Reformed pastor Tim Keller devotes Chapter 9 of The Reason for God to regurgitating the Argument from Morality, which essentially states that without a belief in a Supreme Being, there can be no basis for moral restraint among human beings. This argument typically takes one of two directions: Argument 1: People who don’t profess faith in a Supreme Being behave less morally than those who do, or Argument 2: Skeptics cannot elucidate satisfactory reasons for being moral without believing in a Supreme Being…. Read more
May 28, 2021
The Argument From Misunderstanding Evolution
May 28, 2021 By Neil Carter
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In my last post, we looked at four (bad) arguments for the existence of God presented by Tim Keller in Chapter 8 of The Reason for God. I call them the Argument from Inexplicability, the Argument from Fabricated Probabilities, the Argument from Wishing, and the Argument from Regularity. As I’ve often pointed out, not only are arguments like these untenably weak, but even if they weren’t they would still fail to establish which God we are discussing. Even if we decided… Read more
May 23, 2021
Four (Bad) Reasons For God
May 23, 2021 By Neil Carter
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When I first picked up Tim Keller’s The Reason for God, I did not expect that out of fourteen chapters he would devote only one of them to offering arguments for the existence of God. I’m not sure what I expected, but after all the hype from my Christian friends and their pleading with me to read it for myself, it wasn’t that. A Very Brief Case Indeed Keller spends the first seven chapters responding to what he calls the most common objections to… Read more
May 20, 2021
Changing Gods Midstream
May 20, 2021 By Neil Carter
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“You can’t ride two horses with one a**, sugarbean.” —Earl Smooter, Sweet Home Alabama Halfway through his book The Reason for God, Tim Keller pauses for an intermission in which he pivots from his previous discussion of “the seven biggest objections…people in our culture have about the Christian faith” to lay the groundwork for part two of his book, presumably the part in which he finally gives us, at long last, his reasons for God. He promises they are coming, but… Read more
May 19, 2021
For the Bible Tells Me? No.
May 19, 2021 By Neil Carter
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I don’t have any concrete numbers on this, but I believe most Christians who are into apologetics as a serious hobby are inerrantists. By that I mean they belong to one of those subsets of the Christian faith who believe the Bible is right—not just about some things—but about everything. Tim Keller falls into that category, which explains why he devotes all of Chapter 7 in The Reason for God to arguing that the Bible never gets anything wrong. The Christian faith… Read more
May 18, 2021
What’s Wrong with Asking for a Miracle?
May 18, 2021 By Neil Carter
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When people ask me why I left my faith, I always find myself spending the first part of the conversation discounting assumptions they bring about why this keeps happening to people they know. They usually reach for one of several non-rational causes: Somebody hurt you once You went to the wrong church You just want to be your own boss You want more sex/money/power/freedom You’re afraid of commitment The devil has blinded you These are the reasons that make the… Read more
May 14, 2021
Believing In Evolution, But Not Too Much
May 14, 2021 By Neil Carter
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Moving on to Chapter 6 in his The Reason for God, Tim Keller takes on Richard Dawkins, who argues in The God Delusion that scientific literacy and religious belief are inversely related. The more a person understands modern science, Dawkins suggests, the less inclined he will be to accept the supernatural claims of any religion. To back this up, Dawkins cites a 1998 study which found that only 7% of the members of the National Academy of the Sciences believe in a personal God…. Read more
May 14, 2021
The Evolution of Hell in The Reason for God
May 14, 2021 By Neil Carter
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Growing up in an evangelical church I was taught that no matter what it is you want or need, God himself is the answer. You need comfort or security? God is where you get it. You want guidance or companionship? God is there for you. You need discipline? Affection? Wisdom? God, God, God. It reminds me of an old church joke: A pastor was giving the children’s message during church…saying, “I’m going to describe something, and I want you to… Read more
May 12, 2021
Whitewashing Christian History in The Reason for God
May 12, 2021 By Neil Carter
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To hear Tim Keller talk, you’d think the Christian church was responsible for every progressive social step forward that Western civilization has taken. In order to support this idea, Keller turns in chapter four of The Reason for God to address the developments of the Abolition movement and of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, asserting that both of these causes owed their successes to the Christian faith. I have some issues to take up with his treatment of… Read more
May 11, 2021
Straw Skepticism and The Reason for God
May 11, 2021 By Neil Carter
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It’s difficult for me to take a book seriously when it misrepresents my own views as consistently as does Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. I am only on chapter three and already I’ve encountered enough straw men and red herrings to make me want to quit reading. The next chapter is the one that made my blood boil so badly I actually did have to put the thing away for a while. I’ll share that one tomorrow. Like every… Read more
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