Riverhead Books, New York: New York, 2008, pgs. 310.
The Reason for God is an urbane and winsome defense of orthodox Christian belief by Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Manhattan. The church has “six thousand regular attendees at five services, a host of daughter churches, and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world” (quoted from the back cover).
Keller’s very laudable goal is to limit unnecessary stumbling blocks to the gospel. And this is a wholesome and godly goal shared by every responsible Christian in the world. We don’t want people to reject Christianity because they don’t understand it or have been misinformed about what following Christ is.
C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga provide the philosophical backbone of the apologetics within the book. Keller also mentions the importance of Jonathan Edwards (253) in his theological development. (I must admit, I don’t see much Edwards here.)
We are given his overall strategy in several places, but here’s a representative quote:
I have one more bit of advice to people struggling with some of the Bible’s teaching. We should make sure we distinguish between the major themes and message of the Bible and its less primary teachings. The Bible talks about the person and work of Christ and also about how widows should be regarded in the church. The first of these subjects is more foundational. Without it the secondary teachings don’t make sense. We should therefore consider the Bible’s teaching in their proper order.
Let’s take a hot issue today as a good example. If you say, “I can’t accept what the Bible says about gender roles,” you must keep in mind that Christians themselves differ over what some texts mean, as they do about many, many other things. However, they all confess the words of the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Don’t worry about gender roles until you figure out what you think about the central teachings of the faith (116-117).
In pursuing this overall goal, Keller’s book is very helpful and I believe serves as a good model for other Christians. Jesus Christ crucified should be the stumbling block.
Keller however adds a second rhetorical layer to this strategy which is to present Christianity as palatable as possible.
Thus he also points out that cool people like Bono of U2 (239-240) and Albert Camus (31) say true things about Jesus being God. And he focuses on artistically-inclined and professed Christians who seem to resonate with moderns—C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Simone Weil, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Anne Rice, and Flannery O’Connor. They all say beautiful and true things in defense of aspects of Christianity. Many of the cited theologians—N. T. Wright, Soren Kierkegaard, Richard Bauckham, and Dietrich Bonhoffer—are similar. The theological orthodoxy and coherence of these folks is rather mixed to say the least and is not mentioned.
The strategy of a palatable Christianity has two basic weakness. The first is the stumbling block of the gospel is softened by creating statements that contradict what Keller claims to believe (the Bible as understood through the Westminster standards).
Following Kierkegaard, sin is defined as, “the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him” (168). The Bible is bit more angular. Sin is hating God (Rom. 1:30). It is loving death (Prov. 8:36).
As far as I can tell there is no “despairing refusal” in the biblical description of sin. Despair is a lack of hope. And sin is the hope and intent that God will allow you to not find your identify in him by behaving as if you are God. God sends us to hell, because there can be only one God in heaven.
The doctrine of the atonement is eroded as well: “God did not, then, inflict pain on someone else, but rather on the Cross absorbed the pain, violence, and evil of the world into himself. Therefore the God of the Bible is not like the primitive deities who demanded our blood for their wrath to be appeased. Rather, this is a God who becomes human and offers his own lifeblood in order to honor moral justice and merciful love so that someday he can destroy all evil without destroying us” (200).
The problem is that God is such a “primitive” deity that he does demand our blood for our sin (Gen. 9:4-6; Rev. 14:18-20). And his wrath is so unappeasable that the suffering in hell is eternal. God’s appeasement is found in either the eternal suffering of the individual sinner or in the infinite suffering of the Son. The Bible is very clear that God is a deity that requires unbeliever’s blood for his wrath to be appeased.
And this draws us to the second issue: self-contradictory statements.
Allow me to lay out a series of internally inconsistent statements:
“I think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a ‘song’ about the wonder and meaning of God’s creation” (97).
“The skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one of these [Christian views of the integration of modern science and Genesis 1 and 2] in order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Only after drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the central tenants of the Christian message should one think through the various options with regard to creation and evolution” (97).
“For the record I think God guided some kind of process of natural selection, and yet I reject the concept of evolution as All-encompassing Theory” . . . . “If evolution is . . . elevated to the status of a world-view of the way things are, there is direct conflict with biblical faith” (98, italics in the original).
“[In 1 Corinthians 15:3-6] Paul not only speaks of the empty tomb and resurrection on the ‘third day’ (showing he is talking of a historical event, not a symbol or metaphor) but he also lists eyewitnesses” (212).
In this list of statements, Keller tells us that Genesis 1 which lists eyewitnesses (Adam and Eve) to some of the events and speaks of days including “the third day” (v. 13) is poetry and “a symbol and metaphor.” But Paul’s description of the resurrection which lists eyewitnesses to some of the events and speaks of the “third day” is historical and “not a symbol or metaphor.” So the “third day” and eyewitnesses is evidence of symbolism and is not symbolism at the same time.
He also tells us that the “skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one of these” Christian positions and then informs us that if evolution is “elevated to the status of a world-view” then one can’t have biblical faith. So there both is and is not an acceptable position on evolution allowing “biblical faith.”
Keller can’t have it both ways. He can’t make Christ work on the cross legal but hell relational. He can’t make sin relational, but Christ’s death on the cross justice. Keller can’t promise non-Christians that there is no “One True Christian Position on Evolution” (97) and then on the next page argue that if evolution is your worldview you can’t have “biblical faith” (98). The historical legitimacy of Paul’s statement on the resurrection stands or falls on the historical legitimacy of Genesis 1.
All of these missteps by Keller make Christianity appear more attractive to moderns, but they also create contradictions. If we try to make a coherent system out of sin as “the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God” or the atonement as God “on the Cross absorbed the pain, violence, and evil of the world into him,” we would get heterodox mush.
Further, Keller is unintentionally creating a bait and switch. Christianity has been made so acceptable that seekers are not given an opportunity “to count the cost” of following Jesus.
The Reason for God is helpful in thinking through how to present the gospel to a sophisticated urbane audience. Yet it also provides the negative example of softening the gospel and limiting the offense of God’s word.