Review: The Reason for God

Tim Keller has done a fantastic job giving an intellectual grounding for Christian apologetics. Too often, Christians are willing to cede the intellectual high-ground to a science-obsessed culture that demands quantitative proof for anything to be believed. But even this approach derives from an assumption, the assumption that such observation can or should explain all there is. The criticism that the west has become all too impacted by the enlightenment rings true and Keller does a masterful job of demonstrating that. He does so by first investigating common critiques of Christianity and then moving to positive arguments for the Christian religion. I found the latter half of the book the most compelling. Specifically, I was drawn to the problem of beauty, Jesus as either savior or mad man, the resulting effect on the world, that the ancient world found resurrection just as unpalatable as the common world and the unique claims of Christianity. It is important to note that his positive reasons for God and Christianity are not ‘proofs’ but rather strong arguments for.

The problem of beauty was a surprisingly compelling point for me. Ultimately, it only points to the existence of God, not necessarily a Christian one, but it is interesting that scripture does speak of the mountains and trees testifying to God. (Psalm 19:1–6). Regardless, Keller speaks of the feeling that we human beings get when we approach something of great beauty. We are naturally drawn to vast oceans, giant mountains, beautiful music and more. Something stirs in us, not just emotionally, though that is part of it, but within our hearts, our souls even, we are moved. If we were not, ballets, concerts and plays would have no audience. Find me the man who summits a mountain and says he feels nothing and I’ll show you a liar. There are some that argue human beings developed this attraction via natural selection, because these areas provided a larger amount of food. I find that argument dubious at best, especially in terms of a mountain, but even ceding that point, simply because an attraction is due to natural selection does not mean that is the only reason. In much the same way, natural selection itself is nothing more than a description of how creation happened, not a why. Keller does a good job of dispensing with these critiques, and largely, they stem from the ontological argument for God. Science gives us valuable insight into how the universe was created, but either we go infinitely back in time describing physical processes ad infinitum or we accept that belief that there is an original uncaused cause. And by the way, we’re in good company there along with Aristotle.

The second argument that appealed to me was Keller’s exposition of C.S. Lewis’ point (and many others) that either Jesus Christ was savior or a mad man. The point goes further than that though, because if we accept that Christ was crazy, we also accept that a crazy person changed human history in fundamental ways. And that change was not simply cultural, Christianity has cycled through the Middle East, to Western Europe and now is growing exponentially in South America and China. This crazy man is still fundamentally altering cultures, whereas the competing religious worldviews are largely trapped within the culture they are embedded in. To circle back to Keller’s original point, we have to accept that either Jesus was who he said he was, the son of God, perfectly God and perfectly human or a mad man. The title of ‘good moral teacher’ cannot apply to a man that deceived the world and led his most devoted followers to painful executions in the Roman Empire. It is the willingness of these men, the men that knew him, to die for the cause of Christ that is so compelling. If they faked the resurrection or participated in a conspiracy, why would they be willing to die for deceit? It does not make sense.

Keller also presents the great depth of N.T. Wright’s investigation into the first century world. Namely, that first century Jews, Greeks and Romans would have all found the idea of a resurrection to be completely unbelievable. Indeed, Jews believed their messiah would come as a political force, not as a martyr, the idea of dying for our sins was entirely alien to them. For the Greeks and Romans, the physical body was something to escape from. Stoics, Epicureans and others believed that the passions of the body were something to master and that once the spirit was freed from the body it became free. Thus, the idea of returning to a physical body after death, completely contradicted the accepted metaphysical beliefs of the time. Modernity often suffers from a superiority complex. We seem to believe that because of our great technological advances that we are somehow intellectually beyond posterity and they were more easily fooled. Keller presents that the first century world would be just as incredulous as we are to the idea of resurrection. I agree, From Socrates to Aristotle to Alexander the Great to Julius Ceasar and beyond, the string of genius in the ancient world is long.

I have merely scratched the surface of Keller’s arguments. He does a masterful job of dispensing with critics and providing compelling logic. He also does a great job of pointing to Christanity’s uniqueness among competing world religions. The idea of a savior, fully God and fully man that was willing to die in the place of humanity and pain the price for our short-comings, only to be raised from the dead, is completely foreign to every other religion. Indeed, a personal relationship with God feels irreligious to many other schools of religious thought. Christianity also puts the burden of redemption on God and not man. Again, that is unique, human driven effort is central to competing religious claims whereas Christianity claims man is inherently unable to repair the gap between God and Man so God himself had to step in.

Apologetics is not something I much think about. Largely, because I’m already in the camp of ‘believing in God’ but this book was rich with intellectual meat and it was refreshing to read something that continues the long history of intellectual Christianity, we would be foolish to ignore it.