Keller gets Googled...

Justin Buzzard was able to catch Tim Keller on his speaking tour in support of The Reason For God, at Google's California campus. Apparently, it was the biggest turn out Google has had for an author event yet.

Here's the outline of his talk (as Justin recorded it):

1. Why the reasons for God are important.

2. How the reasons for God work.

Intellectual Reasons
Personal Reasons
Social Reasons
"You can't reduce belief or non-belief to just one of these three reasons."

In other words: monotheists, atheists, and religious skeptics each hold their respective faith positions due to a mixture of intellectual, personal, and social reasons.

3.  What the reasons for God are.

"Reasoning that ends in belief in God moves up a ladder, a three rung ladder." These three rungs generally operate in this order:

Rung #1: You come to see that belief in God takes just as much faith as non-belief.
"To live as though there is no God is an act of faith."

"If you're living as though there is no God, that's a risk."

Rung #2: You come to see that it takes more faith to disbelieve in God, than to believe.
"Belief in God makes more sense of life than non-belief."

The two examples that Keller gave here, and spent a good bit of time working with:

1) The Fine-Tuning of the Universe  (ie., the complexity of the universe)
2) Human Rights.

Rung #3: You come to see that it takes personal commitment to get certainty.
"The second rung only takes you to a place of probability, not certainty...At a certain point you've got to move from probability to certainty."

"Weak faith in a strong object is infinitely better than strong faith in a weak object."
(You need to hear Keller's Branch & Cliff-side illustration on this).

"Every other religion says God is removed. Only Christianity says God wrote himself into the play."

(Behind this point you need to hear Keller's illustration, taken from C.S. Lewis, of Shakespeare writing himself into Hamlet, and his illustration of Dorothy Sayers writing herself into her Lord Peter Whimsey novels).

"Christianity doesn't so much give you a watertight argument, but a watertight Person."

Check out the rest of Justin's blog entry here

Comments

[Aaron Stewart]

I really hope he comes to Portland.

[Aaron Stewart]

He is!

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