Author: Gene

Hey, sorry, I’ve been neglecting the series for a while. I’ll try to be consistently back now, though, so here we go.

In this section Keller starts by saying that Christians take a wide variety of positions with regards to evolution, and that the direct conflict approach is only one, the most publicized one. He goes on to say that the obvious goal of Christians who “accept the bible’s authority” is to interpret the writing as the author intended.  He gives examples of where the bible is meant to be read as a history and places where it is meant to be poetry. He then states that the interpretation of Genesis I is up for debate, and gives his own personal views on the subject. He says that it is false logic to conclude that if one part of the bible can’t be taken literally than none of it can. Then he asks what conclusions we can draw and decides that evolution is not important and should not be considered until after one has made decisions about the central tenants of Christianity. He ends the section by telling his personal views on evolution.

As you might expect I have a lot of problems with this section. Keller, throughout, tacitly implies that all the various interpretations of the scientific evidence are equally valid, which is incorrect. He actually recommends the policy of determining your faith, and then fitting the science to your now inflexible religious beliefs. This is backwards, one should use evidence to inform beliefs, not the other way around.

Keller is correct when he says that evolution is not central to Christianity. There is, in fact, no reason why there needs to be conflict between Christianity and evolutionary theory, unless you are a biblical literalist. And Keller is correct that there is no logical rule that states if one part of a text is not taken literally that no parts must be. However, this misses the point. When a skeptic points out that some parts of the bible are taken literally, and some parts aren’t, what he’s really asking is why? How do you, Keller, decide? Is it you that’s deciding? And if it’s you deciding than why does it have to be right?

The bible, at least by some Christians, is held as a perfect record so that anything within can be unquestioningly believed. When Keller says that some of the bible is to be literally true, and some not, he takes this away. He changes the rules so that now whichever parts of the bible he wants to, are unquestioningly true, and the rest is not. From a logical argument perspective he switches the assumption you are asked to accept from “The bible is true,” to “Pieces of the bible selected by me are true”.

You may be thinking, but Gene, why do you care? You don’t believe the bible is the inerrant word of God anyway. That’s true. I don’t accept either premise. However, if I am to debate with Keller, or someone like him, the former assumption is possible to work with. It is unchanging and defined. I can work within the limitations set and form an argument. The later is not defined and can be changed at any time by Keller to his own advantage. It is like playing a game where one side can change the rules. That’s why it’s not allowed in logic.

In this section Keller redefines what people mean by the bible. If you define the bible as the inerrant word of God then evolution does disprove that. You cannot believe both. I think this is the definition of “bible” that most people think is important. Keller uses the bible as any other text, one that must be parsed by the reader, and interpreted with careful and difficult thought to make any use of it. If you take this definition of the bible then it is essentially the same as any other book, and it is true that evolution does not disprove it. However, who cares if evolution disproves it or not, it’s just a book.

Side Note:

This dual nature problem keeps cropping up. There is the religion and bible that Christians, like Keller, use when they are trying to be logical, and then there is the one they use when they are selling the religion. On the selling side the bible is the word of the one true God and holds the answers to all your questions and if you just follow it you will live a good, happy, and just life and will be rewarded richly after you die. When in a logical debate the bible is a complicated text with difficult to parse nuances and subtle poetic wording that’s meaning is up for debate within the Christian community. I mean, who could really say what it says. You can understand why skeptics like me get frustrated.

Keller takes a lot of time in this section, but it boils down to one claim, that Christianity is compatible with science. He cites for evidence of this a survey of scientists in which 40% responded that, yes, they believe in a god who communicates with humans in some way. Keller admits that there are forms of religion that are in conflict with science, but none the less argues that it does not have to be so, citing Ian Barbour’s four possible relations, conflict, dialogue, integration, and independence. Several prominent scientists are also held up as examples of scientists who are also Christians, or at least believe that religion and science are not in conflict.

One of those examples is the philosopher Nagel, who I will use as a jumping off point for my reply to this section. He is quoted as saying,

“I believe the project is doomed [reductionism] — that conscious experience, thought, value, and so forth are not illusions, even though they cannot be identified with physical facts.”

