Read Keller’s outline for Part I of The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. The chapter titles alone may motivate you to start reading:
- There Can’t Be Just One True Religion
- How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
- Christianity is a Straitjacket
- The Church is responsible for So Much Injustice
- How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?
- Science has Disproved Christianity
- You Can’t Take the Bible Literally
While reading The Reason for God I found myself thinking that I would easily recommend it over C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. On the one hand, that is not surprising. Mere Christianity was the edited publication of lectures given during World War II. Whereas, The Reason for God was published in 2008. Lewis’s work is dated. On the other hand, it’s quite surprising given Lewis’s stature.
But a comparison of Mere Christianity with The Reason for God is silly in any case because Keller repeatedly acknowledges Lewis’s influence on his writings. Keller shares that it was a combination of three people who shaped his thought:
I also owe a deeper sort of acknowledgement to the three people to whom I am most indebted for the fundamental shape of my Christian faith. They are, in order, my wife, Kathy, the British author C.S. Lewis, and the American theologian Jonathan Edwards.
Lewis’s words appear in nearly every chapter. It would be wrong not to admit how much of what I think about faith comes from him.
Keller isn’t in competition with Lewis. He is standing on his shoulders and taking the discussion forward in the new millennium. If it’s true that Tim Keller advances C.S. Lewis’s thinking, and I think he clearly does, then The Reason for God is must reading.
Having said that, the best way to motivate you to read Keller’s book is to read the chapter titles.
Tomorrow, I’ll share some tips for reading The Reason for God with profit.
