52 pages • 1 hour read
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
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Addressing Objections to Christianity
The first major theme of The Reason for God is that of addressing objections to Christianity. Keller chooses not to frame those objections based on their presentation in the works of the “new atheists”—partly, it would appear, because he thinks that they have already been sufficiently debunked. Instead, he frames the objections to Christianity as they have been presented to him by ordinary people in the course of his pastoral ministry.
As such, the objections Keller is most interested in are not high-level philosophical or scientific concerns but issues that have become commonplace within the popular zeitgeist. He touches on technical aspects of philosophy and science where appropriate, but these are not the central features of his arguments, largely because most of the objections to Christianity he has encountered are not issues that arise from academic research but from encounters with ordinary New Yorkers. Further, he holds that philosophy and science provide ample evidence in favor of Christianity, not against it, and so he deals with objections from those areas in fairly succinct fashion: “Though you could not prove that the fine-tuning of the universe was due to some sort of design, it would be unreasonable to draw the conclusion that it wasn’t” (136).
Keller devotes most of his attention to two forms of objections: first, popular-level misunderstandings of Christianity, and second, objections that arise from postmodern ways of thinking. Both types of objections feature throughout the book, and not only in Part 1, which is specifically devoted to answering objections. The first type—popular misunderstandings of Christianity—features in numerous ways throughout the book, including in Keller’s handling of Christian history and the responsibility for historical injustices, which he attributes largely to an incomplete historical understanding at the popular level. It also features in Keller’s description of Christian doctrines (the main concern of Part 2), in which he clears up misconceptions that secular societies have about certain traditional Christian beliefs, such as its teachings on sin and hell. For example, regarding sin, Keller says, “The Christian doctrine of sin, properly understood, can be a great resource for human hope” (168), contrary to the way it is popularly portrayed.
The second type of objection—that arises from postmodern ways of thinking—also features throughout the book, but most prominently in Part 1. These objections include the broad tendency of secular audiences to reject exclusive truth claims in favor of relativism. If all truth-claims are relative, however, then even the claim that all truth is relative cannot be taken as accurate, which suggests that the premise was wrong to begin with. Keller regularly responds to relativistic objections by claiming that the perspective raised by the objection is itself relativized by its own historical and cultural context, in addition to being just as exclusive as Christianity’s claims: “They believe the world would be a better place if everyone dropped the traditional religions’ views of God and truth and adopted theirs. Therefore, their view is also an ‘exclusive’ claim about the nature of spiritual reality” (12-13). In attempting to address these objections, Keller implies that such objections are always based on misunderstandings or faulty reasoning.
Rational Arguments for Belief in God
Alongside answering objections against Christianity, Keller makes rational arguments for belief in God one of the central concerns of his book. Although Part 2 is specifically structured to provide such arguments, readers can find them interspersed throughout the book. Keller uses these arguments along conventional lines for Christian apologetics, together with the philosophical presuppositions that undergird them.
Among those presuppositions is a conviction that objective truth exists—that is to say, truth is not simply relative in such a way as to say that “Christianity is true for him, but atheism is true for me.” In Keller’s view, a relativistic view of truth cannot stand up to logical scrutiny: Either there is a God or there is not, and that truth equally applies to everyone regardless of their personal beliefs. Keller claims,
If you infer from the social conditionedness of all belief that ‘no belief can be held as universally true for everyone,’ that itself is a comprehensive claim about everyone that is the product of social conditions—so it cannot be true, on its own terms (10).
A second presupposition is that rational exploration is a reliable means for arriving at true knowledge. This position is generally uncontroversial, for while it is disputed by some postmodernists, most of the skeptics and atheists with whom Keller dialogues all hold the same view, attempting to use rational arguments as a means to arrive at the answer to whether God exists or not.
Keller’s methodology differs somewhat from the position of other Christian apologists, some of whom believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (e.g., the theology of Thomas Aquinas). Keller believes that a methodology that establishes proof as its goal will likely fail, simply on account of the finite nature of human knowledge and the limitations of our subjective perspectives. He aims, instead, at providing enough clues for God’s existence that the cumulative case could be plausible: “[T]here are some arguments that many or even most rational people will find convincing, even though there is no argument that will be persuasive to everyone regardless of viewpoint” (125). Keller holds that the cumulative case built by these clues has significant compelling force, especially when added to the innate sense of God’s existence that appears to lie behind humanity’s experiences of beauty, meaning, and morality: “[W]hatever you may profess intellectually, belief in God is an unavoidable, ‘basic’ belief that we cannot prove but can’t not know. We know God is there” (147).
The Insufficiency of Relativism
A third recurring theme in The Reason for God is the insufficiency of relativism as an answer to questions of religious truth. Keller identifies relativistic sentiments as among the most common reactions to Christianity he encountered among New Yorkers: “‘What is your biggest problem with Christianity?’ […] One of the most frequent answers I have heard over the years can be summed up in one word: exclusivity” (3). Relativism is a philosophical perspective that asserts, in its strong form, that there is no such thing as universal truth, and in its weak form, that even if a universal truth exists, it cannot ultimately be proven as universally true.
One of the oft-cited reasons for holding a relativistic perspective is the realization that all truth-claims emerge from particular historical, social, and cultural contexts that shape the expression and content of such claims. Some cultural commentators have also noted that throughout human history, most assertions of exclusive truth-claims have gone hand-in-hand with attempts to gain power over others. As such, many in the secular West are skeptical of Christianity’s truth-claims, preferring to say that what may be true for Christians is not necessarily true for people of other faiths. This position also plays into a frequent desire among secularists to show solidarity with minority cultures and faith traditions, whose beliefs, they argue, should be valued and respected just as much as the Christians’.
Keller sympathizes with the generosity of spirit that is evident in many relativists’ positions and agrees that many truth-claims throughout history have been complicated by issues of context and power imbalances. Nevertheless, he contends that relativism is philosophically bankrupt—its position cannot hold up to scrutiny. Keller argues for the insufficiency of relativism in two main ways: first, by pointing out its circular nature, and second, by noting the implicit ethnocentrism of its proponents. He argues that, since relativism claims that all truth-claims are relative, that in itself is a truth-claim. If its own claim is relative, and not universally true, then one has no significant reason to believe the claim: “[A]bsolute relativism can only exist if the relativists exempt themselves from their own razor” (10).
Keller also posits that there is ethnocentrism in relativism. He argues that other cultures actually advance their own exclusivist truth-claims, so the adherents within those cultures do not regard the relativists’ position as a gracious defense, but as a dangerous falsehood. Keller presents relativists as “believ[ing] they have a superior way to view things. They believe the world would be a better place if everyone dropped the traditional religions’ views of God and truth and adopted theirs” (12-13). Keller then suggests that they implicitly believe that their own culture of Western secularism is to be preferred to other cultural viewpoints, describing this as ethnocentrism rather than multiculturalism. Keller thus maintains that we must take the exclusive truth-claims of Christianity seriously, as either universally true or universally false.
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