The Reason for God (Chapter 8)

The Clues of God

In Chapter 8, Keller moves away from arguing that there are no sufficient reasons for disbelieving Christianity and begins to argue for the existence of God. He provides the following clues.

The Mysterious Bang

*The Big Bang is the first clue...the very existence of the world.

*According to Keller, "everything we know in this world is "contingent", has a cause outside of itself...Something had to make the Big Bang happen...What could that be but something outside of nature, a supernatural, noncontingent being that exists from itself."

The Cosmic Welcome Mat

*The second clue is the fine-tuning of the universe, the one-in-a-trillion -trillion chance that our universe supports organic and human life.

*Here, Keller points out, "For organic life to exist, the fundamental regularities and constants of physics-the speed of light, the gravitational constant, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces-must all have values that together fall into an extremely narrow range. The probability of this perfect calibration happening by chance is so tiny as to be statistically negligible."

The Regularity of Nature

*The third clue is the regularity of nature..."All scientific, inductive reasoning is based on the assumption of the regularity (the laws) of nature."

*According to Keller, many scholars have argued that modern science arose in its most sustained form because of its belief in an all-powerful, personal God who created and sustains an orderly universe.

The Clue of Beauty

*The fourth clue is "beauty and meaning".

*Keller says, "If we are the product of accidental natural forces, then what we call "beauty" is nothing but a neurological hardwired response to particular data...so how do you account for the sense we have that beauty matters, that love and life are significant?"

The Clue-Killer

*Evolutionists claim that everything about us can be explained as a function of natural selection...that our capacity to believe in God is also hardwired into our physiology because it was directly or indirectly associated with traits that helped our ancestors adapt to their environment."

*Flaw: Evolutionists admit that "since we are the product of natural selection, we can't completely trust our own senses...evolution can only be trusted to give us cognitive faculties that help us live on, not to provide ones that give us an accurate and true picture of the world around us."

*Keller responds by saying, "if we can't trust our belief forming faculties to tell us the truth about God, why should we trust them to tell us the truth about anything, including evolutionary science?"

The Clue-Killer is Really a Clue

*Keller says we do trust our cognitive faculties and because we do, this also becomes a clue to God's existence...God does allow us to form true beliefs and knowledge.

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The Reason for God (Chapter 7)

You Can't Take the Bible Literally

According to Tim Keller, believing in the Bible is a stumbling block for many people. They see parts of the Bible as being scientifically impossible, historically unreliable, and culturally regressive. They say "you can't take the Bible literally."

In this chapter, Keller addresses 2 of these 3 issues: the Bible being historically unreliable and the Bible being culturally regressive.

"We Can't Trust the Bible Historically"

*Here Keller suggests, rather than examining the historic accuracy of each part of the Bible, we instead ask ourselves whether we can trust the gospels to be historically reliable. Keller gives the following reasons for why the gospel accounts should be considered historically reliable vs. legends:

1. The timing is far too early for the gospels to be legends.

*According to Keller, the gospels were written only 40-60 years after Jesus' death and Biblical accounts of Jesus' life were circulating within the lifetimes of hundreds who had been present at the events of His ministry.

2. The content is far too counterproductive for the gospels to be legends. (i.e. Jesus crucifixion, Jesus cries to God about abandoning Him, women as eyewitnesses, weaknesses of apostles)

3. The literary form of the gospels is too detailed to be legend.

*Keller quotes C.S. Lewis and explains how, "ancient fiction was nothing like modern fiction. Modern fiction is realistic. It contains details and dialogue and reads like an eyewitness account. This genre of fiction, however, only developed within the last 300 years." Therefore, the gospels written with so much detail at that time could not be fiction but could only come from actual eyewitness accounts.

"We Can't Trust the Bible Culturally"

*According to Keller, "more people now are especially upset by what they call the outmoded and regressive teaching of the Bible (i.e. slavery and the subjugation of women)

*Keller shares how he deals with these individuals. He says, "I counsel them to slow down and try out several different perspectives on the issues that trouble them. Many of the texts people find offensive can be cleared up with a decent commentary that puts the issue into historical context."

*Keller offers one last advice, "We should make sure we distinguish between the major themes and message of the Bible and its less primary teachings...It is therefore important to consider the Bible's core claims about who Jesus is and whether he rose from the dead before you reject it for its less central and more controversial teachings."

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The Reason For God (Chapter 6)

Science Has Disproved Christianity

Richard Dawkins, in his book "The God Delusion", argues that one can't be an intelligent scientific thinker and still hold religious beliefs.  He supports this argument with a study in 1998 that showed only 7 percent of American scientists in the National Academy of Science believe in a personal God.  According to Keller, there are major problems with the way the data in this study is interpreted (i.e. how the question is posed to the scientist and the actual reason for why the scientist doesn't believe in God...Is it scientific or personal and social?).

Aren't Miracles Scientifically Impossible?

*The methodology of science can only address natural causes.  It is therefore a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding to state that, "No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible."  

