part 1: The Leap of Doubt, and Part 2: The Reasons for Faith. Timothy Keller 10 THE REASON FOR GOD spiritual claims are the product of our par tic u lar historical and cultural moment, and therefore no one should claim they can know the Truth, since no one can judge whether one assertion about spiritual and moral reality is truer than another.” We have something else entirely. Finally they were not only convinced of Christianity’s intellectual credibility, but were attracted by its vision for life. In this book, Timothy Keller answers objections to Christianity, and in doing so demonstrates the reasonableness of the Christian faith. Soon, however, he became somewhat jealous of his Christian friends’ joy and hope for the future that he had not encountered before. If there are half a billion Chinese Christians fifty years from now, that will change the course of human history.6 In most cases, the Christianity that is growing is not the more secularized, belief-thin versions predicted by the sociologists. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2018. Christianity is a straightjacket: This section does not apply to me. It would take another, different kind of book to go into them. What's more, Timothy Keller has "field tested" many, if not most, of these arguments through interactions and conversations with one of the most savvy, skeptical groups of people in the world: New Yorkers. [‘The Reason for God’] should serve both as a testimony of 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 reevaluate what they believe and why. Religion, it was thought, would thin out from its more robust, supernaturalist forms or die out altogether. The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. She became so obsessed with her physical image that she developed eating disorders and substance addictions. The first barrier was an intellectual one. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. But can’t we—via education and argument—find ways to socially discourage religions that claim to have “the truth” and that try to convert others to their beliefs? He embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ. Progressives cry out that fundamentalism is growing rapidly and nonbelief is stigmatized. We have an impasse between the strengthening forces of doubt and belief, and this won’t be solved simply by calling for more civility and dialogue. But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. Since we all worship, we should question the reason for this desire. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. The new, fast-spreading multiethnic orthodox Christianity in the cities is much more concerned about the poor and social justice than Republicans have been, and at the same time much more concerned about upholding classic Christian moral and sexual ethics than Democrats have been. Introduction. He was a social activist and was filled with deep doubts about traditional Christian doctrine. Liberals’ individualism comes out in their views of abortion, sex, and marriage. Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2018. Is skepticism or faith on the ascendancy in the world today? Which is it? No one can prove it empirically, and it is not a universal truth that everyone accepts. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. Their pilgrimage toward faith was slow and painstaking. But at the same time, robust, orthodox belief in the traditional faiths is growing as well. In the fall of 2006 The Economist ran a story with the subtitle “Christianity is collapsing everywhere but London.” The crux of the article was that despite the fact that church attendance and profession of the Christian faith was plummeting across Britain and Europe, many young professionals (and new immigrants) in London were flocking to evangelical churches.8 That is exactly what I’ve seen here. “Religion has led to untold strife, division, and conflict. We have neither the Western Christendom of the past nor the secular, religionless society that was predicted for the future. It holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more enlightened than the beliefs of most major religions. Among the summaries and analysis available for The Reason for God Belief in an Age of Skepticism , there are 1 Full Study Guide and 1 Book Review. Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations and reasoning to explain how faith in a Christian God is soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth. Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself. The rest of this book is a distillation of the many conversations I’ve had with doubters over the years. Rather they were intertwined and dependent on one another. If we stopped saying such things to ourselves it might make everyone more civil and generous toward opposing views. How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell? That achieves civility in a pluralistic society, which is no small thing. “It’s arrogant to say your religion is superior and try to convert everyone else to it. Many see both sides in the “culture war” making individual freedom and personal happiness the ultimate value rather than God and the common good. Because of a variety of physical ailments from his youth, he took up the practice of Chinese healing arts, along with Taoist and Buddhist meditation, and became extremely focused on physical wellness. In reality, suffering happens for many reasons and we humans must simply deal with it. In another incident, Jesus meets a man who confesses that he is filled with doubts (Mark 9:24), who says to Jesus, “Help thou my unbelief”—help me with my doubts! This happens when each side has learned to represent the other’s argument in its strongest and most positive form. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller (New York, NY: Dutton; 2008) 240 pp. “How could there be just one true faith?” asked Blair, a twenty-four-year-old woman living in Manhattan. In short, the world is polarizing over religion. Respectful dialogue between entrenched traditional conservative and secular liberal people is a great good, and I hope this book will promote it. Atheist author Sam Harris and Religious Right leader Pat Robertson should each admit the fact that his particular tribe is strong and increasing in influence. Nevertheless, we launched Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and by the end of 2007 it had grown to more than 5,000 attendees and had spawned more than a dozen daughter congregations in the immediate metropolitan area. But among the increasingly multiethnic younger professionals and the working-class immigrants there was a lush, category-defying variety of strong religious beliefs. He was quite traditional and conservative, speaking often of the danger of hell and the need for great faith. Conservatives’ individualism comes out in their deep distrust of the public