Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God - Books at a Glance

Keller, Timothy. Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical. New York: Viking, 2016. 327 pp. $27.00 (hardcover).

One of my favorite contemporary Christian authors is Timothy Keller.  I frequently refer to Keller as a modern day C. S. Lewis - a widely-read, intelligent, articulate scholar who has an uncanny ability to both understand and communicate with people across the theological and social spectrum.

I recently read and reviewed Keller's Making Sense of God - and my review was just posted up on Books-at-a-Glance, an excellent website that gives concise but thoughtful reviews of a broad swath of Christian scholarship.  Follow the link, and enjoy!

Books-at-a-Glance


Blessings,
Tawa

Keller, The Reason for God, Part III of III

Keller, Timothy.  The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.  New York: Dutton, 2008. 293 pp.

In introducing the positive apologetic of the second half of the book (“Intermission”), Keller notes that he will be seeking to establish a ‘mere Christianity,’ a faith which affirms the major ecumenical creeds of the early centuries (117).  The reasons he will lay out do not serve as epistemologically compelling proof, a goal which is impossible and cannot even live up to its own standards (118-20).  Rather, he seeks to establish rational arguments that will persuade most rational people (120).  Finally, he suggests that the Christian worldview “makes the most sense of the world,” and invites the reader to put on Christian lenses to see the world through (123).

Keller, The Reason for God, Part II of III

Keller, Timothy.  The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.  New York: Dutton, 2008. 293 pp.

I noted in my last blog post that I consider Timothy Keller to be, potentially, a C. S. Lewis of our age – an apologist who has the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and literary gifts to communicate the truths and truthfulness of the Christian faith effectively to a broad audience.  I have embarked on a six-part series interacting with Keller’s two most prominent apologetic works, The Reason for God (2008) and Making Sense of God (2016).  Last time, I noted that The Reason for God is split into two major sections – the first half of the book dealing with ‘negative apologetics’ – that is, responding to typical objections against the Christian faith; the second half dealing with ‘positive apologetics’ – that is, setting forth reasons to believe that Christianity is true.  I previously summarized and evaluated the first half of the first half of The Reason for God, analyzing Keller’s responses to charges of religious intolerance (Chapter 1), the problem of evil (Chapter 2), and the inhibition of freedom in Christianity (Chapter 3).  In this post, we will cover the last half of part one, and in my final post on The Reason for God we will look at his positive arguments for Christian faith.

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God - Part I of III

Keller, Timothy.  The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.  New York: Dutton, 2008. 293 pp.

I am, in many ways, an apologetics junkie.  I love the various aspects, topics, issues, styles, methods, approaches, insights, and personalities of Christian apologetics.  Like anyone, I have my favorite apologists.  The Apostle Paul is certainly one; St. Augustine another.  Thomas Aquinas is high up on my list, as is Thomas Sherlocke.  In the 20^th century, James Warwick Montgomery, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Gary Habermas, and William Lane Craig have been apologetic heroes.  But my absolute favorite 20^th-century apologist is indubitably C. S. Lewis – not because I agree with him about everything, but because he is a masterful communicator, and because his basic approaches to apologetic questions is both sound and winsome.  Lewis was a genius at grasping complex theological truths and communicating them in terms that everyone could comprehend.  Lewis was a master wordsmith who took pride in the craft of creating beautiful prose, even in argumentative form.  Lewis also understood the mind and heart of the non-Christian, and engaged them in their terms on their turf – very effectively at that.

In all of those ways, I tend to hold up Timothy Keller as a 21^st-century C. S. Lewis.  Like Lewis, Keller is a broad reader, with deep understanding of the theological truths of the faith as well as the mind of the non-Christian.  Like Lewis, Keller loves learning and language, and crafts lovely literature.  In this next series of blog posts, I intend to interact with two of Keller’s most prominent apologetic works: his 2008 The Reason for God, and his 2016 Making Sense of God.  I will have three blog posts on each book: this post covers the first half of the first half (yes, the repetition was deliberate) of The Reason for God.