ShelfLife

What I appreciated most about this chapter was the way the way Keller universalized sin, without making everyone sound like they are offensively evil.  If I look back over my personal history in sharing the message of salvation with other people, I’ve struggled with a way to present the problem of sin that doesn’t come across as so offensive, that the other person believes I am basically calling them a not too distant relative of Hitler.  I think my problem is that I’ve been operating with a behavior oriented definition of sin rather than a heart oriented definition.  I’ve made the secondary the primary.  A heart that makes anything besides God ultimate will eventually lead to behavior that can be viewed as bad.

Unfortunately I have seen this problem play out in my own life in more ways than I’d care to admit.  In my mid-twenties I decided to leave my job as a CPA (which I eventually came back to) and pursue full-time ministry.  My first full-time ministry job was teaching at a small Bible study for single adults just outside of Atlanta.  Looking back on that season of my life, I am amazed at how quickly “teaching well” became an ultimate thing in my life. 

When my teaching fell flat or I didn’t receive praise from others, I was devastated.  It would impact my mood for days.  I felt worthless.  It never forgave me.  When my teaching went well and I did receive praise, it was empty and stressful.  Would I be able to perform again?  Were they just being nice?  Do people really like me?  It never satisfied me.

I could go on and on and share more stories of how I have done the same thing with friendships in high school, a girlfriend in college, my career as a CPA, my physical image, etc.  There are always things I’m tempted to make ultimate and in every case, I’m never satisfied when I achieve them and I am never forgiven when I fail them.

Praise be to God that in Jesus Christ we have the one “ultimate” that when obtained is deeply satisfying and when failed graciously forgives.  What a privilege to be ambassadors of this ultimate God who satisfies and forgives and who chooses to change the world not by starting with behavior change, but rather by rightly ordering our hearts.

A quick digression to start off – I believe one of the smartest things Keller did before starting this second section of the book was to make the distinction between “clues of God” and “proofs for God” as well as acknowledge the fact that any of the “clues” are “rationally avoidable at some point”.  To me, that intellectual honesty takes away a competitive pressure that I believe is sometimes present with discussing these topics.  I’m not sure why, but Alvin Plantinga’s quote from chapter eight is rather refreshing: “there are no proofs of God that will convince all rational persons.”

Back on topic – chapter 9:  I liked Keller’s “radical thesis” that every person’s innate sense of right and wrong (i.e. morals) indicate that they know there is a God, but they are repressing what they know.  If there is no God, then morality is not necessarily based on right and wrong, but rather on a person’s preferences.  And taken one step further, without God, then this whole thing we call “life” is also meaningless.

Right now, I work with a guy who appears to be repressing that he knows God exists and it is humbling to watch him try and explain the purpose and meaning of work, leadership, progress and “doing the right thing” without acknowledging Him.  Due to his position in the Company my co-worker often has the opportunity to get on a soapbox and pontificate about these topics and you can see the look in his eyes as he grasps for a reason why the work we do is important, why leading people well is important, why progress for our firm is important and why always doing the right thing is important.  It’s seems at times like he is trying to talk himself into buying what he’s selling.  Without the anchor of God, his reasons seem to be free floating and pointless and I think he knows it.

This chapter, like the others, has strengthened my own faith and has better equipped me to engage with folks like my co-worker.  I think the “Sez Who?” question is a great way to engage with others and quickly get to the core of what they believe about life.  The “good news” of Christ’s message has so many relevant applications, one of which is people don’t have to wander through life pointless.

The blog entry this week is from Isaac Mann:

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In chapter eight Keller explains a number of “Clues” pointing to the existence of God. I find these ideas fascinating, and I often wonder who the first person was to think of these. Some of them are obvious; nature is all around me and seems to work… hmm…  

God apparently thinks they’re obvious too. Psalm 14:1 says, “the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”  

Some of these clues are down right confusing though. One that the book doesn’t mention is called the ontological argument. It’s so complicated, in fact, that it’s been around for about a thousand years and philosophers are still debating it.  

