Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism | 
I‘m growing frustrated with Keller‘s often slippery and occasionally circular logic. For instance, he claims that even cultural moral relativists (“no culture‘s values are superior to another‘s”) believe in some moral absolutes (eg, genocide is wrong). These moral absolutes are not natural, he says, but evidence of God. He does not explain why they aren‘t cultural. Using his own example, all people everywhere don‘t agree that genocide is wrong.
CSeydel Showing that moral relativists aren‘t always fully committed to relativism isn‘t the same as proving that an absolute, God-given morality exists. 1y
CSeydel He says that the Nazis believed that they were doing the right thing, but we condemn them anyway. This isn‘t proof that God imbues us with an objective morality. It could be argued that it‘s evidence that our Western moral framework has its roots in Christian belief. But as he works his way through his arguments, he doesn‘t acknowledge that he has changed the thesis. (edited) 1y
CSeydel He does this repeatedly - shifts between evidence for the existence of a higher power, some intentional creator entity, and evidence for the Christian God or even for Christianity as the basis for many secular people‘s philosophy, without acknowledging that he‘s made the switch and the links in his chain are no longer connecting. 1y
See All 7 Comments
GingerAntics Honestly, Thai doesn‘t surprise me in the slightest. I commend you for attempting this book. I think it would make me homocidal and angry as all hell. 1y
dabbe “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Carl Sagan). Sounds like Keller doesn't have much. 1y
CSeydel @GingerAntics I‘m not angry, just disappointed because I somehow expected to hear something new, or at least a new framing. I bought this years ago to read with my Bible study group but (long story short) I didn‘t end up going. I‘m finally getting around to reading it and I think it‘s just a case where the arguments he‘s countering aren‘t necessarily arguments that I have - if that makes sense? He‘s trying to refute Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, et al 1y
CSeydel @dabbe yeah I shouldn‘t say he‘s trying to “prove” God exists - more just refute the case that belief is irrational or that faith is incompatible with intellectual, logical reason. But his arguments do roam all over. 1y
33 likes7 comments
pick