Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller

I read my first Tim Keller book—Counterfeit Gods—back in November. It’s been a long time since I’ve been as convicted by a book as I was by that one; so when I finished it up, I decided I’d like to try another Keller book soon and settled on The Reason for God. I do occasionally have discussions with skeptics, after all, and I figured I could use some help.

Keller has written The Reason for God  for both believers and skeptics. He wants all of us to examine why we believe the things we do. “Believers,” he writes, “should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts—not only their own but their friends’ and neighbors’.”

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.

The same thing goes for the skeptic. Skeptics, really, are just people who believe in “a set of alternate beliefs,” and it’s only right and fair that the skeptic question his own belief system in the same way that he questions the belief system of Christianity. I’d call The Reason for God a tool to help us all accomplish this by examining both the common objections to Christianity and the positive reasons for the Christian faith.

The first half of this book is taken up with various problems skeptics have with Christianity, drawing from Keller’s own real-life conversations with doubters. You’ve heard these objections before, too, I’m sure.

1. There Can’t Be Just One True Religion
2. How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
3. Christianity Is a Straitjacket
4. The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice
5. How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?
6. Science Has Disproved Christianity
7. You Can’t Take the Bible Literally

How does Keller handle these? In a chapter for each, he points out where the objections are ill-conceived or based on questionable assumptions or come from the unrecognized bias of the objector. This is usually, I think, the best game plan in discussions with those who object to Christianity, and the discussions in The Reason for God are useful in giving us a basic pattern to follow. In a single book dealing with such a wide range of objections, we can’t expect to find everything we need to completely answer the objections of every single skeptic, but in this  section of the book we have been given good starting points and have been pointed in the right direction.

The second section of the book builds the case for Christianity, giving us positive reasons to believe. Keller argues that there are clues that God exists; but more than that: Everyone of us already knows that God is there, something we prove when we live as if there is transcendent beauty and love and meaning and morality. Moreover, Christianity best explains what’s wrong with the world and with us, and gives the solution to it in the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection.

The last chapter—the epilogue—discusses how someone who has become interested in Christianity—who might want to put their faith in Christ—can proceed. How does one become a Christian? Here, Keller explains what it means to repent and believe in Christ. In addition, he stresses the importance of the new believer finding a church, and I’m pleased about that.

I didn’t always agree with the points Keller makes in The Reason for God. Sometimes he seems to give away too much to the skeptic—as in the case, for instance, of the history of Christian injustices—and sometimes he calls people true Christians that I wouldn’t and accepts things as true that I wouldn’t. This doesn’t detract, I’d think, from the overall usefulness of the book, but it does mean that you will want to read it first before you decide to give it as a gift to your favorite doubter.

The best thing about The Reason for God is that Tim Keller has the heart of a pastor and the text show us his heart. As I read, it was obvious that he was writing to real people with real doubt and real barriers to faith, not just discussing ideas for the sake of intellectual exercise. He really does love the skeptics he writes for and that’s a wonderful thing. If you love unbelievers, too, I’m betting you’d find this worthwhile as you seek to help them overcome their intellectual barriers to Christianity.

I posted a quote from The Reason for God a few months ago.

I’m thankful that I was able to get two fillings replaced this morning and that the job was accomplished with no need for freezing. I’m thankful that I should need no more dental work for a while.

I’m thankful for positive feedback and new opportunities.

I’m thankful for the fragrance of the potted hyacinths on the coffee table.

I’m thankful that because God has justified me, no charges or accusations against me will stick. I am thankful that since God gave up even his very own son for me, I can be assured that he will give me every lesser grace  needed for my complete salvation.

On Thursdays throughout this year, I plan to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving along with Kim at the Upward Call and others.

Two from Gospel Coalition blogs.

The Lord’s Supper
We commemorate Christ by looking up, back, forward, outward, inward, and around. (Juan Sanchez at The Gospel Coalition Blog)

Social Justice
I’ve got to admit that trendy terms makes me queasy and this particular jargonish expression has a double dose of blechishness for me. If I had my way, we’d simply call it justice when we are giving people what is  rightly owed to  them, and works of mercy or compassion when we feed the hungry and provide clothing, shelter, etc. for the needy. Who knows what the term social justice really means, anyway? 