For me one of the most interesting ideas in this chapter is that the Big Bang Theory is helpful for our particular view. I grew up in a pretty conservative Christian family, and I always had the impression that the Big Bang Theory was bad for a Christian view of the universe. It seemed to explain the universe without reference to God. It wasn’t until recently that I was watching a documentary on the Big Bang Theory, and I realized that it could actually be a clue for God’s existence.  

Apparently, many scientists used to think that the universe had no beginning. It just existed forever. Some people believed this because to think about a beginning for everything you have to admit that there’s something outside of nature… something “super” natural. Others probably just avoided the question since science (by definition) can’t explain what was before there was.  

Eventually scientists started to realize the universe is constantly expanding. If it’s expanding that means that it used to be smaller, much smaller. In fact, there must have been a time when it was infinitesimally tiny. What was there before that? Science can’t say. If you’re a scientist who likes that science has all the answers, that answer should terrify you. It begs the question “Why is there something instead of nothing?”  

So, it turns out the Big Bang Theory is a clue for the existence of God. Who’d a thought? That doesn’t mean I’m gonna completely buy into it. It is only a theory after all. But it is nice when man’s attempts to understand the universe accidentally lead to God clues.  

I guess we can’t prove that God does exist just like atheists can’t prove that he doesn’t. But we can make it pretty hard to act like atheism is the intellectual choice. You’ve got to try pretty hard to “reason” your way to denying that there’s a God.  

1. Does it bother you that we can’t prove the existence of God? Why or why not? 

2. What might be some reasons that God hasn’t given us real proof?  

3. We can’t get all the way to the Christian God from these clues. What do they show us about God? 

4. Have you ever used one of these clues in a discussion? How did it go?

Hope everyone is enjoying the book.  Just wanted to let you know that we will not have a blog entry on the “intermission”.  We will start this Wednesday (2/24) with an entry on chapter8.

The blog entry this week is from Jackie Tarnow:

When I have had conversations with certain friends who do not believe that they can trust the historical depiction of Jesus, usually I learn that they have never read the Bible and very rarely have actually spent time researching any evidence for which they base their conclusions. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but most of the people I have encountered usually just take bits and pieces of what they have heard in the media or in college classes and base their assumptions on the inaccuracy of the biblical Jesus without really taking much time to explore the facts.

In chapter seven of Tim Keller’s “The Reason For God,” entitled You Can’t Take the Bible Literally, one of the issues that he addresses is the historical accuracy of the Bible. He provides three reasons that people can trust the Bible historically, which are as follows: 1) The timing is far too early for the gospels to be legends; 2) The content is far too counterproductive for the gospels to be legends; and 3) The literary form of the gospels is too detailed to be legend.

In the beginning of this chapter, Keller discusses how Ann Rice, the well-known author of vampire stories, “returned to Christianity after doing extensive research about the historical Jesus, by reading the work of Jesus scholars at the most respected academic institutions.” She realized that there was little actual data to support the scholars’ conclusions of a non-divine Jesus – they simply did not make their case. On the other hand, Keller just begins to scratch the surface with respect to the evidence that exists demonstrating that the biblical accounts of Jesus’ life are historically accurate.

I know facts alone do not cause a person to believe the Gospel. Only God can open someone’s eyes and make them alive to spiritual truths, but it’s encouraging to me to know that there is evidence to support the historical accuracy of the bible if someone takes the time to research the facts. As Lee Strobel quoted from Dr. Craig Bloomberg in “A Case For Christ”, “But I’ll tell you this, there are plenty of stories of scholars in the New Testament field who have not been Christians, yet through their study of these very issues have come to faith in Christ. And there have been countless more scholars, already believers, whose faith has been made stronger, more solid, more grounded, because of the evidence….”

The blog entry for Chapter 6 is brought to us by David Peters:

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We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. –Albert Einstein 

Chapter 6 of Mr. Keller’s The Reason for God is entitled “Science Has Disproved Christianity”. It is a short chapter in which Keller takes on the role of apologist for Christianity. Keller devotes much of the chapter to evolution. Since there is probably not a bigger topic in the current science vs. religion debate than evolution I will mainly talk about it.

