Rational Faith

You’ll have to excuse my failure to post over the past month. It’s been busy with Holy Week, Easter, and family visiting. I’m also realizing how much less time I’ve had this year compared to last year, before Jovi was born. That darn kid sucks up much of our free time.

Anyway, I still have found time to read (perhaps this is because I’m a pastor and really only work one day a week….haha), and one of the best books I’ve read in a long time is Timothy Keller’s “The Reason for God.” If you are a person who questions whether or not Christianity is true or if you deal with people who are skeptical of Christianity, I highly recommend this book.

Keller is a pastor in New York City, and his book was written from the perspective of the many conversations he has had with skeptical New Yorkers about faith. While Keller’s primary role is as pastor, he is extremely well versed in philosophy. What is great about his book is not the originality of his ideas and arguments. I’ve come across all of his arguments in other books of philosophy or theology. But, what is great is how logical and accessible his book is. He covers the most common arguments that skeptics use to attack the Christian faith, and responds to those arguments with great precision and clarity. He brings together some of the best arguments Christian thinkers have to offer (the book is well documented, repeatedly quoting C.S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, Soren Kierkegaard, and a wide variety of authors from across the spectrum), and he does it in a way that I think most serious-minded laypeople could understand. This is an excellent introduction to apologetics and would be the first book off my shelf that I would give to skeptic of the Christian faith.