The Reason for God

Book Reviews
Written By Brittany Shields
 
The Reason for God Book Cover
 
 

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
By: Timothy Keller

“Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics.”

In The Reason for God, Timothy Keller begins by pointing out that both belief and skepticism are on the rise. We can’t and shouldn’t shy away from hard questions.

Having faith with doubts is not a problem—wrestling with hard questions, with personal or cultural objections to our belief system, forces us to seek truth and practice humility. And I can promise you this: God is not threatened by your questions or your doubts. He desires to be in relationship with us, but he doesn’t need it. Our belief does not make God exist. It’s the other way around.

Ask the questions. Truly seek the answers.

Tim Keller is often seen as a modern-day C.S. Lewis. This book is a newer ‘version’ of Lewis’s Mere Christianity or J.I. Packer’s Knowing God (both of which I would also recommend). Structured in two parts, it is a book that seeks to respond to the most common skepticism of Christianity and then provide reasons (truths) for belief.

[I would also recommend Rebecca McLaughlin’s book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. Where Keller’s book is a little more simplistic or accessible, McLaughlin’s book is more scholarly and approaches these questions a little differently. Both are worthwhile reads.]

Some of the objections that Keller addresses in ‘The Reason for God’ are: there can’t just be one true religion; how can a good God allow suffering or send good people to hell; the church’s historical complicity with injustice; the tension between science and Christianity; taking the Bible literally [see also Kevin DeYoung’s book Taking God at His Word].

When he lays out his case for belief he includes discussion on the existence/knowledge of God; the problem of sin; the story of the cross; and the resurrection.

I grew up in a Christian home and went to a Christian college, and yet, at said Christian college, I was confronted with some really hard questions. And I desired truth enough to follow through on those lines of questioning and figure out why I believe what I believe. This was a book that helped me do that. And I will say, it was not the ONLY book.

It is not meant to be an exhaustive point-by-point answer to all of life’s difficult questions. But his reasoning is easy to follow and makes a lot of sense. It’s a good starting point in your journey to truth.

I was actually a little surprised by a lot of the negative reviews I have read about this book. Reviewers question his logic or (really) his conclusions, and also knock him points when he is honest about some of the things we just don’t know. But first: that shows humility, which is essential when talking about hard questions especially in regards to evil and injustice in the world. And second: when I read the reviewers’ dissection of his “poor logic” I find their explanations far harder to grasp than what Keller presents.

And then I couldn’t help but remember those who walked with Jesus in the flesh, seeing his miracles, being in the midst of an unexplained disappearance of his corpse, and yet still they rejected the truths it all pointed to.

Only God can open our hearts to hear and see truth. And I pray that if you read this or any of the other books indexed, that God would show himself to you in a very real way.

As a very curious person who’s spiritual gift is asking questions, in all of my reading and wrestling with hard questions, I’ve always found a satisfactory answer. And yes, sometimes that answer has to be- God knows, and I’m not God, but I know who He is; I know His character and his incredible love for us, and so I can trust him with this one. [For more on the heart of God read Dane Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly]

I will pass over commenting on some of the topics, including science/evolution (I think I disagree with Keller a bit on that anyway), and touch on the problem of evil, injustice, and suffering in the world.

I think it’s probably what’s really at the heart of anyone’s questioning of God’s existence. We think: either God isn’t powerful enough to stop evil and suffering or that he doesn’t want to and thus is not a good God. Yet, we must not fall into this dichotomous distorted thinking. There are other things to consider.

“If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn't stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know.”

“Why couldn't it be possible that, from God's vantage point, there are good reasons for all of them?”

“It is… a mistake, though an understandable one, to think that if you abandon belief in God it somehow makes the problem of evil easier to handle.”

“Though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair.”

“Why does God allow suffering? We look at the cross of Jesus and still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn't. It can't be that he doesn't love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition.”