This is treading very close to a god of the gaps argument. He lists things that are not currently understood well by science, asserts that they cannot be (and that they exist) and therefor that they are in the domain of religion. What will he do when science does understand those things better? This is the issue with a god of the gaps argument. In the the past people like Nagel could have included the motion of the planets, the weather, and the origin of humanity on the list of topics off limits to science, relegated to religion. In the future people of this mindset will have to make an even smaller, even more specific lists. If we follow the trend lines to the truth, we conclude that this line of reasoning is invalid.

Worse than invalid, it is destructive. Removing from the realm of science various subjects greatly reduces scientific progress in that subject. There is much historical evidence for this in practically all fields. If people believe that a question cannot be answered be science, then it probably won’t be. Similarly, if people believe a question has already been answered by religion, and that that is sufficient, then it is unlikely to be explored scientifically. These are two reasons why science truly is in conflict with religion.

Science is a methodology for understanding the universe. Religions, at least most of them in the present time, are doctrines that make claims about the nature of the universe. As such, they are in conflict. Science cannot tolerate any information about the universe it does not verify itself, so it cannot accept any claims of religion. A person thinking scientifically will, therefor, have to ignore any religious claims, and therefor not be religious. Further conflict arises when science investigates a claim made by a religion and disagrees. If religions are not willing to alter their claims about the universe in the face of evidence, then they will be in conflict with science’s claims.

To address Keller’s examples of scientists who believe in god, this is not good evidence of a lack of conflict. Individuals are often internally conflicted. Individuals are also adept at compartmentalizing and self deception. As a person, even a scientist, it is easy to think that god exists and affects the universe, just not where I’m looking. But if everyone is doing that, then were is god? If you look at the big picture, there is no escaping the conflict between science and religion. This is true by their natures, and is not up to a vote.

This is all religions as they are today. Some are much better, like, I believe, Buddism, which changes to fit the evidence. Any religion that does this will end the conflict with science. All claims it makes will be modified, at least implicitly, to read “unless science proves otherwise” which will put them firmly in the independent or integration category of relationship with science.

Keller also mentions the role of media in this issue. On this, I agree with him. The apparent conflict between science and religion is greater than the actual one because of the media’s need for conflict in it’s stories. For most people, most of the time, there is no meaningful conflict between most religions and science. Some very conservative or fundamentalist religions, this cannot be said for, however. Keller also mentions the conflict model as some sort of secular conspiracy theory strategy in the early 20th century. This sounds far fetched to me, though he doesn’t go into it in enough detail for me to know precisely what he means. Fortunately, it matters not to the core issue.

Ultimately, there is no escaping a conflict between religions, at least as they are known today, and science. Science will ever increase in it’s explanatory power, and make religion less and less relevant. Science may never explain everything to the satisfaction of everyone, but this is immaterial. So long as science continues to explain more and more things better and better, the need for religion, at least in the explanatory capacity, will reduce. Until religions give up on the explanatory area of their nature, the conflict will remain. Maybe Keller and I agree on this, but only if he redefines Christianity to these criteria.

Alright science. Finally getting to some good stuff. I’m going to hold back on all my issues in this first section, and others to come, on the assumption that Keller will address them at some point. If he doesn’t, I’ll probably indulge on the last section of this chapter. We have just started chapter 6 if you couldn’t tell and are following along.

This section is pretty short and sweet. Keller’s main point is that science cannot say that miracles, and through them God, do not exist. He points out that science limits itself to the material world by necessity (it is the only domain the methodology makes sense in) but as a consequence cannot state with authority on the subject of the existence of any metaphysical reality. Keller says that these are common assertions masked by more innocuous statements like, “miracles don’t happen,” since they are hidden assumptions of such statements.

Technically I agree with Keller here. Science cannot disprove the existence of a metaphysical reality. However, science cannot ever state anything with certainty, 100% certainty, either, so that’s not really very meaningful except as a loophole through which to keep your preexisting beliefs.

Science doesn’t (and can’t) directly speak to the metaphysical, but it still impacts it. The mere fact that science works indicates a very limited interaction from any metaphysical source. Any metaphysical interaction with the physical could not be accounted for by science, and so would decrease sciences accuracy. The ever increasing accuracy and effectiveness of science precludes strong metaphysical interaction with the physical. See for evidence, your GPS… or basically our entire modern enviornment.

