Keller,
Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008. 293 pp.
In introducing the positive
apologetic of the second half of the book (“Intermission”), Keller notes that
he will be seeking to establish a ‘mere Christianity,’ a faith which affirms
the major ecumenical creeds of the early centuries (117). The reasons he will lay out do not serve as
epistemologically compelling proof, a goal which is impossible and cannot even
live up to its own standards (118-20).
Rather, he seeks to establish rational arguments that will persuade most
rational people (120). Finally, he
suggests that the Christian worldview “makes the most sense of the world,” and
invites the reader to put on Christian lenses to see the world through (123).
Keller first seeks
to establish the rationality of Christian theism by discussing “clues” (rather
than conclusive proofs) for God’s existence (Chapter Eight, “The Clues of
God”). He suggests that the five clues
he presents are not individually compelling, but taken together have a
formidable accumulated weight (128).
Keller lays out, in exceedingly brief fashion, the cosmological argument
(The Mysterious Bang, 128-29), the fine-tuning argument (The Cosmic Welcome
Mat, 129-32), the argument from the regularity of nature (132), the “Clue of
Beauty” (133-35), and the inescapability of trusting our cognitive faculties
(135-41). This last ‘clue’ is the
crowning achievement of this chapter.
Whereas the first four clues are dealt with much too briefly (and I
would argue, Keller places too little weight on each of them individually),
Keller deals masterfully with the logical conclusion of naturalism. When skeptics debunk religion as a product of
evolution, they undermine their ability to trust the rational faculties with
which they arrive at their conclusions (136-37). Keller cites non-Christians who agree that
“if reason is a product of natural selection” then we can have very little
confidence “in a rational argument for natural selection . . . Evolutionary
biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.” (139) Keller
insists that everyone lives by trusting their rationality, but atheists have
cut the branch off while they are standing on it (140-41). This demonstrates that they know internally
what they deny externally—there is a God (141).
Keller then lays
out his version of the moral argument for God (Chapter Nine, “The Knowledge of
God”). He rejects the popular thesis
that our society is becoming ethically relativistic, insisting that people are
adopting a “free-floating morality” instead: “People still have strong moral
convictions, but . . . they don’t have any visible basis for why they find some things to be evil and
other things good.” (145) He reasserts his thesis that “people in our culture
know unavoidably that there is a God, but they are repressing what they know.”
(146) Of course, to a fellow Christian that thesis sounds anything but
revolutionary or radical—nonetheless, Keller knows it will hit a nerve with
skeptics. He lays out the unavoidable
human belief in “moral obligation,”
(146) and insists that neither evolutionary morality (147-48) nor social
construct theory (148-52) explains our belief in absolute moral standards. Again, his discussion is brief to the point
of triviality—I’m sure Robert Trivers would shudder at Keller’s presentation of
reciprocal altruism. Nonetheless, when
Keller argues that the universal belief in human rights requires God to
properly ground it, his presentation rings true—especially as he defends it by
invoking the insights of atheist scholars (Arthur Leff, Alan Dershowitz, Ronald
Dworkin). Keller concludes that if there
is no God, there is no meaning or purpose in life, a conclusion that humanity
simply cannot live with (156-58).
Keller then moves
subtly from a presentation of reasons to believe in Christianity to a
description of Christian theism. Chapter
Ten examines the “Problem of Sin,” illustrating the universal recognition that
there is a problem (160), addressing the personal, social, and cosmic
consequences of sin (164-70), and outlining the Christian solution to sin
through Jesus (170-71). Chapter Eleven discusses
the difference between “Religion and the Gospel,” insisting that Christianity
is fundamentally different than all other religions in that “only Jesus claimed
to actually be the way to salvation
himself.” (174) Keller is certainly right that other major world religions
identify their founder as the pointer to salvation, rather than the way to
salvation. However, he does not address
the nature of many ‘cults’ and new religious movements in which the founder
(e.g. Krishna, David Koresh) claims to be the way to salvation.
