Reason for God: A Conversation with Tim Keller
Following is an interview with Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, about his recently released book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.
Q. What’s your take on the recent spate of atheistic bestselling authors and books (Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins)?
A. Society is polarizing—the secular world is becoming more secular and the religious movement is strengthening as well. My parents’ generation, who lived through the Depression, was more traditional. Not particularly religious, but moral. In the past there were tiny wings of the very religious and the very atheistic, but now the middle has gone away.
Now you have more strident secularism happening. The New Atheist books say religion is bad and respecting religion is bad.
Q. Is atheism a trend? Why is it attractive?
A. Secularism is a trend, not atheism. There’s a growing group who is indifferent toward the question of whether God exists.
I think secularism is attractive in a society that is so pluralistic. People say that the ideas [presented by other religions] are more plausible because they live in closer proximity to nice people all around them with different beliefs. It’s different from living in a homogeneous society.
Q. In your book you talk about the beliefs that exist under the doubts of non-Christians. What are some examples? How do you address them biblically?
A. There is the idea that if God exists, He must be empirically provable. But that idea itself is a belief, an act of faith. It assumes that God is an object of this world.
Others say, “There can’t be one true religion.” But in the Middle East, they would denounce that. There’s no evidence for that statement—it’s a major leap of faith.
Q. What’s your take on the recent spate of atheistic bestselling authors and books (Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins)?
A. Society is polarizing—the secular world is becoming more secular and the religious movement is strengthening as well. My parents’ generation, who lived through the Depression, was more traditional. Not particularly religious, but moral. In the past there were tiny wings of the very religious and the very atheistic, but now the middle has gone away.
Now you have more strident secularism happening. The New Atheist books say religion is bad and respecting religion is bad.
Q. Is atheism a trend? Why is it attractive?
A. Secularism is a trend, not atheism. There’s a growing group who is indifferent toward the question of whether God exists.
I think secularism is attractive in a society that is so pluralistic. People say that the ideas [presented by other religions] are more plausible because they live in closer proximity to nice people all around them with different beliefs. It’s different from living in a homogeneous society.
Q. In your book you talk about the beliefs that exist under the doubts of non-Christians. What are some examples? How do you address them biblically?
A. There is the idea that if God exists, He must be empirically provable. But that idea itself is a belief, an act of faith. It assumes that God is an object of this world.
Others say, “There can’t be one true religion.” But in the Middle East, they would denounce that. There’s no evidence for that statement—it’s a major leap of faith.
Q. You encourage both Christians and non-believers to examine their doubts. Why?
A. If people who doubt Christianity would look at their own doubts and ask the same amount of justification from their beliefs as they’re asking of Christians, they’ll find that those doubts aren’t well-justified.
But I respect those who doubt Christianity. In this book I wrote about my own process of working through doubts to show that I take their concerns seriously.
And Christians need to be honest too. If you live with doubts but are taught not to question them, then any adversity can shake your faith. We see that happen a lot to kids who are raised in the faith. They first time they hit real suffering and pain then God doesn’t seem emotionally real. We need both a rational and an emotional sense of God’s reality to stand firm in Christianity.
Q. This book seems different in spirit from the New Atheist books. What’s your ultimate goal with it?
A. The New Atheist books are certainly different from this book. In voice and in spirit, I’m trying to be respectful and humble about what we know and don’t know as Christians. I’m trying to show a different way about how to debate this topic.
And I hope this book empowers Christians to articulate their faith better. I hope that many who doubt Christianity realize that it makes sense and believe it. Jesus is worth believing in. Christianity makes sense. Because Jesus really rose from the dead, we’re going to be okay.
A. If people who doubt Christianity would look at their own doubts and ask the same amount of justification from their beliefs as they’re asking of Christians, they’ll find that those doubts aren’t well-justified.
But I respect those who doubt Christianity. In this book I wrote about my own process of working through doubts to show that I take their concerns seriously.
And Christians need to be honest too. If you live with doubts but are taught not to question them, then any adversity can shake your faith. We see that happen a lot to kids who are raised in the faith. They first time they hit real suffering and pain then God doesn’t seem emotionally real. We need both a rational and an emotional sense of God’s reality to stand firm in Christianity.
Q. This book seems different in spirit from the New Atheist books. What’s your ultimate goal with it?
A. The New Atheist books are certainly different from this book. In voice and in spirit, I’m trying to be respectful and humble about what we know and don’t know as Christians. I’m trying to show a different way about how to debate this topic.
And I hope this book empowers Christians to articulate their faith better. I hope that many who doubt Christianity realize that it makes sense and believe it. Jesus is worth believing in. Christianity makes sense. Because Jesus really rose from the dead, we’re going to be okay.
Comments
Leave a Comment
Please install Adobe Flash
Subscribe here to get full access to the latest articles and best resources
Dr. Byron G. Curtis
Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
Perhaps yours is that modest and irenic book. I look forward to reading it. Good, too, to see it favorably reviewed in Newsweek a few issues ago. Glad you're in the public square.