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Timothy J. KellerThe Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
Timothy J. KellerNonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 2, Chapters 13-14-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Reality of the Resurrection”
As with the story of the cross, the narrative of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead lies at the heart of the Christian gospel, offering a fundamental historical proof of Jesus’s claims. Many skeptics, however, who rule out the possibility of miracles as one of their baseline assumptions, are unwilling to consider the historicity of the resurrection accounts. The difficulty with that position, in Keller’s view, is that the resurrection is the clearest explanation for a set of historically verifiable and otherwise unlikely events surrounding the beginning of the Christian church. The burden of proof thus does not lie with the Christian alone, to demonstrate that the resurrection happened, but also with the skeptic, to show that the story of Christian origins is historically plausible if the resurrection did not happen.
Keller suggests that such an endeavor is far more difficult than most people realize: “[T]he resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact much more fully attested to than most other events of ancient history we take for granted. Every effort to account for the birth of the church apart from Jesus’s resurrection flies in the face of what we know about first-century history and culture” (219). Due to its early attestation by multiple accounts, its surprising historical details that show it unlikely to be a fabricated account, and the way that early Christianity understood the event in a manner not entirely in line with what would be expected from their prior understanding of biblical tradition, the resurrection bears a long litany of clues suggesting that it was a real event that changed not only the lives of its first witnesses but also the entire course of world history. “If you don’t short-circuit the process with the philosophical bias against the possibility of miracle,” Keller writes, “the resurrection of Jesus has the most evidence for it” (219).
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Dance of God”
In the book’s final full chapter, Keller turns to an exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Christian belief that God is revealed in three co-equal divine persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are in union with one another—a union so full and intimate that together they are properly called one God, not three.
Keller describes the Trinity not only because it is a matter of some confusion among skeptics but also because Keller sees it as the core of the Christian worldview, a doctrine that offers a compelling invitation to the seeker. He explains the life of the Trinity as being like a dance of love:
When we delight and serve someone else, we enter into dynamic orbit around him or her, we center on the interests and desires of the other. That creates a dance, particularly if there are three persons, each of whom moves around the other two. So it is, the Bible tells us (224).
This view of God is starkly different, Keller notes, not only from the bleak, purposeless universe that results from the view that there is no God but also from the view that there is a God who is an entirely unitary being, monolithically solitary in essence. Such a God would not be oriented toward relationship and love in the same way that the Christian gospel assumes that God is. By presenting God as a Trinity, the Bible shows that love and interrelationship are fundamental to God’s own nature in the deepest possible way.
This then opens the possibility for the relationality of God to extend outward, to all creation. Keller writes, “The doctrine of the Trinity overloads our mental circuits. Despite its cognitive difficulty, however, this astonishing, dynamic conception of the triune God is bristling with profound, wonderful, life-shaping, world-changing implications” (225). Christianity declares that we are invited to join in the dance of God’s own joy, to enter into relationship with him through the forgiveness of our sins and the free grace offered through Jesus Christ. Ultimately, Keller says, the vision of Christianity is that God is working to restore all creation from its sin-broken state and bring it back into the joyful communion that characterizes the innermost life of his own divine nature: a grand, cosmic restoration of all things through Jesus Christ.
Epilogue Summary: “Where Do We Go From Here?”
The Epilogue offers a set of practical instructions for any readers who might wish to press forward with their consideration of the Christian faith, should they have been convinced by the arguments of the foregoing chapters.
Keller first invites the readers to examine their motives: “Are you getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve you?” (238). Nevertheless, he encourages readers not to be stymied by indecision if they feel that their motives are not pure enough because the fallenness and inner complexity of human beings means that we always act with mixed motives, whether we know it or not.
Next, Keller instructs readers to “count the cost” (a reference to Jesus’s teaching on discipleship), acknowledging that following Jesus is often a road of self-sacrifice. If, in considering these things, one is still moved by Christianity’s claims to be the truth, then Keller advises his readers to take concrete steps toward faith: repenting of their sinful ways of living, accepting in faith the work of Christ on their behalf, and trusting God for their salvation.
That is not the end of the process, however. Once faith in Christ has been professed, the next step is to get connected to a Christian community: “[T]here is no alternative. You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place” (247).
Part 2, Chapters 13-14-Epilogue Analysis
The final section of Part 2 continues Keller’s goal of making a cumulative case for Christianity with Rational Arguments for Belief in God. As with Chapters 10-12, however, the argumentation in these chapters is often not so much a matter of logical proof as it is an exercise in rhetoric. While some rational arguments are employed—as, for example, in Keller’s historical argument for the veracity of the biblical accounts of Jesus’s resurrection—the overriding methodology in this section is marked by making an appeal based more on emotions and personal experiences. Keller’s arguments for belief in God, then, are directed not only at the head but also at the heart, which fits with his background as a pastor.
The theme of Addressing Objections to Christianity only arises occasionally in these chapters, featuring most prominently as an aspect of Chapter 13’s presentation of the resurrection. Keller does not spend a great deal of time assessing the skeptical objections to the resurrection, except to point out that it is predicated on a philosophical bias against the possibility of miracles rather than on what Keller believes is the historical evidence. When it comes to Chapter 14, devoted to the doctrine of the Trinity, Keller does not even bring up the topic of objections, though many skeptics throughout the ages have levied accusations of logical incoherence against this doctrine. Keller’s silence regarding those objections likely indicates his belief that they are grounded not in any real philosophical difficulty with the doctrine, but in a misunderstanding of it, as he asserted with so many of the previous criticisms in the book.
In the Epilogue, Keller acknowledges that not all readers of his book will have been fully convinced of Christianity’s veracity by the time they reach the end, and so he prefaces the Epilogue with several lines explaining that it will not apply to everyone. However, for those readers who might be moved to consider making a commitment to the Christian faith, Keller provides a list of practical steps. Most of the book has been concerned with the intellectual and emotional work of considering Keller’s arguments for the gospel message, and the Epilogue represents the only place where Keller makes practical recommendations for further action. Fittingly, just as the Introduction began with an acknowledgement of the central place that Keller’s church community played in his life of faith, the Epilogue ends with a call to seek out and join a fellowship of believers.
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