Still, I’m pointing you to Kevin DeYoung’s series of posts examining major “social justice” passages in scripture. “My contention”, he says, “is that these passages say more and less than we think, more about God’s heart for justice than some realize, and less about contemporary ‘social justice’ than many imagine.” All in all, DeYoung will look at seven texts, and these are the first three.

1. Isaiah 1
2. Isaiah 58
3. Jeremiah 22

concurrence
An aspect of God’s providence whereby he cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do1; God’s working in all things to accomplish his will in all events “without violating the nature of things, the ongoing causal processes, or human free agency.”2

• From scripture:

   [A]ll the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
   and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
  and among the inhabitants of the earth;
  and none can stay his hand
  or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:34-35 ESV)

  Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” (Exodus 4:11-12 ESV)
  

• From The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5, Of Providence:

  I. God the great Creator of all things does uphold,direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence….

  II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

  III. God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means….

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof: 

  There is not a single moment that the creature works independently of the will and the power of God. It is in Him that we live and move and have our being, Acts 17:28. This divine activity accompanies the action of man at every point, but without robbing man in any way of his freedom. The action remains the free act of man, and act for which he is held responsible. … In a very real sense the operation is the product of both causes. Man is and remains the real subject of the action. 

Learn more:

1. J. I. Packer: Providence
2. James Mongomery Boice: God’s Providence
3. Wayne Grudem:  Providence (mp3)
4. Related terms: providence; compatibilism

1Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem
2Concise Theology by J. I. Packer

Today’s term was suggested by a reader in an email. Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

What do Christians mean when they say the Bible is inerrant? The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy tells us what leading inerrantist mean by inerrancy. I’ll be posting a section of this statement each week until I’ve posted the whole thing.

You can read previously posted sections of this statement in by clicking here. After a preface and a short statement, the Chicago Statement contains a section called Articles of Affirmation and Denial.

Article IV.

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.  

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God’s work of inspiration.

A working edition.

Lost Jobs
Here’s a gallery of endangered or extinct professions, like lector, for instance, and switchboard operator—a job I used to have, but wasn’t much good at. (I’d say stenographers are obsolete, too, and it’s a good thing. Those girls are dangerous—see below.)

Workplace Hazard
Ah, the story the stone tells. Poor young George Millet died “evading 6 young women trying to give him birthday kisses” in the office where he worked. You’ll find even more details of this sad bit of history in a pdf of an article from the New York Times.

Gustave Dore, The Vision of EzekielBreathe on Me, Breath of God

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with Thee I will one will,
To do and to endure.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Blend all my soul with Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
So shall I never die,
But live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.

—Edwin Hatch

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Thy Word Is Like a Garden, Lord at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 11, 2010 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Merciful God at Whatever Is Good
• All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name at Hiraeth
• Look, Ye Saints, the Sight is Glorious at Field Stone Cottage
• I Could Not Do Without Thee at Whatever Things
• Heart Aflame - March 14, 2010 at The Upward Call
• Grander Than Ocean’s Story at Conjubilant With Song
• Update: O, The Deep, Deep Love Of Jesus at Alabamenagerie

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

A full of beans edition. 

You know how to cook them; now how to you use them?

• You could make that old standby, Home Made Pork and Bean (Mennonite girls can cook). I do pork and beans something like this, but I can’t give you my recipe because I just throw stuff in and hope for the best. I don’t use onions, because there are a couple of onion-phobes in the fam; and I’ve never added ginger, but I think I’ll try that next time. I don’t have a bean pot, so I use my slow cooker. 


• One of our family favorites is Slow-Cooked Southwest Chicken, which puts black beans to yummy use. Youngest son doesn’t eat his over rice, but puts it in a bowl and scoops it up with tortilla chips. It’s also good sprinkled with cheese and rolled up in a tortilla. 


• Or if you don’t have time for all that slow cooking, you can make White Bean Puree with Poached Eggs (Serious Eats). This simple dish looks boring, but it certainly doesn’t taste boring. And as a big bonus, it used some of those exquisite farm-fresh eggs taking up all the room in my fridge.

 Do you have a favorite recipe that uses cooked dried beans?

• Kim of Hiraeth shares a recipe for Cowboy Beans in a comment.