Timothy Keller

Timothy J. Keller is a preacher and Christian apologist. His theological views seem to be a mishmash of Calvinism, Presbyterianism, and various other Protestant beliefs. Keller holds many Conservative American Christian social views: he is homophobic, doesn't support gender equality or social justice, and doesn't support those fields of science which contradict his interpretations of his religion.

Sermon 2020-07-24

While discussing some of the more problematic aspects of the Christian religion, my uncle requested that I listen to this sermon. I said I would on the condition that he listen to audio of equal length. The sermon is about people praying about the doubts they have regarding Christianity. Since I'm a former Christian, I presume my uncle suggested I listen to it it in hopes that it would strike a chord with me.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/praying-our-doubts/id352660924?i=1000485580247

Below are my notes about the sermon with timestamps for each:

• 00:23 - In the intro, we're asked to rating the podcast to help people hear and experience the power of God's word. God needs someone to write a good review of a podcast in order to disseminate his message? This reminds me of that wonderful Star Trek V: The Final Frontier quote, "What does God need with a starship?"
• 02:13 - The sermon opens with Psalm 73:1-26. In which the author says the life of a righteous man is very difficult, but, when he enters the kingdom of God, he will see that the wicked will be swept away by terrors because they are despised by God. In fact, it says that God himself placed the wicked people on a slippery place, essentially dooming them from the start. Keller probably views this a wonderful, but I find it utterly barbaric. Purposely setting someone up to fail and then despising them because they do fail, and then sweeping them away sounds like something only an evil entity would do, not a loving caregiver.
• 03:30 - "The religious approach to feelings is to be very uncomfortable with them." I appreciate that he critiques his own beliefs so frankly.
• 04:40 - "The secular approach (which I find indefensible) is that your feelings is really who you are, not your beliefs or practices." I know a lot of secular people, and I don't think I've ever heard any of them espouse this belief. To me, Keller is straw-manning.
• 06:10 - Keller explains that the Book of Psalms, when you read all of it, and not just what you find in greeting cards, is full of raw emotions like anger and fear, to the point where it disturbs people today. I appreciate that he points this out, because many of the Psalms are really messed up.
• 06:30 - Keller says that the authors of the Pslams are "praying their feelings, they're processing their feelings in the presence of God." I don't know of any passages that actually make this claim, so this appears to just be Keller's personal opinion of the Psalms, however, he presents it as fact.
• 07:05 - "Doubt always masquerades as more intellectual than it is." I'm not trying to be funny here, but I seriously doubt that.
• 07:10 - "Doubt is a condition of the soul and heart." I find this statement meaningless. Doubt is a condition of the brain.
• 09:00 - Keller, like pretty much every preacher I've ever heard, doesn't let the author speak for himself. Instead, he says, "here is what the author wrote, but here is what he really meant." If the bible is God's word, let it speak for itself, don't tell me why your interpretation is superior, and certainly don't do so with out prefacing it with, "my opinion is."
• 09:17 - "What is doubt? It's a spiritual form of dizziness or vertigo that happens when your eye gives your brain something that it can't process and makes you put your foot in the wrong place." I think he's defining cognitive dissonance rather than doubt.
• 11:45 - "The Pslams were not all written by David." In fact, probably none of them were, as biblical scholars do not trust the traditional attributions. The Book of Psalms appears to be an aggregate of texts spanning several centuries from mostly anonymous authors. Some of them even appear to have been plagiarized from other cultures, and many show evidence of redaction.
• 13:50 - Keller describes Thomas as "hard-nosed" for saying he'll need to see the holes in Jesus's hand before he'll believe the person is really him. That's not hard-nosed at all, that is a perfectly reasonable demand. If someone claims a person was raised from the dead, no rational person would believe that they're alive and walking again merely from another person's anecdote.
• 14:35 - Keller agrees with commentators that Thomas's belief in Jesus is a "confession of faith." No it isn't. It has nothing to do with faith. Thomas was wise not to have faith to to demand evidence. If you have evidence, you don't need faith. At 14:47, Keller says it's the "greatest expression of belief," again, no it isn't.
• 14:53 - Keller's quote of Francis Bacon's book which talks about doubt being a good thing is quite nice. I like what he says about it, though I disagree with Keller that it applies to Christianity.
• 16:26 - "The bible has an amazing balanced view of doubts." This made me chuckle.
• 20:35 - "There is enormous positive energy in doubt." I totally agree with that.
• 23:40 - Keller says faith is not opposed to reason, rather faith is "holding onto what you know to be true in spite of how things appear to your heart." To me, that statement is opposed to reason. If your senses tell you that you're on a high ledge, it is unreasonable to jump even if you "know in your heart" that you are on solid ground.
• 25:45 - "Faith is not holding onto something in spite of the evidence." That's essentially how you just defined faith.
• 25:49 - "Faith is holding onto something in spite of the appearances." The way that something appears is a form of evidence. If a person appears to have dyed their hair blue, it's reasonable to assume they dyed their hair blue.
• 26:20 - Keller suggests the Problem of Evil is solved by God needing to use evil in order to fulfill his ultimate purpose. This only makes sense for a god which is not all powerful. An all powerful god would never have to resort to needing evil. I like that he admits this isn't a very comforting solution when it happens to you personally.
• 27:10 - Keller says the woman in C.S. Lewis's example needs "faith" in her friends. This is becoming very frustrating now because Keller keeps using the word faith in different ways. I wish he would define it and then stick to a single definition.

27:30

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