Book cover: “The Reason for God – Belief in an Age of Skepticism” by Timothy Keller

The Reason for God


Belief in an Age of Skepticism


by Timothy Keller



Are you still skeptical that God exists? I imagine most of our readers are believers. Maybe you ran across this book review when doing an internet search; or you may know someone who is looking for answers. In “The Reason for God – Belief in an Age of Skepticism”, Timothy Keller gives answers from two directions. I felt the book did a good job of answering the questions and speaking to the reasons as to why I believe. I felt listing the chapters below, gives a good grasp of what Keller is sharing.

In the first half titled “The Leap of Doubt”, he responds to such common questions or comments in the first section of the book with the following chapters:

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

The second half is titled, “The Reasons for Faith.” I especially liked this section as it does not combat the negative questions of doubt, but gives the positive reasons for faith in God. The chapter titles include:

  • The Clues of God
  • The Knowledge of God
  • The Problem of Sin
  • Religion and the Gospel
  • The (True) Story of the Cross
  • The Reality of the Resurrection
  • The Dance of God

The book may help you with discussion points with others. If you are searching, this may be where God is leading you for the answers.

I will conclude with a quote used at the start of the chapter, The Clues of God. I feel it ties in to the Book of Ecclesiastes in the search for the meaning of life. It also describes the feelings of far too many people. If you are among them, I pray Jesus Christ finds you.

If one puts aside the existence of God and the survival after life as too doubtful… one has to make up one’s mind as to the use of life. If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for, and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer is plain, but so unpalatable that most will not face it. There is no meaning for life, and [thus] life has no meaning.
Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up
Note: This is repeat of the book review originally posted in Volume 14 Issue 02.

Book Review
By Nancy Vandemark
Title: The Reason for God – Belief in an Age of Skepticism
Author: Timothy Keller copyright 2008
Publisher: Riverhead Books Published by the Penguin Group
ISBN:
978-1-59448-349-3

 

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