Tim Keller’s Reason for God

So recently I’ve been asking a lot of questions and wasn’t too sure how to answer them other than to just ask around and other places on the wide world web :] Some of these questions would include: Does God exists? What reasons do I have for his existence that are logical and not just based on emotional or past experiences? How does evil play into everything? The paradoxical question of evil, which is not so paradoxical now that I think of it. Does an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent God exist since evil exists? How does evil play into God’s plan? Even the question of God’s plan. Questions of the reliability of the Bible and the new testament scriptures that we base our belief of Christ and his life on. It was weird, I never really thought of these questions before, and even when i did, they never really bothered me. I just trusted in Jesus to bring me through the answers. But now I couldnt do that, I needed answers.

Basically I became a skeptic. I pretty bad skeptic, i was skeptical of everything that I once knew to be true, and was skeptical even of other believers and their testimonies of their interactions with God. I’ve been spending a lot of time over this break thinking about this stuff and just hashing it out in my head. On the way to the Campus Crusade for Christ Boston Winter Conference, I sat on a train ride for about 5 hours. On this train ride, I decided to write, for my own sake and mental wellness, my own reason for God. It was just a basic outline, but basically consisted of reasons why I deemed it reasonable for the existence of a God. It was in no way philosophical or scientific, but just musings in which I could see no other explanation except for God.

I was truly having a hard time at BWC, I needed some time to just sit down and think things through you know? I wasn’t exactly feeling like praising God especially if my mind was telling myself that God didnt exist. I honestly spent a lot of time talking to myself talking things out in my head. Even in a spare minutes I had walking from one place to another I would be thinking in my head. I had decided that I had to stand somewhere and work things out from that perspective. I decided to stay with my belief in God and work to find evidence to stand on my belief in Him. I asked God to help me through  this time and asked Him to show himself to me in very real and miraculous ways.

One way was through a friend who I met last year at another conference who had joined Cru as an intern this year. I told him a bit about what I was going through and some of the questions I was trying to work it out. He told me that He was currently reading “The Reason for God” by Tim Keller. People have recommended it in the past but I never really saw a need to read it. My good friend Geoff, who was also helping me through this time brought his copy of the book for me to read. So I spent some time reading the book at the conference and it made a lot of sense. At the end of the conference, God worked through my intern friend who bought me a copy of the book to read. I have been reading it ever since the conference and have finally finished it yesterday.

I must say that I enjoy it, especially in my time of intellectual need. There were a lot of questions that were addressed. I must say that he did a very good job of what he said he would do. He said that he could not provide absolute proof for God and that this God was the God of the Bible but he does a good job of making it very reasonable case for both of these beliefs. Keller also brings up topics that would point to God such as where does this idea of good and evil and morals even come from if we’re just animals? How about the existence of the universe? He talks a little bit about the evidence for the reliability of the new testament and the resurrection of Christ himself. It is in no way exhaustive and is not meant to be but it does do the job of getting people to think a little more about what they do or don’t believe. I also wish that he did a little better in identifying where he got his information from and the backgrounds of the people he quotes in his book. But he does give a pretty long notes section where if you are curious as to where he got his info, you can check out his sources. Now the only place for me to go is to continue to be faithful to God and run the race hard. To spend some more time studying arguments for God and studying the reliability of the new testaments and the history of the church.

Here’s a list of the chapters, if you’re thinking about any of these topics, get a copy and check it out, and give yourself some time to chew on what he says, lol:

Part1:

1 – There can’t be just one religion

2 – How could a Good God allow suffering?

3 – Christianity is a straightjacket

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

Part 2:

8 – The clues of God

9 – The knowledge of God

10 – The problem of sin

11 – Religion and the gospel

12 – The (true) story of the cross

13 – The reality of the resurrection

14 – The dance of God

Epilogue – Where do we go from here?

I hope that you’ll be able to pray for me in my endeavour and that you’ll join me in becoming a more educated Christian who actually knows what they believe in and why and the evidence for it all.

For His Glory,

Will Poon