The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“Is skepticism or faith on the ascendancy in the world today? The answer is Yes. The enemies are both right. Skepticism, fear, and anger toward traditional religion are growing in power and influence. But at the same time, robust, orthodox belief in the traditional faiths is growing as well.”

This quote provides the background context of Keller’s book. In his view, both religious believers and skeptics are feeling the tension of watching the other position gain in numbers and influence. The Reason for God is directed toward addressing that feeling—in the case of believers, to assuage their fears of secularism’s rising influence, and in the case of nonbelievers (whom the book addresses as its primary audience), to explain the reasons behind religious belief and to remove some of the misunderstandings that underlie the tensions and fears felt by skeptics.

“My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs—you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared.”

Keller asserts that doubt is not a threat—in fact, he regards it as a healthy aspect of intellectual life, even for Christians—but as this quote shows, he insists that we interrogate our doubts to discern where they are coming from and whether their assumptions can bear the light of close scrutiny. This is his primary tactic in Part 1 for Addressing Objections to Christianity.

“Religion is not just a temporary thing that helped us adapt to our environment. Rather it is a permanent and central aspect of the human condition. This is a bitter pill for secular, nonreligious people to swallow. Everyone wants to think that they are in the mainstream, that they are not extremists. But robust religious beliefs dominate the world. There is no reason to expect that to change.”

In contrast to the widespread notion in the secular West that society is following a smooth trendline away from religious belief and toward nonbelief, Keller suggests that the evidence does not support that view.