Further, science provides a model of the universe that requires no metaphysics and Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation (the one with no unnecessary metaphysics) is the one to go for. The Occam’s Razor argument works for religion as a whole, but is also an effective way at looking at individual claims, like miracles. The church might claim that a statue of the virgin Mary is crying holy water tears or blood or whatever. However, this is a claim about the physical world, so science can be applied. Upon investigation it might be found that a tube and pumping mechanism were in place, or perhaps capillary action could have pulled water from a basin on the floor. Science does not prove with these observations that the statue isn’t miraculously crying by the hand of God, but it is obvious the more likely answer is the pump.

Finally, Keller misplaces the burden of proof. Science does not make the claim in this case, religion does. Religion claims that miracles happen and they should have to provide extraordinary evidence to support that claim. Performing rigorous scientific testing to eliminate mundane explanations would be a first step. Publishing their findings in a peer reviewed journal. Then we’d like to see some replication. All of this should be possible, and should be in the interest of the church, or any religion, to find. Why haven’t religions produced this compelling evidence for miracles in thousands of years while science finds new things all the time (Higgs Boson in 50 years anybody)? I think it’s because miracles don’t exist.

This section is pretty short, and my post on it can be even shorted because Keller and I agree. Last section in the chapter, though. The next one is about Science vs. Religion so… that’ll probably get heated.

In this section, Keller addresses the idea that someone can’t believe in the Christian God (I guess, it is unclear) because they believe in a “god of love”. Keller says that there is no evidence of such a god, physical or historical (ka ching) and that if you consider biblical evidence you must accept that the bible describes God as loving, but also just. He says that a belief in a god of pure love, who accepts everyone equally, is not supported by any sort of evidence.

And there’s really nothing to argue with. There is no physical or historical evidence for a loving god (or any god). If you consider the bible evidence, then you must accept certain aspects to God that are discriminatory. He has a chosen people, some people go to hell, so a perfectly loving god is not supported. However, since I take the bible as evidence of nothing but the folk beliefs of ancient peoples, I think the belief in a perfectly loving god is as valid as Keller’s belief in a god that will send me to hell, and frankly, I prefer the former.

This is a short section in which Keller explains why belief in Hell does not make Christians more likely to be bigoted or judgmental. The concern is that if someone believes some people are going to heaven while others are destined for hell that the believer will think those bound for hell are less worthy of respect or civil rights, and should be treated differently. Keller’s defense is that Christians don’t know who is going to go to heaven or hell, and so they cannot (or at least should not) treat anyone as if their final resting place is known.

About half of this section is spent relating and defending against the accusation that belief that some people are going to hell is “narrow” thinking. This whole issue is irrelevant, so I will ignore it, except to say that Keller’s right that thinking someone will go to hell is not itself “narrow”. In my opinion, it is the certainty of ones belief’s over another’s despite any evidence that is “narrow”.

The more central issue of Christian’s denying civil rights to those who will go to hell should not be a problem. I agree w/ Keller that the rules of heaven and hell as laid out by himself, and my interpretation of the bible, do not allow for any human to predetermine the direction of another human’s afterlife. At least in normal circumstances. (I am unclear about specialized hypothetical situations, like in the case of killing someone immediately after they sin, or receive absolution.) And even if a Christian did know for certain that a person was going to go to hell, the Christian tradition does not allow them to treat such a person poorly.

That’s all how things should be. I doubt very much they work that way very often. I cannot claim, however, that belief in heaven and hell causes bigoted behavior. It seems just as likely that one would take already existing bigoted ideas and cast the villains as going to hell. Religious people treat peoples not of their religion differently than their in-group, but this can be explained simply as group dynamics, and doesn’t necessitate a dual afterlife belief system.

Really, if you think about it, someone who believes in heaven should be much nicer to someone they believe is going to hell. They’ll have all eternity to hang out with the others going to heaven, they should get to know the other half (or 99.9%) while they still can. And any joy you bring such a soul will be some of the only joy it ever knows amongst and endless sea of sorrows, whereas any good you do to someone going to heaven will be inconsequential compared to the gifts of heaven.

Sarcastic Side Note: Maybe we could cut health care costs by only treating those who are going to go to hell. We’d be doing the ones going to heaven a favor by letting them die.

