Some chapters in Reason for God are written from an evidentialist perspective, which is perhaps the oldest and best known of the approaches to Christian apologetics in the United States today. Most Christian apologists have mastered only one of these approaches, but Keller was unique in synthesizing all of them in a way that seemed fresh and compelling. Lewis, the presuppositionalism of Cornelius Van Til, and the psychological insights of Jonathan Edwards- and translate those approaches into an idiom that answered the questions of a 21 st-century college-educated urban professional. I think that Keller’s effectiveness as an apologist stemmed largely from his ability to combine four very different approaches to apologetics-the classic evidentialist approach, the narrative apologetics of C.

What was Keller’s approach to apologetics-and why was it so pathbreaking?

Keller gave them reasons to believe – and perhaps not always the reasons they were expecting. That book, which compiled the arguments that he made to thousands of skeptical New Yorkers over the course of twenty years, revolutionized Christian apologetics and laid a foundation for several other Keller books that were aimed at skeptics who needed a good reason to believe. The New York Times bestseller that first put him on the map-and that continued to sell more copies than any of his other books-was The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008). And while his pastoral insights and devotional writings on prayer, scriptural meditations, and the gospel sold widely, he arguably made his greatest impact as a Christian apologist-that is, as someone who provided persuasive arguments for the truth and reasonableness of the Christian faith. Although Keller was a highly effective pastor of a congregation that had 5,000 members by the time of his death last week, his widest influence came through his writings and recorded sermons that reached millions of people who could never attend New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in person.

Tim keller devotional