The Reason for God (2007) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Summary edit see section history

People edit see section history

• Jesus Christ: Timothy Keller is a respected author and Christian. He presents great information that is beneficial to the doubting follower of Christ and the atheist and anyone in between.
• The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life: Captured live and unscripted, pastor and author Timothy Keller
• Richard Dawkins: Add a description of this character.
• St. Paul
• Czeslaw Milosz
• Luke
• Daniel C. Dennett
• David L. Chappell
• Ernest Becker
• Richard Bauckham
• John Stott
• Robert Louis Stevenson
• Jill
• Ian Barbour
• Larry Witham
• Thomas Nagel
• Bono
• Charles Darwin
• Father Abraham
• Mrs. Turpin
• Christian Smith
• Flannery O'Connor
• Angels Berger
• Edward Larson
• Christopher Hitchens
• Hitler
• N. T. Wright
• Sam Harris
• Simone Weil
• Alan Dershowitz
• Dan Brown
• Edward Hyde
• Foucault
• Richard Rorty
• Mark Lilla
• Annie Dillard
• Leonard Bernstein
• Francis Collins
• Soren Kierkegaard
• St. Augustine
• Bertrand Russell
• John Rawls
• Karl Marx
• Alvin Plantinga
• Martin Luther King
• Andrew Delbanco
• Kathy
• Michael J. Perry
• C. S. Lewis
• Constantine
• John Macquarrie
• Isaiah
• Jerry
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Jonathan Edwards
• Miroslav Volf
• Kelly
• Beethoven
• Lamin Sanneh
• Charles Darnay
• Ronald Dworkin
• Peter L. Berger
• Stephen Jay Gould
• Nietzsche
• Mary Grace
• Rick Warren
• Robert Bellah
• Joseph Epstein
• C. John Sommerville
• Arthur Leff
• Alister McGrath
• Jean Valjean
• Dr. Jekyll
• Françoise Sagan

Quotes edit see section history

• “When Africans began to read the Bible in their own languages many began to see in Christ the final solution to their own historic longings and aspirations as Africans.”

• “What strikes us as overtly fanatical <in Christianity> is actually a failure to be fully committed to Christ and his gospel.”

• “While the church has inexcusably been party to the oppression of people at times, it is important to realize that the Bible gives us tools for analysis and unflinching critique of religiously supported injustice from within the faith….even strong secular critics of Christianity are really using resources from within it to denounce it….Where, then, did we get this list of virtues by which we can discern the church’s sins…? We actually got it from within the Christian faith.”

• “When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn't be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods.”

• “It is not enough for the skeptic, then, to simply dismiss the Christian teaching about the resurrection of Jesus by saying ‘It just couldn’t have happened.’ He or she must face and answer all these historical questions: Why did Christianity emerge so rapidly, with such power? No other band of messianic followers in that era concluded their leader was raised from the dead — why did this group do so? No group of Jews ever worshipped a human being as God. What led them to do it? Jews did not believe in divine men or individual resurrections. What changed their worldview virtually overnight? How do you account for the hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrection who lived on for decades and publicly maintained their testimony, eventually giving their lives for their belief?...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.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• 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.

  Highlighted by 903 Kindle customers

• God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.

  Highlighted by 898 Kindle customers

• Therefore, though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair.

  Highlighted by 744 Kindle customers

• How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?

  Highlighted by 744 Kindle customers

• “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

  Highlighted by 735 Kindle customers

• My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs—you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared.

  Highlighted by 733 Kindle customers

• It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.

  Highlighted by 661 Kindle customers

• In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.

  Highlighted by 651 Kindle customers

• The Biblical view of things is resurrection—not a future that is just a consolation for the life we never had but a restoration of the life you always wanted. This means that every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy even greater.

  Highlighted by 560 Kindle customers

• Freedom, then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.

  Highlighted by 519 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• New York City: Home of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Timothy J. Keller (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 268

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Christianity › Theology › Apologetics
• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Spirituality

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history