In this section Keller explains his reasoning for why the existence of hell is not contrary to the notion that God loves us. He starts by defining hell as the state of being apart from God, and not so much a lake of fire as is commonly depicted. He says that souls get there by continuing on their selfish trajectory after death. He points to paranoia, envy, anxiety, and other ails of the living and suggests that they are caused by selfish behavior, and that this mentality would continue after death into an eternity, eventually consuming the soul entirely, creating hell. He says that people in hell do not even want to be rescued, that they are too absorbed in self deception or denial or blaming others. He says that ultimately everyone either says, “Thy will be done,” to God, or he says it to them, and that their will inevitably leads to hell.

There are dozens of problems with this argument, and I’m sure I’ll miss some, but I’m going to plow ahead anyway.

Okay, assuming you believe his notion that the soul exists, and that the soul has a trajectory that it continues on after death, this is not meaningfully different from the notion of god tossing souls into a pit of fire. The nature of infinity means any non-infinite number is essentially 0 in comparison, so even if ones trajectory is very slightly towards hell and it will take you say, 100 billion years to reach it, that’s an instant compared to eternity. Since you can’t change directions after death, the extreme of ones trajectory at death is essentially your state for eternity, as with the classic conception of heaven and hell.

Keller tries to take some of the agency from God in his description of hell. He describes it as people choosing it and God just allowing it. Whether God actively sentences people to hell is irrelevant, though, from a justice standpoint. First, God made those people that are rejecting him, knowing they would do so, so he sentenced them in his act of creation. If you don’t believe that and somehow get around God’s omniscience to suggest that we have the ability to surprise God, then he still has the ability to remake us, or the universe so that none or fewer people go to hell. For example, he could actually do what Keller suggests, and appear and ask everyone if they’d like to do his will. I bet a lot fewer people would end up in hell if he did that.

Keller also implicitly states that anyone not devoted to God is a selfish person, but I take umbrage with that statement. Keller, in previous sections on morality, stated that Christianity doesn’t necessarily make you a better person, and that people can be better than Christians without being Christian. These statements seems to conflict with the idea that your final destination is determined by simply general moral attitude. What role do the things the church says are important (accepting Jesus as the one true god, asking for forgiveness, etc.) play in affecting your trajectory upon death?

In order to allow for anyone to be saved in the trajectory model of heaven and hell, it would be necessary to only consider a very small segment of time when determining the trajectory, or to have some sort of reset mechanism. Without such, a lifetime of sin could not be overcome without a similarly long time of sainthood. With either escape case, though, does it work both ways? If I live a life of good attitude, but then think something negative before getting splattered will I continue in that mindset until I wind up in hell? Or could I accidentally reset all my good thoughts, and wind up going to hell?

All of this, obviously, is purely speculation. There is no evidence of a soul or an afterlife. If you want to use reason, it’s in the title of the book, in such a situation you should apply Occam’s razor and determine that neither exist, since that is the simplest explanation.

In conclusion, another totally unconvincing and uncompelling section from Keller. How many in a row is that?

In this section Keller gives his explanation for how God can be a God of love and of wrath. He starts by pointing out that it is not uncommon for people to become angry, not in spite of, but because of love. Love means caring a great deal for someone, so if anything bad is happening to them we can get angry.

Keller makes a second point, with the help of Miroslav Volf, that a god who did not mete out justice would not be worthy of worship. They go on to argue that belief that God will right all wrongs is the only way they can prevent themselves from taking action against injustice and continuing the circle of violence.

Finally, Keller quotes Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel prize winning poet, to suggest that belief that there is no heaven or hell, that no justice will be dispensed after death, encourages peoples baser instincts to lie, and murder and other bad things.

Keller’s second and third points are not really related to the core issue here, so I’ll start with the first. Saying that we get mad from love is not at all convincing to me. God is perfect, and loves perfectly. If you perfectly love something you must delight in all of it’s aspects. Blemishes become beauty marks, annoyances become cute quirks. So it must be for God for all of us, to a perfect degree.

Or maybe my notion is wrong, and God still sees flaws in us. How can he be mad at anyone but himself? He made us. He made everything. It’s like us drawing a circle, and telling it to be a square, and then getting all angry when it’s still a circle.

And finally, assuming you still think it makes sense that God get’s wrathful, then why does he do the things he does when he does? He’s God, he could enact justice with laser precision and with cutting poignant poetry. Instead he drowns the whole world? or kills all the first borns in a city? Those are the anthropomorphic projections of scared humans, not the actions of loving deity.

