Tim Keller - The Reason for God

Introduction
"First, each side should accept that both religious belief and skepticism are on the rise"
" Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts"
"All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs... if you doubt Christianity because "there can't be just one true religion" you must recognise that this statement is itself and act of faith. No one can prove it empirically, and it is not a universal truth that everyone accepts"

One - there can't be just one true religion
"... we couldn't all be equally right about the nature of God"
"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?"
"[the statement] "no belief can be held as universally true for everyone" is itself a comprehensive claim about everyone that is the product of social conditions"
"You can't say "all claims about religions are historically conditioned except the one I am making right now"
"skeptics believe that any exclusive claims to a superior knowledge of spiritual reality cannot be true. But this objection is itself a religious belief"

Two - suffering
"Just because you can't see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn't mean there can't be one. Again, we see lurking within supposedly hard-nosed skepticism an enormous faith in one's own cognitive faculties"
" On what basis does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair and unjust?"
"God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself"
"we can know that God is truly Immanuel - god with us - even in our worst sufferings"

Three - straight jacket
"one of the principles of love... is that you have to lose independence to attain greater intimacy"

genesis 13 - choice

When Abram and Lot seperate, Abram gives Lot the choice of where to go. Abram trusts that God will give him the land He has been promised, He doesn't feel the need to try and take the initiative himself and get the best looking land. Lot, on the other hand, looks at the physically attractive land and chooses that, basing His decision totally on his livelihood, seemingly without involving God in the decision at all. As it turns out, this choice of land will result in his wife dying and his daughters with a messed up view of sex because they were living in a town of perverts. What looks like the best decision for me financially, may not be the best decision spiritually. God needs to be the focus of the decision making process.

genesis 12

God tells Abram to leave his country, and doesn't really give many more details! The promises God gives are not specific locations, times and things but are centered around Himself (God). "I will...". It's more about who God is than what Abram is doing. Abram trusts God and leaves.

A pattern then starts which will continue throughout Abram's life. Great faith - leaving for the unknown at God's word, followed by huge mistakes - trying to tackle problems his own way instead of God's way. God doesn't punish Abram for His mistake, but graciously returns Sarai. Do I let myself get puffed up with pride when I think I've done something right in following God and then turn round and mess up? God's not waiting there to say "I told you so" but He continues to pursue me and bless me. I need God's help all the time, He's responsible for everything "I" do right, and He is where I need to look when I don't know what I'm doing (which is the vast majority of the time!)

genesis 11 - bricks

The invention of bricks in genesis 10 isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's neutral. It's the people's attitude that wants to use to boost their own name, their own reputation, their own pride, to push themselves upwards and anybody else down, to make themselves equal with God. There are loads of good or neutral things that can be misused or abused. It's not about the things themselves, it's about the attitude of wanting to be your own God.

Even though this is the biggest tower that they can build, in verse 5 God has to come down to see it! We are so far below God that it is laughable that we try to be our own Gods, or it would be laughable if everyone wasn't doing it! god confuses their languages - what must that have been like at the time? I think of language that is something that is in-built to me, I think and speak in English. But God could change that in an instant! We are totally dependant on Him for everything.

genesis 9

God initiates the covenant with Noah. He's not under any obligation to do anything for Noah - He could in theory just say - "right, get on with it, make sure you do a better job than the last lot otherwise I'll have to do it again". But He doesn't, because He is loving. This is the sort of love that God has, not the greetings card, fall in and out type love that we think of. This is the love that pursues us.

Noah then goes and gets drunk and falls asleep naked in his tent. Was he the first person to drink wine? Had he committed a sin? The text doesn't tell us, but what is made clear is that the action of drawing attention to someones sin, gossiping about it, is a problem. If Noah had been in sin with this act, ham could have covered him and brought it up with him the next day. Instead he chooses to publicise it. How do I react when I encounter other people's sin. Do I want to help them as graciously as I can, or do I want to casually talk about it?

genesis 8 - worship

Noah's first priority when he gets off the ark is not to build a house, or get food or whatever, but to worship God by making a sacrifice. I might well be in the same situation - if I'd been on an ark for months and the water had finally subsided, thanking God would probably be on my mind as well. The worship of God needs to continue just as much in the seemingly mundane, ordinary days of my life just as much as it does when God has done something big.