In my opinion, those arguing for the side of religion have often made fools of themselves by seeking to throw out all aspects of the theory of evolution. For instance, to me, it is patently obvious that natural selection is a fact. The best way to see it is in rapidly reproducing organisms, say bacteria. Our hospitals are unfortunately a living testament to natural selection.  MRSA is the perfect example of how traits in a population will react to nature. Those bacteria that are susceptible to antibiotics tend to die; those that aren’t tend to live. So, due to the mechanism of natural selection, we now have a lot of nasty bugs in our hospitals that are causing many problems.

Evolution fails when used as an “All-encompassing Theory”. Keller writes, “When evolution is turned into an All-encompassing Theory explaining absolutely everything we believe, feel and do as the product of natural selection, then we are not in the arena of science, but of philosophy.” Sounds like a religion to me. Quick, someone tell Richard Dawkins.

I wish Keller had addressed what I believe is the ultimate failing of science: that it is human. Since science is the accumulation of the human knowledge of nature, it is therefore finite and wrong. That is why I love the quote by Einstein that preludes this entry. The great scientist, who used his talent to uncover the secrets of how God made the world, confesses how little he knows. It is arrogant to believe that we have it all figured out. Einstein wasn’t that arrogant. But, it seems, Richard Dawkins is.

I think we sometimes forget that while science attempts to describe nature, it isn’t nature. Think about it. Every generation always thinks they have nature figured out. With the false precision of mathematics and advanced scientific instruments it is easy to think we understand everything. But the universe used to end at the edge of our flat Earth.  Now, they say that not only is the universe infinite in size, it is expanding at the speed of light. Wow. And the smallest particle used to be the atom. Atom means “something that cannot be divided further”. It is an unfortunate name because the subatomic particles keep getting smaller and smaller!

All we have to do is look at the history of science and see how limited and false some of the theories were. Why do we think that our current science is immune to those limitations and falsehoods? Cognitive bias? Yes. Human arrogance? Yes.

I, for one, am happy that human knowledge, science, doesn’t stand still. What if medicine were still dominated by the theory of  humorism? Leaches, anyone? Gross!

And sometimes, I think scientists just miss the point. Isn’t the beauty of DNA, not the double helix structure for which it is famous, but that it allows me to see bits of my wife’s face when I look at our daughter?

This week’s blog entry is from Mike Netzer.  Enjoy!

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In chapter 5, Keller addresses the objection of “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?” 

Consider the implication of a loving God who is not just.  I believe Keller does a good job showing how this belief is not necessarily as logical as one might think. 

Imagine a God who created the world, gave the world’s inhabitants free will, and then revealed himself to these inhabitants as “loving”.  Now imagine there were no immediate or deferred consequences for disobedience.  Would this God still be considered “loving”? 

I believe that a critical building block to Keller’s argument is the idea that doing something other than what God has instructed (sin) is harmful to us.  For example, if you saw someone you cared about hurting themselves and didn’t try to help them, would that not be perceived as uncaring? So it is with God. A lack of help/correction would be more of an indictment against God as “unloving” than his judgment could ever be.  Why?  Because not helping someone who is harming themselves demonstrates indifference, the “final form of hate”, says Becky Pippert.  

In reading this chapter I was reminded of Jesus’ words concerning judgment found in the book of John.

John 3:16, everyone knows, but often overlooked is John 3:17, For God did not send the Son to Judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Jesus repeats in John 12:47 I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. 

What did Jesus save it from?  Man’s ultimate destination apart from God: Hell. 

There must be a consequence for rejecting God’s offer of relationship and eternal life in Him and that consequence must be eternal separation from Him.  Keller says that hell is simply “one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory to infinity.” 

It is worth repeating that Jesus’ purpose, his mission, his driving force, was not to judge.  John 3:16 says for God so loved the world, not God was so frustrated with the world or God wanted to teach those evil humans a lesson.  See also 2 Peter 3:9 [The Lord] is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

Judgment is a necessary byproduct of Jesus’ saving work.  I feel like I fully believe, but only half-understand this truth.  (Maybe some enlightened commenter will shed additional light!)