sector and in their understanding of poverty as simply a failure of personal responsibility. What about evil and suffering? I did not work through them in any methodical way. A book by Keller after The Reason for God, described by him as a prequel to it, is Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical (2016). That left the sophisticated and hip, the wealthy and the poor. Let’s begin with believers. In both my preaching and personal interactions I’ve tried to respectfully help skeptics look at their own faith-foundations while at the same time laying bare my own to their strongest criticisms. In the first year, we stood before a holy, just God whose wrath could only be turned aside at great effort and cost. 2. Table of Contents. Nothing like that is imminently possible. I found questions that I had long pondered answered and my faith in God deepened. It’s only in hindsight that I see how the three factors worked together. Something more is now required. Older white people who ran the cultural business of the city definitely were quite secular. Liberate the oppressed and sleep with who you wanted! Keller writes in a smooth, conversational tone. Buddhism doesn’t believe in a personal God at all. In another incident, Jesus meets a man who confesses that he is filled with doubts (Mark 9:24), who says to Jesus, “Help thou my unbelief”—help me with my doubts! In it Rev Dr Keller from Manhattan skillfully addresses some of the major obstacles to Christian faith, then presents some reasons, both philosophical (‘clues’) and historical, for trusting in Christ. The speaker is betting his or her life that no God exists who would hold you accountable for your beliefs and behavior if you didn’t feel the need for him. The main question I wanted to ask our instructors was, “Which one of you is lying?” But fourteen-year-olds are not so bold, and I just kept my mouth shut. Unlike the first strategy, this approach to the divisiveness of religion is having some effect. DURING my nearly two decades in New York City, I’ve had numerous opportunities to ask people, “What is your biggest problem with Christianity? In response to this honest admission, Jesus blesses him and heals his son. The result will exceed anything you can imagine. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. In 1968, this was heady stuff. For several years this strengthened what could be called the “Hellfire Layer” of my religious formation, although the pastor and people there were personally as gentle as could be. Only then is it safe and fair to disagree with it. 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. Jeffrey was a New York City musician, raised in a conservative Jewish home. As a twelve-year-old, Kelly watched her grandfather die of cancer and her two-year-old sister undergo surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy for a brain tumor. It cannot ultimately succeed, however, because at its heart is a fatal inconsistency, even perhaps a hypocrisy, that will eventually lead to the collapse of this way of thinking. This assertion is so common that one journalist recently wrote that anyone who believed that “there are inferior religions” is a right-wing extremist.7 Do we really want to say that the Branch Davidians or religions requiring child sacrifice are not inferior to any other faith? Another student looked at us clerics and said in his frustration, “We will never come to know peace on earth if religious leaders keep on making such exclusive claims!”. Out of gratitude for what God did for us, we remember His birth by giving each other gifts, worshiping Him, and being especially conscious of the poor and less fortunate. The people most passionate about social justice were moral relativists, while the morally upright didn’t seem to care about the oppression going on all over the world. A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. I was confronted with a host of tough questions about Christianity: “What about other religions? In The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Timothy Keller makes a compelling and thought provoking argument for believing in one God. The great majority of people would almost certainly agree that they are. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. However, when her sister had a stroke and was paralyzed at the age of fourteen, it moved her not to give up on God but to begin more deliberate searching. There are now six times more Anglicans in Nigeria alone than there are in all of the United States. But this has not happened, and this “secularization thesis” is now largely discredited.5 Virtually all major religions are growing in number of adherents. Finally she had the confidence to seek an encounter with God himself. There is a great gulf today between what is popularly known as liberalism and conservatism. During my college years, these three barriers eroded and my faith became vital and life-affecting. Liberals’ individualism comes out in their views of abortion, sex, and marriage. I desperately needed to find a “third camp,” a group of Christians who had a concern for justice in the world but who grounded it in the nature of God rather than in their own subjective feelings. Keller draws together a number of arguments and clues to form a cumulative case for the truth of Christianity. The third barrier was a social one. But can’t we—via education and argument—find ways to socially discourage religions that claim to have “the truth” and that try to convert others to their beliefs? It holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more enlightened than the beliefs of most major religions. Even in much of Europe, there is some growth in church attendance.4 And despite the secularism of most universities and colleges, religious faith is growing in some corners of academia. And in The Reason for God, he single-handedly dismantles each of them. For several years this strengthened what could be called the “Hellfire Layer” of my religious formation, although the pastor and people there were personally as gentle as could be. I urge skeptics to wrestle with the unexamined “blind faith” on which skepticism is based, and to see how hard it is to justify those beliefs to those who do not share them. However, it helped me and I found some of the arguments compelling. This is particularly true when religion is the point at issue. I speak from an unusual vantage point on this two-edged phenomenon. Some will respond to all this, “My doubts are not based on a leap of faith. Conservatives endlessly denounce what they see as an increasingly skeptical and relativistic society. Then I went off to one of those fine, liberal, smaller universities in the Northeast, which quickly began to throw water on the hellfire in my imagination. Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith. Today, however, the now-dubbed “old-line” Protestant churches of cultural, inherited faith are aging and losing members rapidly. Religious believers should also be much less dismissive of secular skepticism. Question from Marvin: What are the top most powerful arguments for the existence of God, and if there’s a logical order in which we should present them. When the Chinese Communists expelled Western missionaries after World War II, they thought they were killing off Christianity in China. The second barrier was an interior, personal one. Our problems are not going away soon. The new, fast-spreading multiethnic orthodox Christianity in the cities is much more concerned about the poor and social justice than Republicans have been, and at the same time much more concerned about upholding classic Christian moral and sexual ethics than Democrats have been. There was once a confident belief that secular European countries were the harbingers for the rest of the world. But what? Here are three people at the church now. Three generations ago, most people inherited rather than chose their religious faith. I have found myself lacking language to adequately express the "Reason" behind my belief in God and thus for my faith, and I was eager to read this book the moment I read the title. But the theory that technological advancement brings inevitable secularization is now being scrapped or radically rethought.7 Even Europe may not face a secular future, with Christianity growing modestly and Islam growing exponentially. In the second year, we heard of a spirit of love in the universe, who mainly required that we work for human rights and the liberation of the oppressed. There are now six times more Anglicans in Nigeria alone than there are in all of the United States. My family later found its way to a more conservative church in a small Methodist denomination. Conservatives’ individualism comes out in their deep distrust of the public sector and in their understanding of poverty as simply a failure of personal responsibility. Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of them will be effective. Rather it is a permanent and central aspect of the human condition. I have been disappointed by so many Christian books I read- especially those that try to "prove" God. Christians believe that ALL are made in the image of God. The answer is Yes. Their pilgrimage toward faith was slow and painstaking. Because of the vitality of religious faith in the world, efforts to suppress or control it often serve only to make it stronger. She saw a counselor at the church who helped her draw a connection between the mercy of God and her seemingly inexhaustible need for acceptance. But when I asked him who that God was, he described him as an all-loving Spirit in the universe. Now he saw how futile such a life goal was. Similar in power and weight to Mere Christianity by Lewis, Keller eloquently walks through many of the most common questions and concerns that are asked by non believers and believers alike, and clearly presents the soundness of the logic behind the truth in a rational, reasoned, unconfrontational way. This is particularly true when religion is the point at issue. She met her future husband, Kevin, also a Columbia grad and an atheist, who was working on Wall Street with J. P. Morgan. We have come to a cultural moment in which both skeptics and believers feel their existence is threatened because both secular skepticism and religious faith are on the rise in significant, powerful ways. Congregations in the city were dwindling, most struggling to even maintain their buildings. The enemies are both right. At the end of each process, even if you remain the skeptic or believer you have been, you will hold your own position with both greater clarity and greater humility. He liked the sermons “until that Jesus business came around at the end” at which point he’d stop listening. The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice. Many of my early contacts said that the few congregations that had maintained a following had done so by adapting traditional Christian teaching to the more pluralistic ethos of the city. I was emotionally drawn to the former path—what young person wouldn’t be? The … Existence of God, in religion, the proposition that there is a supreme being that is the creator or sustainer or ruler of the universe and all things in it, including human beings. I also urge believers to wrestle with their personal and culture’s objections to the faith. The panelists were asked to discuss the differences among religions. Therefore, it is easy for one religious group to stereotype and caricature other ones. Each side demands that you not only disagree with but disdain the other as (at best) crazy or (at worst) evil. When he understood that Jesus had surrendered his physical health and life to save the world—and him—it moved him deeply. This book refutes the claims made by critics such as Dawkins and his colleagues. I will respectfully discern the alternate beliefs beneath each of them. Most people who assert the equality of religions have in mind the major world faiths, not splinter sects. Its aim was to bring young people into a fuller understanding of the faith, so they could publicly commit to it. Some people say, “I don’t believe in Christianity because I can’t accept the existence of moral absolutes. Each speaker affirmed that there were significant, irreconcilable differences between the major faiths. It is estimated that 10 to 25 percent of all the teachers and professors of philosophy in the country are orthodox Christians, up from less than 1 percent just thirty years ago.5 Prominent academic Stanley Fish may have had an eye on that trend when he reported, “When Jacques Derrida died [in November 2004] I was called by a reporter who wanted to know what would succeed high theory and the triumvirate of race, gender, and class as the center of intellectual energy in the academy. Answer: Genesis 6 gives the sad account of the state of humanity prior to the worldwide flood during the days of Noah. My family later found its way to a more conservative church in a small Methodist denomination. If Christians continue to insist that they have ‘the truth’—and if other religions do this as well—the world will never know peace.”1. Such an admission is not only reassuring, but also humbling. Emotions and rhetoric are intense, even hysterical. The title of Alasdair MacIntyre’s book, Whose Justice? We all agreed on the statement: “If Christians are right about Jesus being God, then Muslims and Jews fail in a serious way to love God as God really is, but if Muslims and Jews are right that Jesus is not God but rather a teacher or prophet, then Christians fail in a serious way to love God as God really is.” The bottom line was—we couldn’t all be equally right about the nature of God. 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