Keller’s other two points don’t really argue against the motion, but instead try to suggest that it’s a good thing people believe in a God of justice, regardless of it’s truth. This is a strange tactic to take if you think it’s true, in my opinion. Let’s look at the arguments anyway.

They both basically boil down to the notion that people are worse if they don’t think God is up their watching, making sure everything’s fair in the end. They are childish ideas dressed up with fancy language and spoken by highly decorated individuals, but childish ideas still.

Two things, first, we just got done with the chapter on morality where Keller argued several times that Christianity won’t necessarily make you a better person, and yet here he is arguing the opposite. Christianity doesn’t make you better when you point out that Christians aren’t actually better, but it does in all other arguments, apparently. Again, I’d like to point out that there’s never been any evidence that Christians, or any other religious group, behave any better than atheists.

Second, God’s justice, at least as described in the bible, is anything but. He has created us as sinners, commanded us not to sin, and then deals out ultimate punishment, where’s the justice in that? A man can rape and murder small children all his life, so long as he asks forgiveness and be let into heaven, but those children, if they die unbaptized, will go to hell? Perhaps you don’t believe in such extremes, but regardless, the heaven and hell system of justice cannot be perfect unless humanity is composed of only angels and demons, which it objectively is not.

Keller’s case here is frustratingly flimsy. There’s not enough here to even really rip into. As usual, god is unnecessary. In Keller’s own writing he explains why people forgive and choose not to seek “justice” or revenge, because it leads to a never ending cycle of violence. Nothing more is needed to explain these actions of rational compassion, but Keller, and his fellows, tack on God because they already believe in him. If you belief that god is the source of all good things, then it makes logical sense that belief in him would make people better. Fortunately, you don’t need to do all the extra work of believing in god, you can just use logic and empathy to be a decent human.

We’re on to Chapter 5. I’m glad to be moving on to the new topic of… hell… oh… kay. Well, good. Hell it is then.

At issue for this section is the complaint that it doesn’t seem fair for God to send people to hell. Some people resolve this issue by geting rid of God and hell, others just to get rid of hell. Keller has another solution. His solution is to ignore the problem. He says that it is just a cultural objection, that in other cultures a judgmental god is not an issue but perhaps the message of turning the other cheek is. He backs up this position by mentioning that if there were a metaphysical truth it would be inconsistent in some ways with all human cultures, since our cultures are imperfect. He rightly points out that Christianity fits this description.

I’m gonna go in reverse order today. It’s true that in this particular way Christianity melds with the reality we all observe, parts of it are offensive to every culture. Unfortunately, this is true of all religions, and pretty much any other sufficiently complex body of ideas, so as a guide to picking the Truth, it is not helpful. Also, since there are many observed systems with this property, it must also be true that it is possible to create one without divine inspiration. Since such is the case, perhaps all systems that offend all cultures in some way are purely mundane. The fact that Keller even bothers to put such weak evidence into his book is a testament to how little evidence there is for his claims.

Keller’s argument that the belief that Hell is inconsistent with a loving God is cultural is a misdirect. All notions of right and wrong are culturally influenced. He’s right that it’s important to look at ones objections to things and check to see how they are derived, upon which we base these objections, what assumptions are being made. But our individual beliefs are all we have, culturally influenced or not. If you are going to ignore them you lose all basis for making moral decisions for yourself.

Keller, at least so far, as not defended the existence of hell in any way. He just said ignore your objections, because your objections are culturally based. This is equivalent to saying, “Nuh uh. God says it’s ok.” The only way this makes sense is if you can convince yourself that there is a Truth out there, and that the Christians have it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. All you have to do is surrender your independence over to a higher power, which may in fact just be a bunch of old guys reading an even older book.

Side Note:

I take Keller at his word that there are cultures out there that have little problem with the idea of Hell, at first, but I wonder what these cultures think of hell after some reflection. Explain to someone that god exists, he is all powerful, all knowing, and loves you completely. Then explain that if you don’t accept him, he will torture you forever. In what culture does perfect love manifest in torture, or revenge?

In this section Keller tries to make the case that he began in section on Fanaticism, that the solution to the problems within Christianity is more Christianity. That is, more of true Christianity, in Keller’s mind. He starts with several examples of Jesus and other biblical figures being critical of religious people. He sites the sermon on the mount, and several other passages. He claims this is evidence that Christianity has a self governing ethos and capability.