Once a belief in God’s loving judgment has been established, the belief “vengeance is the Lord’s” (and only the Lord’s) serves as the backbone for a belief in non-violence.  To insist upon non-violence without reason is naive, and such a belief will never endure trial. A stance in non-violence must be rooted in the belief that God will judge the righteous and unrighteous. This makes a lot of sense to me. Without this belief, when wronged, you will either react violently and get caught up in a cycle of retaliation or fall into a bitter emotional state where you desire revenge, but lack the courage to act.  Only a belief that God will judge evil will allow you to patiently, peacefully endure suffering at the hands of another.

• How do you understand God’s justice and love to be interconnected?

• Are the wars the U.S. is currently involved in Biblically justifiable?

• What do you believe is the opposite of Keller’s definition of Hell as “one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory to infinity”? 

This week’s discussion on Chapter 4 was written by Veronica Netzer.

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In chapter 4, Keller addresses the behavior of Christians using three main issues:

1. Character Flaws – he recognized that people would be put off by the idea of Christianity based on the Christians they’ve met or things they’ve heard about Christians. Why would someone be a Christian if they can be a good person apart from the Christina faith?
2. War and violence – how/why could someone be apart of a religion that supports/promotes violence? Many people are quick to bring up something such as the Crusades to defend their reason for not being a Christian. 
3. Fanaticism – why would someone want to be associated with such self-righteous people?

I related most closely with the first issue. I was raised in a church where people called themselves Christians, but they were only identified as such on Sunday.  Because of this, I was witness to what many would call hypocrisy. I never believed Christians should be perfect, but as a teenager especially I realized there were a lot of people in the church who indifferent to caring for widows and orphans, loving their neighbor, or doing anything else that would inconvenience them.  Instead these people focused on causing strife in the church, gossiping about the latest happenings in the church office, and turning their back when someone came into Sunday service not dressed in their finest attire.

Recently I’ve had conversations with someone who I know loves the Lord that looked like this:

Friend:    Would your church hire someone who is homosexual?

Me:         If they knew that person recognized homosexuality as a sin, and was seeking to find freedom from it?

Friend:    But what if they sinned again?

Me:         Well, we are all struggling with something, right?

Keller said the church is “filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually…The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

One Sunday, Todd read a letter from someone who was disappointed with some of the attire they saw young women wearing on Easter Sunday.  They felt like the attire was inappropriate not just for Sunday, but for any day.  In response, Todd talked about a church being full of people all across the board in regards to their maturity.  He concluded that the church needs to have immature people; otherwise the mature are not doing their job!  

Having such a large church full of people who “still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually”, I believe Keller’s following statement applies to Watermark so well:

“It is often the case that people whose lives have been harder and who are ‘lower on the character scale’ are more likely to recognize their need for God and turn to Christianity. So we should expect that many Christians’ lives would not compare well to those of the nonreligious (just as the health of the people in the hospital is comparatively worse than people visiting museums).”

Discussion Questions

• Was there one particular issue that you have found yourself resonating with?
• Can you remember a time when you judged someone who called themselves a Christian but didn’t act like one?
• If you call yourself a Christian, can you recall a time when you did something that may have turned someone off to the church?

This week’s discussion on Chapter Three was written by Andrew and Carlton Johnson.  This is ShelfLife’s first ever collaboration between brothers.  Thanks for starting the conversation this week guys!

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In the beginning of chapter three, Keller quotes a woman named Charlene who stated, “I want to live for…my own sake.” To her, she thought Christianity would stifle her creativity and growth.  I believe her opinion is at the heart of those who say that Christianity is a “straight jacket”.  However as I continued to read I found that Keller makes what I believe to be an excellent argument for how this view is misleading and ultimately is itself constraining.  If we constantly chose our way, we will ultimately end up destroying ourselves. 