In dealing with
the necessity of the crucifixion (Chapter Twelve, “The [True] Story of the
Cross”), Keller returns to positive apologetics proper, answering the question,
‘Why did Jesus have to die?’ (187) On
the one hand, forgiveness is costly suffering—the debt incurred by wrongdoing
can be extracted from the wrongdoer, or it can be absorbed by the wronged
party, but it simply cannot dissipate (188-90).
On the cross, Jesus takes the pain, violence, and evil of sin upon
Himself, thereby freeing men and women from bearing the cost themselves (192). On the other hand, Keller argues that “love
is a personal exchange,” (193) and implies the requirement of substitutional
sacrifice.
Keller’s treatment
of the resurrection (Chapter Thirteen, “The Reality of the Resurrection”)
follows the outline of N. T. Wright’s The
Resurrection of the Son of God (202).
He lays out the traditional three-fold evidential apologetic: the
reality of the empty tomb combined with the identity of the earliest witnesses
(203-05); the absence of compatible first-century beliefs concerning
resurrection and immortality (206-07); and the otherwise inexplicable explosion
of a new worldview (208-10). Keller
notes that several elements of early Christian belief had no correlative in
either Greek or Jewish thought, and that efforts to explain the birth of the
church “apart from Jesus’ resurrection” fail to account for “first-century
history and culture.” (210) Keller
concludes: “If you don’t short-circuit the process with the philosophical bias
against the possibility of miracle, the resurrection of Jesus has the most
evidence for it.” (210)
In his concluding
chapter (Chapter Fourteen, “The Dance of God”), Keller appeals to the skeptical
reader to enter into the grand scope of the Bible—the themes of creation, fall,
redemption, and restoration (214). The
Christian life is humanity entering into the “divine dance” or the Triune God,
glorifying and enjoying God as “we worship him, serve the human community, and
care for the created environment.” (224) He insists that the Gospel resonates
with our sense of moral obligation, our irrepressibly religious spirit, our
“profoundly religious character,” and “our delight in the presence of beauty.”
(225)
Keller then guides
the convinced (or nearly-convinced) reader to his or her next steps (Epilogue,
“Where Do We Go From Here?”). He
encourages them to examine their motives before taking a leap of faith
(227-28), count the cost of discipleship (228-31), take inventory of their
lives (231-32), make the move into faith (233-35) by repenting and believing in
Christ, and commit to Christian community (235-37).
There is much to
applaud in Keller’s two-fold apologetic work.
I found his response to skeptical objections to be particularly poignant
and strong—I suspect it is his negative apologetic which has the most value in winning
skeptics over. There were, however,
several places where I felt Keller could have strengthened his case
considerably. First, in dealing with
“clues” for the existence of God, I would have liked him to deal in more depth
with the issue of origins, as this is one of the weakest links in any
a-theistic worldview. Second, he could
have evaluated two additional ‘clues’—the argument from religious desire (which
he mentions in passing but never evaluates), and the argument from the idea of
God (the ontological argument). Third,
while his Bono quote (229) is sheer brilliance (a culturally-useful
contemporary version of Lewis’s famous trilemma), I wish Keller had spent at
least some time examining the self-understanding of Jesus—perhaps after
discussing the reliability of the New Testament Gospels (a subject which itself
could have been dealt with in more depth).
Fourth, in chapter
four (the historic injustice of the church), Keller mentions the resources of
Christianity in opposing oppression, but never elaborates positively on the incredible
contributions that Christianity has made to human civilization—the birth of
science, the establishment of public education, the founding of medical
missions, etc. I have some other minor
quibbles I have mentioned in the appropriate places of this book review. Nonetheless, no human is perfect, no author
is perfect, no apologetic work is perfect, and so it is unrealistic to expect The Reason for God to be a perfect
book. What it is, however, is a concise
apologetic work of great value to the Church of Christ. Keller presents an insightful critique of
anti-Christian objections, combined with a persuasive presentation of reasons
to believe in Jesus Christ. A former
seminary professor of mine claimed in an email that The Reason for God is “the best apologetics book I have read in the
past five years”—despite my affinity for William Lane Craig (Reasonable Faith, 3rd edition),
I am tempted to affirm his judgment.
