Posted on November 29, 2013 by Administrator -
In response to Moser’s “Gethsemane Epistemology, Pneumatic Evidence, and Divine Agape?” I clarify, reiterate, and further develop my critique of his proposal that Gethsemane Epistemology (GE) is definitive of Christian Philosophy. Moser thinks that it deserves this special status in part because of its epistemic superiority to other potential sources of theistic evidence/knowledge, such as Natural Theology (NT).
I again argue that it is far from clear that GE enjoys epistemic superiority to NT in any of the ways Moser claims, and hence that it is equally unclear whether it deserves to be regarded as definitive of Christian philosophy. Along the way, I consider whether Moser’s position rests upon a question-begging concept of “worship-worthiness,” whether he gives sufficient weight to the problem of peer-disagreement among Christian thinkers, and whether his Christian inclusivism is consistent with the epistemic superiority he claims for GE.
The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.
Posted on October 23, 2013 by Administrator -
By using “God” as a title for a morally perfect God worthy of worship, Paul K. Moser, argues that arguments of natural theology fail to provide adequate evidence for such a God. He contends that based on a best available evidence the Christian God is a true God, a morally perfect God worthy of worship. He claims that evidence from natural theology is inadequate for the Christian God.
In this rejoinder, I contend that since it is not the purpose of arguments of natural theology to provide evidence for the Christian God as a morally perfect God worthy of worship, to reject theistic arguments for their alleged failure to show the existence of a morally perfect God worthy of worship is mistaken. I argue that distinguishing relevant evidence for the Christian God as a Creator from a relevant evidence for God as a Redeemer who is morally perfect and worthy of worship escapes Moser’s objections against the inadequacy of arguments of natural theology.
The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.
Posted on June 18, 2013 by Administrator -
As part of the ongoing “Christ-Shaped Philosophy” discussion with Paul Moser, this note briefly responds to two main challenges that Paul Moser makes to my suggestion that Ramified Personalized Natural Theology may constitute a third way between standard natural theology and Gethsemane epistemology.
First, Moser charges that ramified natural theology is likely incoherent because ramified theology will appeal to supernatural premises. My response appeals to a forthcoming essay by Hugh Gauch which provides a framework in which evidence counts across competing worldviews.
Second, Moser claims that the “divine personalized experience” provided by the Holy Spirit makes natural theology redundant. I appropriate Charles Taliaferro’s idea of a “golden cord,” and suggest that the evidential threads of this cord, whether natural or supernatural, provide a means by which Christ may draw us to himself.
The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here (updated 06-23-13).
Posted on April 6, 2013 by Administrator -
Paul K. Moser’s objection to my paper goes as follows: My claim about what can or should count as work of Christian philosophy requires empirical evidence from statistical sociology. Since neither of us is qualified to evaluate such empirical claims my challenge to Moser’s conception of Christian philosophy was not a real challenge.
In this paper, I provide reasons why Moser’s objection fails. Furthermore, I discuss the role of the project of natural theology in a conception of Christian philosophy. Also, I provide a sketch of a Christian philosophy that identifies the Jewish-Christian God as Creator and Redeemer without pitting the so-called “God of the philosophers” against “the God of the Scriptures.”
The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.
Posted on March 6, 2013 by Administrator -
Paul K. Moser has produced several publications in which he has issued challenges with a purpose to reorient philosophy, in general, and Christian philosophy, in particular. He makes a distinction between doing philosophy in a “discussion” and in an “obedience” mode. His call is to reorient philosophy from merely doing it in a discussion mode to an obedience mode without altogether jettisoning a discussion mode.
In this paper, I introduce an idea, inspired by Moser’s distinction of two modes of doing philosophy. I call a mode of doing philosophy, especially fitting for Christian philosophy, an obedient discussion mode of doing philosophy (“Obedient discussion” can be contrasted with mere discussion or just discussion per se).
Obedient discussion recognizes that some discussion as a mode of doing philosophy can be and is obediently done under the authority of the Lord Jesus. This notion is intended to subsume discussion, at least some discussion, under an obedience mode of doing philosophy.
On this proposal, an obedience mode of doing philosophy inherently involves a discussion mode of doing philosophy. I reject the idea that the discussion mode, in most cases of philosophy done by Christian philosophers, consists only in mere discussion without involving any obedience. I also distinguish two senses of obedience such that these two senses of obedience capture what a Christian philosopher does as a Christian philosopher and as a disciple of the Lord.
The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.
Posted on December 9, 2012 by Administrator -
This paper continues the discussion on “Christ-Shaped Philosophy,” as advanced by Paul Moser’s paper.
Helpful comments from Paul Moser and Roberto Di Ceglie suggest–to me–a need for sharpening my previous response.I try to do this here.