Two recent conversations aided in my better understanding of Keller’s perspective in this regard:

First Conversation – A Chinese graduate student at SMU lived a successful life in China up until he turned 33 when his wife got an opportunity to come work in America. While having dinner recently, he told me about a friend of his here in the States that owns a business and therefore can choose his work schedule and run his business as he sees fit.  This man’s experiences vary greatly from those of my friend’s countrymen who live with many restrictions and regulations which don’t allow them to always choose what they want to do.  I quickly concluded that he equates freedom, as many Westerners do, with being able to do whatever you want whenever you want.

Second Conversation – A former heroin addict grew up in Chicago.  His dad was as a gang leader and his mom was a prostitute. He lived many years of his life running drug rings, using cocaine, heroin, and alcohol. His world came crashing down one day when he finally became exhausted from his lifestyle. He thought he was living a life of freedom, however, after years of recovery, he now sees that he was enslaved to his own desires.

Keller comments that love is the ultimate freedom. “To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy” and “involve mutual, unselfish service, a mutual loss of independence.” Based on this proclamation, the remainder of my conversation with my friend from China now makes more sense to me.  While he envies some of the perceived “freedom” his friend here in the States enjoys, he deeply values the freedom realized by his countrymen due to their giving up some autonomy out of love for country and each other.

In this same way, my friend from Chicago found freedom in turning his life over to Jesus Christ.  He now defines freedom as “living your life believing our Creator has embraced us in grace and has taken away our chains of sin and can now utilize our God-given gifts and abilities to the fullest in such a way that brings us complete joy and fulfillment.”  1 John 3:16 speaks to the best example of true love and freedom through the forfeiture of self-autonomy, “this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

Discussion Questions 

• How would you have defined freedom before you read this chapter?
• In following Charlene’s statement how do you accept the iRobot view and believe that “true freedom is freedom to create your own meaning and purpose”?
• Can you truly define freedom without taking into consideration your community / society?
• Do you believe that if you always made selfish decisions you would be fulfilled in life?
• Have you been in a relationship that you are placing restrictions on your desires for the betterment of another, which ultimately then increases your joy?

Discussion Questions Related to Other Sections of Chapter Three

• When evaluating your community, would you conclude you are inclusive or exclusive?
• How would you relate your community to Christianity?
• Keller uses the New Jerusalem to “prove” that Christianity is an inclusive worldwide religion, do the future promises provide you comfort in Christianity today?
• Personal Application – Can you relate to Keller’s work comparison? If you were to reevaluate your career decisions, would you conclude you are actually restricting your full potential?

The following is Herb Thomas’ discussion of Chapter 2:

Hello, thank you for participating in Shelflife.  It is fun to read and discuss this book as a group.  

Our Book is Tim Keller’s The Reason for God – Belief in an Age of Skepticism;

Tim Keller’s rankings of the seven biggest objections to the Christian faith:  The following are my comments after reading Chapter 2

# 2:  How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? 

This is a problem that many non-Christians and Christians struggle with.  It goes to the “Nature of God” [hear Graham Cooke describe it on YouTube]. 

This question causes people to reject God as being [1] un-loving or un-caring and thus cannot be trusted or [2] non-existent.  Tim Keller discussed both reactions to this question. 

[1] God is un-loving or un-caring and thus cannot be trusted.

I think the more compelling and widespread objection to God allowing Evil and Suffering to continue is by persons who have been severely and deeply hurt or humiliated by another human being, especially if they were of an innocent age to protect themselves: Their questions to God are:  I could not protect myself and I was abused against my will.  Where were you, God?  If you loved me, why did you not stop this evil from happening to me?  How can I trust that you love me when you failed to protect me when I needed you the most?  A loving God would not have allowed this abuse to happen to me and definitely would not have allowed it to continue to happen to me.  You may love other people but you sure do not love me.  What’s worse is I’m not even sure that you care what happens to me. There is no way I am going to trust in you and I am so angry with you I refuse to believe in you. 

There are many people who question the “nature of God” as not being good, maybe even bad or possibly just doesn’t care.  God proved it to them by not showing up when needed the most.  How can God be counted on or trusted in the future? 

