The Trouble with Christianity: Why It's So Hard to Believe It

Tim Keller is anything but defensive. He respects the real doubts that people bring to Christianity. Although described as a Christian apologist, what makes Tim Keller so palatable is his winsome while sincere approach, his genuine interest in reason and respect for people's skepticism. And he's thoroughly intelligent.

His book The Reason for God -- in which he discussed whether of not belief can exist in the age of reason, an age of scepticism -- was born out of literally thousands of conversations with young people since the early 90s.

In 1989 Tim Keller planted a church by going throughout New York City, talking to young professionals about why they wouldn't believe in God. Most of the people he spoke to had one or more of about half a dozen troubles with Christianity: common objections that made Christianity too hard to believe.

The Reason for God is a trip through reasoning. Keller shows that all of the common problems people today have with Christianity are in fact based in beliefs - alternative beliefs about God and the nature of reality.

And here's the punch line but it won't spoil it for you: To really have integrity skeptics need to apply the same tests to their beliefs as what they are demanding that Christians apply to theirs.

I recommend the book, but perhaps what I've found even more helpful initially, is listening through a series of MP3 audios in which Keller speaks to Christians on most of the subjects he addresses in the first part of his book:

These are excellent, absolutely fantastic presentations: really polite, respectful, palatable, engaging, informative, relevant, thought out and enlightening.

Why not listen to one or all of the following Reason for God audios (I dare you):

• Exclusivity: How Can There Be Just One True Religion?
• Suffering: If God Is Good, Why Is There So Much Evil in the World?
• Absolutism: Don't We All Have to Find Truth for Ourselves?
• Injustice: Hasn't Christianity Been an Instrument for Oppression?
• Hell: Isn't the God of Christianity an Angry Judge?
• Literalism: Isn't the Bible Historically Unreliable and Regressive?
• Doubt: What Should I Do with My Doubts? (David Bisgrove)

And by the way, if you did want to read the book too, here it is: ReasonforGod.com

God and Evil

Evil exists. So how can God exist?

Either God is bad [he does evil himself], God is limited [his power cannot prevent evil], or evil does not exist in the first place; or so we might be tempted to think anyway.

But none of these three positions work. A bad God is a contradiction in terms, as is a limited God. In both cases the God we would be talking about would not actually be God.

A God who is bad would be evil himself, because he would not be separate to and against evil in the first place. A limited God who cannot prevent evil, would not be able to rule all things in the first place. But in asking about whether God exists separate from and above the existence of evil, we are of course asking about a God over and against evil.

And of course the non existence of evil is only a theoretical concept adopted by atheists. Christians do not deny the existence of evil in order to uphold belief in God; we are the first to unequivocally affirm the reality of evil.

Evil exists. So how could such a God at the same time exist, a good God with power over evil?

But how can evil exist in the first place if God does not exist? By definition evil can only exist if God does too. In order to deny the existence of God, atheists must deny the existence of evil too. But the problem with atheism is that it is not true to the world we see and the lives we live, lives full of the experience of evil.

Evil is the distortion of what is good; it is the perversion, the twisting of what is right in the world. And so by denying the existence of evil, atheists also deny the existence of everything we know by nature to be both good and right.

But to deny evil is to deny the existence of things that we know are bad. And to do that we must deny that things can be wrong in the first place. This stems from a denial of the existence of objective moral values, or laws. Laws must be given by one who has ultimately responsible; the owner, the director, responsible for our governance and judgment. It is in order to deny accountability to judgment that atheists want to deny both God and evil.

But evil exists, and so does God too.

And this God can only be good [so hating evil and always doing good] and all powerful [above all, controlling even evil].

So we have only one consistent option:

Since evil exists [and therefore God must exist] then God must be using evil for good.

The concept of 'using evil for good' raises many questions, but it is throughout the Bible affirmed again and again; that the all good and all powerful God reigns over and against evil by using it to magnify both his goodness and his power.

Elsewhere in Evil and the Sovereignty of God I have given a survey of the Bible's teaching on this subject; God, far from doing evil himself or being a victim of it, rules evil by making it achieve what is ultimately good.