This was something I wrestled with 5 odd years ago when after a long struggle with trying to conceive, I miscarried my first pregnancy. This came sandwiched between my sister’s miscarriage and one of my best friends’ miscarriage. Why would a good God place life in our wombs only to rip them away? How could there ever be a good reason for that? How is that experience showing me ‘love’? If God exists, I thought, he can’t be good.

And I did some real good struggling with that one. Because I knew truth. But I didn’t feel it.

Can something be loving and true if it doesn’t feel loving and true?

As a thankful mother of four, I know now that, yes. Sometimes what doesn’t feel like love can be love. There are plenty of things I do or say to my kids that make them feel utterly unloved: not letting them drive the car by themselves (the oldest is 4), not letting them hit each other, feeding them food (any food), turning Bluey off, saying no to climbing into the oven, etc. Even on a macro/cosmic scale, is it possible that God in his infinite knowledge, sovereignty, and compassion has a reason beyond my comprehension for allowing something to happen that doesn’t feel like love to me? If I believe God is who He says He is, I must believe it.

There is no sustainable standard for morality or truth that can be based on feelings.

What matters is what we know. We know Jesus existed. We know he died on the cross. We know his body was not found. We know he appeared to hundreds of people in various places after his death. And if Jesus really died and rose again, he must be who he said he is. And if he really is the Son of God who believes the truths of the Bible, then we must believe those truths too. And if the Bible tells me that God is sovereign. That he is all-powerful. That he is loving and compassionate. That he is for me. That he is gracious and merciful and long-suffering. Then that is who he is.

And that means that yes, he is powerful enough to stop all pain, suffering, injustice, and evil. And even if he doesn’t, still he is a good and loving God. Though it appears as if Satan is having ‘his way’ on earth right now, the Bible also tells us that sin and death are already defeated. Justice and good will reign. God is in the business of redeeming and restoring. We are not without hope.

That bears repeating.

We are not without hope.

And this is a hope that does not disappoint.

Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” (John 6:68)

So I’ve now spent the majority of this review sharing my heart with you. Because you may be questioning whether God exists and if he does, does even care for you.

I would be remiss to abstain from this opportunity to share with you that I have asked the questions. I have felt the feelings. And I have found the truth. God is there. And he sees you. And he loves you.

And I can share all the logic and all the arguments and offer all the book recommendations (and I will) but that is all secondary to knowing God, himself.

God tells us, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:13

So, yes, go read all the things, ask all the questions, but maybe just try talking to him directly.

He is not threatened by your doubt, he is not disappointed in your pain, and if you come to Him, he will never turn you away. (John 6:37)

Because, after all, this is a book review, I will conclude with some more quotes to give you the flavor of the book and give you one last comment: What do you have to lose by seeking truth and reading this book? No matter where you are on the faith spectrum, isn’t seeking truth the whole point?

“When the idea of God is gone, a society will 'transcendentalize' something else, some other concept, in order to appear morally and spiritually superior.”

“All that are in hell choose it. Without that self-choice it wouldn't be hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.”

“The church will be filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually- ‘the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints’”

“1 Corinthians 15:1-6- Paul refers to a body of five hundred eyewitnesses who saw the risen Christ at once. You can't write that in a document designed for public reading unless there really were surviving witnesses whose testimony agreed and who could confirm what the author said.”

“Our need for worth is so powerful that whatever we base our identity and value on we essentially 'deify'“

“We must not universalize our time any more than we should universalize our culture; to reject the Bible as regressive is to assume that you have now arrived at the ultimate historic moment, from which all that is regressive and progressive can be discerned; that belief is surely as narrow and exclusive as the views in the Bible you regard as offensive.”

“We can't know that nature is broken in some way unless there is some supernatural standard of normalcy apart from nature by which we can judge right and wrong.”

“If you don't trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you; if you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a god who can contradict you? You'll have a 'Stepford god', a god essentially of your own making, and not a god with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your god can say things that outrage you and make you struggle will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination.”

Other resources:

Similarly structured covering many doctrinal questions and apologetics:

More specific to particular topics:

 
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Brittany Shields
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