I see a prima facie tension between three claims that Moser makes for “Christ-shaped philosophy”:
- “Christ-shaped philosophy is distinctive in virtue of its content”;
- “Christ-shaped mathematics” is not distinctive in virtue of its content;
- “Christ-shaped philosophy” is a model for “Christ-shaped mathematics”.
I do not yet see how Moser proposes to resolve this prima facie tension.
The FREE full-text of this paper is available for downloading by clicking here.
Posted on December 3, 2012 by Administrator -
This paper is part of a continuining discussion on “Christ-Shaped Philosophy,” and specifically an extension of what was originally said here and a follow-up in light of Paul Moser’s reply here.
This paper acknowledges that it was a mistake to think that Moser’s estimate of professional philosophy is both too high and too low.On the contrary, his estimate of the discipline, as stated in his two papers and his reply to me, is unrelentingly negative.
But his own practice of the discipline, however, seems to be inconsistent with his recommendations, and I believe we should follow his practice rather than those recommendations.
The FREE full-text of the paper is available to download by clicking here.
Tom Senor, who contributes to a discussion in the latest issue of Philosophia Christi (Winter 2010), has a helpful review in the NDPR on Paul Moser’s Evidence for God.
(readers may also be interested in my interview with Paul Moser on his “kerygmatic thesis”)
One of the conclusions that Tom draws is this:
Despite a long and interesting discussion of the theological and biblical account of the nature of, and challenges to, volitional change, we never do get an epistemologically illuminating discussion of acquaintance and of the personifying, experiential evidence that one gets as one positively responds to the divine offer.
The Evidence for God’s concluding chapter tackles the primary potential defeaters for the justification of premise two: the problems of evil and of religious diversity. Although there is no room here to discuss the details of this chapter, I will say that Moser’s discussion of diversity (which takes up most of the chapter) is bold, innovative, and nuanced. While defending a version of exclusivism, Moser argues that a God of perfect love could not make belief a requirement of salvation, and that one might yield to God’s transforming call de re and fail to form any beliefs about having yielded to God or even about the existence of God.
Readers might also be interested in the Philosophia Christi discussion on “religious diversity” (Winter 2009), for which Moser was a contributor.
Senor summarizes an interesting consideration in the above first paragraph, which he develops earlier in the review. He wants a more “epistemologically illuminating discussion of acquaintance.” But is Senor expecting “acquaintance” to deliver “spectator evidence” for God’s existence?
Paul K. Moser
Kerygmatic Philosophy
Abstract: The disturbing God acknowledged by Jewish and Christian theism is not static but dynamic, interactive, and elusive. In particular, this God reveals himself to some people at times and hides himself from some people at times, for the sake of gaining fellowship with people. As a result, this God is cognitively elusive, since the claim that this God exists is not obviously true or even beyond evidentially grounded doubt for all capable mature inquirers. Let’s think of the God in question as “the living God” in virtue of this God’s being personally interactive with some agents and cognitively nimble and dynamic rather than functionally or cognitively static. This God, more specifically, is elusive for good reasons, that is, for reasonable divine purposes that fit with God’s unique character of being worthy of worship and thus being morally perfect. Accordingly, we should expect any evidence of God’s existence for humans to be purposively available to humans, that is, available to humans in a way that conforms to God’s perfectly good purposes for humans. This paper explores the striking consequences of this position for natural theology in particular and for theistic philosophy in general. It outlines an epistemology of God’s existence that is pneumatic, owing to a personal divine Spirit (who cannot be reduced to Calvin’s sensus divinitatis), and that is thus foreign to secular epistemology and to much philosophy of religion. It is also an incarnational epistemology, given its cognitive role for God’s Spirit dwelling in humans, in such a way that they become a temple of God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). We may think of incarnational epistemology as requiring that human inquirers themselves become evidence of God’s reality in virtue of becoming God’s temple. In this approach, characteristic evidence of God’s reality is increasingly available to me as I myself am increasingly willing to become such evidence.
The epistemology offered is grace-based, in that firsthand knowledge of God’s reality is a direct gift of God’s grace. The cognitive grace in question supplies a cognitive gift that replaces any demand for intellectual earning, controlling, or dominating with a freely given presence of God’s inviting and transforming Spirit who seeks fellowship with humans. This cognitive, irreducibly personal gift must be appropriated by humans in Gethsemane struggles, given the human condition of sin, but it is not shrouded in philosophical sophistication of the sort accompanying contemporary natural theology. This gift is directly challenging toward natural human ways that resist God, including toward human cognitive idolatry, but it does not get bogged down in its own intellectual complications. It revolves around God’s gracious call to humans for the sake of divine-human fellowship, and this call is to be received, and obeyed, in an I-Thou acquaintance between a human and God. Natural theology, as the paper contends, omits such distinctive interactive foundational evidence to its own detriment.
Stay tuned for further discussion about this paper in a forthcoming issue of Philosophia Christi!