Keller goes on to reference C. Sommerville who claims that even secular criticisms of the wrongs of Christianity are based in Christianity. This is because, they argue, the moral underpinnings of the criticisms are themselves Christian. To demonstrate this they use the thought experiment comparing a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon’s concept of honor to the moral code of a Christian. The pre-Christian’s culture is “shame-based” whereas the Christian culture is “based on charity”. An example given to show the difference is that a pre-Christian would not mug an old lady because then he would be despicable, and nobody would respect him, and he would not respect himself. The Christian would not mug and old lady because he can imagine the impact such an action would have on the victims and cares for the well being of those people.

In conclusion, Keller discusses the situation of historical Christianity, when most of the worst oppressing was happening. He talks of the difficulty in converting the culture from a power based one to a Christian one of charity. He implies that a hybrid semi-Christian culture existed and that the non-Christian parts of the culture were the parts responsible for the oppression. His remedy to the problems with Christianity, is more Christianity.

So, lets start at the beginning. The notion that there are many anti-religious passages in the bible are hardly surprising, given that Jesus, or (in actuality) the Bible’s authors, were creating a new religion. One common reason to do so is because one disagrees with the current popular choices. A new religion would certainly want to distinguish itself from the perceived problems with more prevalent faiths of the day. So many of the passages referenced by Keller, I suspect, are more speaking of the other religions, than their own.

However, even if this those statements were mostly aimed at other religions, one would still want to try to apply the same standards to oneself, in order to not be hypocritical. The ability to criticize religious people is not evidence of the ability to self govern. In fact, Keller himself admits that Christianity has had many problems in the past, and today, but instead of taking this as evidence of a lack of ability to police itself, he blames what he considers un-Christian aspects of the church.

Keller provides examples of Christians reforming the world for the better in the name of Christianity, even against the wishes of other Christians, Martin Luther King junior being his best well known. Nobody argues that a Christian cannot do good. Keller’s examples would prove them wrong if they did. What Keller’s examples fail to show is that Christians act better, or more good more often, than do non-Christians. I’m not convinced he’s shown that.

Keller defines anything bad in the church as un-Christian, and anything good as Christian. By this definition the solution to any problem can be worded, “more Christianity” because it is the same as saying “more good”. It is semantic gymnastics to use the word Christian to mean only part of Christianity, and is ultimately meaningless.

Moving on to this notion that secular criticisms of Christianity come from Christianity. First, why is this in this book? If that’s true, wouldn’t that give them more weight in the eyes of Christians? In no way is an argument made invalid by using the subject of the argument. Again, in many cases, shouldn’t this make the argument more compelling. It’s like using your opponents own words against him in a debate.

Even though it seems it would actually help me not to, I will argue against this notion anyway, cause I’m equal opportunity like that. Take the thought experiment presented. They say the pre-Christian would not harm the weak because it would be “despicable”, but how does this pre-Christian know that? It’s because he can imagine the impact such actions would have on the victims, and he cares about those people… exactly like a Christian. Keller, and Sommerville , simply ascribe a negative motivation on top of the morality when it’s done by the other, and a don’t when it’s done by the Christian.

Keller’s arguments that I summerize in my third paragraph are essentially the same as those in the first. Christianity is made up two parts, the Christian part, and the bad part. When simplified his argument in the section is, “Christianity is not perfect, but it would be better if it had more Christianity”. That sentence makes no sense, except that we know that each use of the word Christianity has distinct meanings. What the sentence really means is either, “Christianity is not perfect, but it would be better if it had more good stuff,” or, “The church and it’s members are not perfect, but it would be better if it had more Christianity.” As you can see, neither is a very impressive assertion, and neither does anything to argue in favor of Christianity, or against the notion that Christianity has done much bad in the world.

Side Note:

There seems to be a constant conflict within Keller, and many Christians, on this subject. He must argue that Christianity is not immoral, but he himself claim that moral acts do not sway the Christian God. He claims the problem with Christian fanatics is a feeling of moral superiority, but at the same time must argue for Christian moral superiority, since his defense is that the problem with fanatics is that they’re not Christian enough. It’s a problem of having cake and eating it, too. Christians, to Keller, are superior to the others, but part of that superiority, indeed, the source, is being more humble than the others. In order to believe in such superiority you must lose it. It is an untenable position.