Book Review - The Reason for God

This is my first attempt at a book review, so hopefully you will give me some leeway in this. I will be discussing The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

First, let me say I finished this book. I rarely finish books. I feel in many books ideas are repeated, chapter after chapter, will no new material, and so I get bored of reading the same things over and over, and I will move on to another book. That was not the case here. This book was filled with many great insights throughout. I didn’t feel like the author was just trying to take up pages with repetitive rhetoric.

The book is divided into two sections:

• The Leap of Doubt
• The Reasons for Faith

In the first section he tackles many questions asked by skeptics and doubter. I will go through a few of the chapters and make some comments about them.

The first chapter is titled: “There can’t be just one true religion.” He is addressing the most common objection to the Christian faith. A question, I believe, we must know how to respond to. He addresses the fallacies of many of the statements used to justify this statement, and is very convincing in his arguments. He even goes into an alternative (yet accurate) definition of religion: “What is religion then? It is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing” (pg. 15). In all, this was a great chapter and starts the book off well.

He then spends time in chapters 2-5 discussing the issues people have with God (“How could a good God allow suffering?”, “How can a loving God send people to Hell?”), and the church (“Christianity is a straitjacket”, “The Church is responsible for so much injustice”). He makes very compelling arguments including the “idea” of a “God of love” is a Christian idea, the fact that suffering and Hell result from our pride and selfishness, and that religion has harmed many through things like the Inquisition and Crusades, but has helped an untold many more, especially when compared to the things that have resulted from atheist leaders (i.e. Holocaust, deaths as a result of Communist Russia and China).

The last two chapters of this section (6-7) deal with what I would consider more academic resistance to Christianity. He addresses the ideas that science has disproved Christianity and that we cannot take the Bible literally. His rebuke that science has disproved Christianity was somewhat weak, and I didn’t agree with a few things he said. Read it for yourself and make your own conclusions. However, the chapter on the Bible was great. Here are a few quotes:

(a student speaking on some of things he had heard about the Bible) Then, however, as I did my own firsthand research, I was surprised at how little evidence there actually was for these historical reconstructions (pg. 98).


The Christian faith requires belief in the Bible (pg. 99).


So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it (pg. 114)


Many of arguments here are classic, but still worth reviewing.

Now for the second half (“The Reasons for Faith”) of the book. I enjoyed this portion of the book more than the first. It clearly lays out the evidence God has shown us, and our need for Him, but not just a need for religion, but the Christian God the Bible describes. I could speak about each section individually, but that would take a while. So I will just take about my favorite chapter: Religion and the Gospel. I loved this chapter. I have read it a few times because I think its so good. He talks about how grace is what should motivate and drive us to obedience. Here are some really great quotes (you will still need to read this chapter to get the full picture!):

All other major faiths have founders who are teachers that show the way of salvation. Only Jesus claimed to actually be the way of salvation (pg. 174).


Sin and evil are self-centeredness and pride that lead to oppression against others, but there are two forms of this. One form is being very bad and breaking all the rules, and the other form is being very good and keeping all the rules and becoming self-righteous…If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless you and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding Him as Savior (pg. 177).


His grace both humbles me more deeply then religion can (since I am too flawed to ever save myself through my own effort), yet it also affirms me more powerfully than religion can (since I can be absolutely certain of God’s unconditional acceptance). (pg. 181).


This review is already really long so I will stop here, but I highly recommend this book. Its well worth the cost. Some of the ideas were new to me, but what I really enjoyed was (during the second part of the book) the clear explanation and reasoning the author gives as the reasons for faith. Quality read.