This certainly can be hard to understand. But the problem of the existence of God in view of evil is not solved by denying the existence of God, as though by questioning God's existence we can make more sense of evil in our world, or at least cope with it better. For if God does not exist then we really do have no body to complain to; no body to question; and in fact, we are faced with a false reality in which we must deny our own perplexity, anguish, grief and turmoil, because by rejecting God we have denied the reality of all the evil itself that we suffer. This would be more terrifying, surely, than holding onto belief in a God over evil -- a God who we can call out to with our arguments; a God who we can turn to.

Nor is the problem of the existence of evil in view of God solved by denying the existence of evil. Evil is real, we know it, we feel it, we suffer it. It is not good, it is not right, and we know that it really is bad and wrong. But the denial of the existence of evil makes all the atrocities, all the pain and hurt, the war and genocide, the rapes and murders, the exploitation and the greed and lies; it makes is all 'disadvantageous', a subjective sadness relative to us -- but really and actually just "a part of life". They may be unfortunate for us, but not wrong as such; an inconvenience but not bad actually; an unhappy happening, but not an evil. The mature modern mind will just "accept them" and "move on". All the bad and ugly and evil of our world would simply by cause and effect, time and chance, and survival of the fittest and the lucky.

This is more unbearable, surely, than holding onto the reality of evil in the face of our suffering -- evil that is real, and that we can really hate.

How it is that God in his goodness and power actually uses all our evil ultimately to magnify his own goodness and power, we may never really comprehend this side of heaven; the most we might aim for is childlike faith.
 
But one thing is easy. Since evil exists, God must exist.

How about tomorrow?

Dear suffering Christian brother,

I am so sorry that I have not visited you for some years and that as your friends we have collectively let you suffer alone, largely, over the past five years. I realise now how much we have neglected you and I suddenly feel how much we’ve truly missed you as a church while you’ve been battling with chronic fatigue syndrome. We can’t begin to imagine, but it sounds like such a horrible sickness, and so crippling. And it saddens me even more to hear that your chronic condition has not improved, and may have even worsened.

We just wish that by God’s mercy you’d recover; and I do pray that none of us would give up praying to that end. But saving that, and while we wait, it is a gross failure on our part that we have allowed your prolonged absence from our church to go on for so long without regularly visiting you as your mates. You are our dear brother; our family. And so it must be all the more painful for you that we have not expressed that in our weekly church life; with common friendship and loyalty.

But we have been praying for you. We’ve been praying that God our Father would restore your health and give you back to us. And we’re thanking our Father in heaven that your faith has not failed; but your love for Christ has not wavered. We pray that by God’s power, Christ would fill you with his Spirit all the more through your suffering, so that your faith grows all the more, giving you the ability to rejoice and overflow with thankfulness, to the praise of his grace. You know that what might seem impossible to our minds is nonetheless possible for God, who loves to show his power in weakness.

We read Romans 5 in our small group last week, which as you know describes suffering as the soil of our Christian experience, producing the growth of the gospel in our lives, yielding the fruit of hope. And we pray that God would pour out into your heart his love by his Spirit, whom he has given you.

Brother, while we’ll never understand what you’ve been through, and what you continue to go through, it is so encouraging to us to hear how you have been hanging in there through such an awful long stint of sickness.

One thing you can do mate, like not many others I know, is add to your Christian resume, “outstanding demonstration of patience in long-suffering”.

We love you mate, and I can’t wait to visit you again soon. How about tomorrow?


Ps. And dear suffering sister and wife of my brother in Christ,

We’ve also all been so encouraged to see you at church each week, persevering through the last five years and pressing on in your faith. We can’t imagine what it must be like. But you are a great example to us all, and for that we thank you so much.

Our words above to your husband and our dear brother, and our prayers, are for you too. You’ve of course been suffering as a couple, as a family; and we pray also that God would pour out his love, now more than ever, into your heart too by the power of his Holy Spirit. And if by his mercy you have the strength and grace to forgive us, we will have all the more to thank God for.

We love you too, and thanks for taking such good care of our beloved brother.