*The statement also assumes that God does not exist.  However, if one believes God does exist, there is nothing illogical at all about the possibility of miracles.

Isn't Science in Conflict with Christianity?

*Keller responds that when evolution is turned into an All-encompassing Theory explaining absolutely everything we believe, feel, and do as the product of natural selection, then we are not in the arena of science, but of philosophy.

*All the world cannot be explained by science (i.e. moral intuitions). 

*As an aside, there have been a number of scientists who have proven that science is not in conflict with Christianity (i.e. Newton, Bacon, Galileo, Pascal, Copernicus, etc.)

Doesn't Evolution Disprove the Bible?

Here Keller makes 2 statements I'm not quite sure of:

1.  Views Genesis as both historical and poetic 

2.  rejects the concept of evolution as an All-encompassing Theory but thinks God guided some kind of process of natural selection 

Healing the World

According to Keller, "We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order...Jesus came to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken.  His miracles are not just proofs that he has power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. Jesus's miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming."

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The Reason For God (Chapter 4)

The Church is Responsible for So Much Injustice

Keller points out that "many people who take an intellectual stand against Christianity do so against a background of personal disappointment with Christians and churches". So in this chapter, he addresses 3 main behaviors of Christians that have undermined the plausibility of Christianity.

1.  Character Flaws 

*Critics claim that if Christianity is all it claims to be, shouldn't Christians on the whole be much better people than everyone else?  Kellers responds that the statement wrongly assumes what Christianity teaches about itself (i.e. common grace where God gives out good gifts...across all humanity).  

*Keller also notes that growth in character and changes in behavior are gradual when a person becomes a Christian. Again, critics wrongly assume what Christianity teaches about itself (i.e. that one has to "clean up" his/her own life to merit God's favor vs. by God's sheer grace)

*In judging a Christian's character, Keller also states that unless you know the starting points and life journeys of that person, you could easily conclude the wrong thing...that Christianity isn't worth much and that Christians are inconsistent with their own high standards. The Christian's character may have actually improved significantly over what it was.  

2.  Religion and Violence

*Christopher Hitchens, in his book "God is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything", argues that religion takes racial and cultural differences and aggravates them.  Keller responds that his statement is fair but fails to recognize that there have also been societies which produced massive violence against its own people without the influence of religion (i.e. Communist Russian, Chinese, and Cambodian regimes, and the French Revolution)

*Alister McGrath points out that when the idea of God is gone, a society will still "transcendentalize" something else...some other concept, in order to appear morally and spiritually superior.

3.  Fanaticism

*According to Keller, the people who are fanatics within the Christian faith are those who are not committed enough to the gospel. 

*The Pharisees are a good example of those who were not committed to the gospel but rather to moral improvement.  This naturally resulted in feelings of superiority and to various forms of abuse, exclusion, and oppression.

*Therefore, according to Keller, for Christians, the answer is not to tone down and moderate their faith, but to grasp a fuller and truer faith in Christ.

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The Reason For God (Chapter 3)

Christianity is a Straightjacket

In this chapter, Keller points out that for some, absolute truth is an enemy to freedom. They see it as divisive, culturally narrow, enslaving, and a "straightjacket" that doesn't allow one to expand or grow.

Truth is Unavoidable

*Those inspired by French philosopher Foucault will say that "all truth claims are power plays".  According to Keller, this statement fails in that it too must be subject and therefore becomes what it suggests...a "power play".

Community Can't Be Completely Inclusive

*Critics of Christianity argue that it is socially divisive because it requires particular beliefs in order to be a member of its community.  Keller responds that if any community did not hold its members accountable for specific beliefs and practices, it would have no corporate identity and would therefore not really be a community at all.  One cannot consider a group exclusive simply because it has standards for its member.  Every community has them.

Christianity isn't Culturally Rigid

*Critics argue that Christianity is a cultural straightjacket forcing people from diverse cultures into a single iron mold.  Keller responds that Christianity actually has been more adaptive and less destructive of diverse cultures than secularism and many other worldviews.  Though there are absolute claims to truth in Christianity, there is also freedom in how these absolutes are expressed and take form within a particular culture.

Freedom isn't Simple

*Critics argue that Christianity is a limit to one's personal growth and potential because it constrains one's freedom to choose his/her own beliefs and practices.  Here, Keller makes some very good points:  

1.  Freedom cannot be defined in strictly negative terms, as the absence of confinement and constraint.  In many cases, it is actually a means to liberation (i.e. practicing piano, working hard in a career for better pay, etc.; all require a certain sacrifice or limit to freedom from other things)

2.  Freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones.  Those that fit with the reality of our nature and the world produce greater power and scope for our abilities and a deeper joy and fulfillment.

Love, the Ultimate Freedom, is More Constraining than We Might Think

*Love is the most liberating freedom-loss of all.  One of the principles of love is that you have to lose independence to attain greater intimacy.  You can't enter a deep relationship and still make unilateral decisions or allow the other no say in how you live your life.

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