The reaction against God by non-Christian victims is rejection.  The reaction against God by Christian victims is distrust and fear (God is the “only game in town” so I dare not offend him because he made take something cherished away from me, like my child).  It is emotional and intense.  They could be very intelligent and use their intellect/scientific methods in their jobs but summarily reject God purely on emotional response to their pain.  They   are willing to be “intellectually dishonest” when it comes to God and refuse to examine the proofs of his claims.   

Remember that God’s offense is that he “allows” Evil and Suffering.  The fact is he is not to blame – he did not cause Evil – Satan caused Evil.  How? God gave Man the ability to choice to allow Man the freedom to prove through his choices that Man loved God – rather than being a puppet like Pinocchio.  Satan talked Man into a Sinful Choice that introduced Sin into the world and “survival of the fittest” – the “strong devour the weak”  Thereafter, the weak and innocent continually suffered pain.  God loved Man so much that God had a Rescue Plan.  He could have terminated the race of Man but the Rescue Plan was to redeem or cleanse them.  The pure blood of Jesus, God’s Son, was shed to absorb all the Evil and Suffering and cleanse us from our sin and heal us from our pain.  but Man had to make the correct choice this time and accept redemption through Jesus’ sacrifice. The Rescue Plan proves that God loves us because he will reverse the pain caused by Evil.  Why?  It is his nature to Love his children.  The Rescue Plan proves that God can be trusted because he is there to rescue you from the ultimate Pain and Suffering – eternal Hell – separation from all love, beauty, purity, goodness, kindness, joy, comfort, and light for eternity.  

Tim Keller says “ditto” because he said that God is not ambivalent against Evil and Suffering but is aggressively pursuing a Rescue Mission of by sending Jesus Christ to pay for all the Evil and Sins of this earth so that some day evil and suffering will end without having to terminate the human race to do it.  God had his Son experience pain and suffering, just like you, and pay the penalty all sin for all times by dying on the Cross.  Through his Resurrection, there will not be just a repair of your sufferings but a restoration will occur in you – “every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy greater” – all things will be made NEW.  “Resurrection …promises that we will get the life we most longed for, but it will be an infinitely more glorious world than if there had never been the need for bravery, endurance, sacrifice, or salvation”.

The ministries, like Someone Cares (abortion), Shelter From the Storm (sexual abuse) Celebrate Recovery (destructive habits) Reengage (destructive habits in marriage) try to demonstrate that God’s true nature is to love you, that he has always loved you and been with you even in your pain, that he has brought everything good into your life, that he  can heal your wounds and hurts, that he can restore broken relationships through the power of his love, that he can be trusted, that he can be counted on to be with you, that he will ultimately restore you. 

[2] God is non-existent.

Philosopher J.L. Mackie made the case against God: “If  a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there is much unjust able, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist.” God does not exist because God [by definition] could not allow Evil and Suffering to exist [because he would prevent them from existing] based upon their definition that God is just and loving.  The basis for non-existence of God is Logic.  The existence of Evil disproves the existence of God.  God could not exist because God allows terrible suffering therefore either God is all-powerful but not good enough to end Evil and Suffering or God is All-good but not powerful enough to end Evil and Suffering – implying that if God existed he would be compelled by his nature to end Evil and Suffering and since Evil and Suffering exists then God does not.  Tim Keller demonstrates that this logic is faulty and “bankrupt”.  It is based upon a false assumption that if there was a good reason that God allows suffering then their minds would be able to think of it. It is illogical that not believing in the existence of God will make Evil and Suffering go away.  But true logic says that just because you cannot see a good reason why God might allow suffering does not mean that there cannot be one.  He also said that the experiences of people show good reasons for at least some of the tragedy and pain with Joseph’s life as an example.

So, here are some questions to help keep this discussion going:

1. Do you have any opinions about these subjects? 

2. If so, please submit a response and let us hear from you. 

3. If you do not wish to comment, please let us know you are reading the book and participating in the forum by answering the Roll Call – submit a response and insert the work “Here”  just as your teachers used to do. It encourages us.  Thanks. 

~Herb Thomas