The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism » (Reprint)

Timothy Keller is the pastor of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three sons. Redeemer has nearly six thousand regular attendees at five services, a host of daughter churches, and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world.

The remarkable New York Times bestseller by the "C.S. Lewis for the 21st century" (Newsweek).

A New York Times bestseller people can believe in-by a "pioneer of the new urban Christians" (Christian Today magazine).

Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, addresses the frequent doubts that skeptics and non-believers bring to religion. Using literature, philosophy, anthropology, pop culture, and intellectual reasoning, Keller explains how the belief in a Christian God is, in fact, a sound and rational one. To true believers he offers a solid platform on which to stand against the backlash toward religion spawned by the Age of Skepticism. And to skeptics, atheists, and agnostics he provides a challenging argument for pursuing the reason for God.

Publishers Weekly

In this apologia for Christian faith, Keller mines material from literary classics, philosophy, anthropology and a multitude of other disciplines to make an intellectually compelling case for God. Written for skeptics and the believers who love them, the book draws on the author's encounters as founding pastor of New York's booming Redeemer Presbyterian Church. One of Keller's most provocative arguments is that "all doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs." Drawing on sources as diverse as 19th-century author Robert Louis Stevenson and contemporary New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, Keller attempts to deconstruct everyone he finds in his way, from the evolutionary psychologist Richard Dawkins to popular author Dan Brown. The first, shorter part of the book looks at popular arguments against God's existence, while the second builds on general arguments for God to culminate in a sharp focus on the redemptive work of God in Christ. Keller's condensed summaries of arguments for and against theism make the scope of the book overwhelming at times. Nonetheless, it should serve both as testimony to the author's encyclopedic learning and as a compelling overview of the current debate on faith for those who doubt and for those who want to re-evaluate what they believe, and why. (Feb. 14)

Introduction ix

Part 1 The Leap of Doubt

1 There Can't Be Just One True Religion 3

2 How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? 22

3 Christianity Is a Straitjacket 35

4 The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice 52

5 How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell? 70

6 Science Has Disproved Christianity 87

7 You Can't Take the Bible Literally 100

Part 2 The Reasons for Faith

8 The Clues of God 131

9 The Knowledge of God 148

10 The Problem of Sin 165

11 Religion and the Gospel 180

12 The (True) Story of the Cross 193

13 The Reality of the Resurrection 209

14 The Dance of God 222

Epilogue: Where Do We Go from Here? 237

Acknowledgments 253

Notes 255

Index 299