Takeaway: A faith that can be fully understood by science or logic is no longer faith. As Christians we need to embrace that Christianity is above human logic.
I am not a fan of apologetics. In general I do not read it and I think primarily the purpose it serves is to help Christians feel comfortable in their faith. I know that over simplifies things, but if even I, who am a long term Christian with a very good theology background see all kinds of logical holes in most apologetics books I do not think it is really going to move a large segment of people to faith. My pastor has said several times, that people rarely have theological issues with God, they have emotional issues with God that they may hide behind theological issues. But when you push, usually the theological questions fall away and the emotional issues come back. So I have been hoping someone would write No Argument for God.
Wilkinson starts by asserting that Christianity is nonsense. By that he means that is really is beyond our ability to understand completely through our senses and therefore literally “nonsense” (above the senses). Much of the first half of the book is biographical to help the reader understand the limitations of reason and different ways to talk about Christianity. My favorite part of this section is a discussion about what science and logic can determine. Wilkinson says science and logic are good at understanding the “What” questions. If we ask “Why” questions, “Why is that flower there?”, science is limited in its ability to respond. Science can talk about how it evolved to have those colors or how it fits into the biosphere around it but science and logic cannot really give an answer to Why that does not become circular.
Takeaway: We should pay attention to sin and spend time thinking about whether we are focusing more on loving the world or loving God.
Takeaway: Maturing is not a straight line and it does not automatically come with growing old.