Search Results for: Paul Moser

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In his Christ-Shaped Philosophy (CSP) project, Paul K. Moser calls for Christian philosophers to take the authority of Jesus Christ seriously in their intellectual pursuits. One does this, in part, by pursuing only those philosophical questions that lead one to serve and love God and neighbor.

Despite Moser’s refreshing and needed perspective on metaphilosophical issues, his project is not without problems. This paper argues that Moser’s appeal to Mark 12:28-31 reduces and constricts the kinds of questions Christian philosophers pursue.

The paper first provides a brief summary of Moser’s metaphilosophy, particularly the types of questions philosophers ask. The paper then traces out the implications of Moser’s view in Christian philosophy as well as other disciplines. The paper then sets forth a more robust view of metaphilosophy in regard to the questions that philosophers pursue. This is accomplished by exploring Augustine’s view about the unity and truth within the Trinity, after which the implications on philosophical questioning are teased out. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the paper’s main ideas.

The full-text of this paper is available for FREE by clicking here.

Learn more about the Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy (Zondervan, 2016) by going to the EPS book page.

Christians and others do well to ask whether there is such a thing as Christian philosophy and, if there is, what makes it distinctively Christian. I argue that Christian philosophy ought to conform to God in Christ in a manner foreign to other approaches to philosophy. As a result, Christian philosophy seeks a distinctive kind of wisdom—God’s wisdom in Christ—instead of what the apostle Paul calls “human wisdom.” God’s wisdom has the divine power, including the self-giving agap?, to give a lasting good life with God to cooperative humans. Christian philosophy as the love and pursuit of divine wisdom calls us to a volitional union with God in Christ, in keeping with the model set by Jesus in Gethsemane. Philosophers conformed to Christ are philosophers conformed to a new life of dying and rising with Christ in the power of self-sacrificial agap?. Going beyond philosophers themselves, the conforming of philosophical content involves pursuing questions that are distinctively Christian and/or that contribute to God’s redemptive kingdom under the good news of God in Christ. So, Christian philosophy does not condone the pursuit of just any questions found in philosophy at large, and this is what one should expect if God in Christ has authority over all domains of life, including inquiry.

Many Christian philosophers are side-tracked by the speculative arguments of natural theology. Such arguments, however, will not take us to the maximally exalted Jewish-Christian God, because they do not yield a God worthy of worship. God’s unique self-manifestation alone will take us there, courtesy of God’s spirit, as identified in Romans 5:5. Even if one gets to a lesser god by some speculative argument, one still would face the debilitating question of how one gets from the lesser god to the Jewish-Christian God who is worthy of worship. The idea, suggested by various Christian philosophers, that speculative arguments may function as a kind of stepping stone to God is mistaken. We have no reason to think such arguments are stepping stones to the God worthy of worship. Very often they are impediments, because they obscure the distinctive interpersonal challenge and evidence from the true God. In addition, if God did step in to bridge the gap, then natural theology would become dispensable, owing to the new evidence supplied by God. The speculative arguments of natural theology thus should be set aside as being beside the point of the God worthy of worship. This would prepare our attention for the kind of unique evidence to be expected of a God worthy of worship, in keeping with the message of the New Testament. Some arguments for God can be helpful, but they are not the foundation of evidence for God, and they must be a tenable basis relative to a God worthy of worship.

My contribution to this volume offers two challenges to Christian philosophers. First, Christian philosophy under, or conformed to, God in Christ must move beyond endless discussion to obedient action of the kinds indicated in the New Testament. This demand, including the demand to self-sacrificial love of God and man, requires a recalibration of the kinds of questions we ask and pursue as philosophers conformed to God in Christ. All is not equal when philosophy conforms to God in Christ. Practically speaking, questions to be addressed include: How does philosophy conformed to God in Christ change research and teaching? How do the love and the pursuit of divine wisdom fit with the “publish or perish” mentality so endemic to the university? How can Christian philosophy contribute to human flourishing and the advancement of God’s Kingdom?

Second, the conformational model challenges Christian apologists to recalibrate their efforts to convince others of God’s existence. In the place of the speculative arguments of natural theology—cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for God’s existence— we must offer to others the kind of unique evidence supplied by the God worthy of worship, in keeping, for instance, with Romans 5:5. For instance, a morally transformed life manifesting the agap? of God in Christ can supply evidence of God’s reality. Arguments by themselves will not convince shrewd people of God’s reality, and arguments that do not yield a God worthy of worship will not underwrite the Jewish-Christian God who is worthy of worship. In the New Testament perspective, God’s self-manifesting activity, including the presentation of divine agap? in human experience, provides the needed evidence for individuals of God’s existence. Relevant questions to pursue include: On the conformation model, how should one go about the task of doing apologetics? How is this task different from apologetic models that use arguments from speculative philosophy? The conformation model recommends a kind of “I-Thou” apologetics where God’s Spirit supplies the ultimate evidence and conviction for God’s reality, in keeping with the New Testament teaching. Humans serve as pointers to this work of God’s Spirit, insofar as they represent God’s unique moral character, but humans do not control the actual presence or power of God’s Spirit. Apologetics done right will accommodate this lesson, and let go of the old, ineffective story that arguments alone can be an adequate basis for apologetics or belief in God. The conformation model invites this change in apologetics, after the model set by the writers of the New Testament.

In this short paper I examine the contours of Paul Moser’s Christ-shaped philosophy in the original paper and the developments in his response to challenges, especially those regarding the narrow scope of his project. In doing so, I argue that the “inward agent-power”, volitional submission, and special epistemological position which Moser requires for Christ-shaped philosophy make his project one which properly belongs to a sub-discipline of systematic theology, rather than academic philosophy.

The needfulness or desirability of Moser’s project is not questioned; however, in light of his requirements, I attempt to demonstrate that his call should not be for a reform of Christian philosophers qua philosophers, but rather a call for Christian philosophers (and for all Christians) to contribute to an intellectually rigorous theological endeavor.

The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.

Paul K Moser has challenged Christians to philosophise in a spirit of ‘Gethsemane union’ with Christ. Such an approach, I argue, has radical implications for the subject matter of Christian moral philosophy: it renders trivial much of what was accepted as ‘Christian ethics’ in the 20th century and defines a distinctive new direction for the subject.

I propose an agenda appropriate to Christ-shaped moral philosophy. I go on to argue that late 20th century preoccupation with divine command ethics and with normative reductionism is driven by conformity to secular philosophical ethics rather than ‘Gethsemane union’ with Christ, that these issues are logically distinct from Christ-shaped moral philosophy and that they are trivial in comparison with the cosmic moral importance of Christ-shaped moral philosophy.

The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here (updated 11/1/13).

Paul K. Moser rejects arguments of natural theology for several reasons.

This paper considers two of those reasons.

First, Moser argues that since Jesus and the Apostle Paul are models for Christian philosophers and since neither used arguments of natural theology, Christian philosophers should follow suit and reject arguments of natural theology. I reject this reasoning on the grounds that there is a more plausible explanation why Jesus, the Apostle Paul and other biblical writers did not have to use arguments of natural theology.

Second, Moser claims that one of the reasons why arguments of natural theology fail is because they are not cogent for a wide audience, including shrewd agnostics. I reject this claim on the grounds that there is a better explanation why arguments of natural theology encounter resistance from shrewd skeptics, agnostics and atheists.

The article concludes with a reflection on Moser’s strategy that connects his religious epistemology to his conception of Christian philosophy.

The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.

Paul Moser’s “Christ Shaped Philosophy” has generated a wide ranging discussion.

Early in that discussion, William Hasker argued that Moser’s call for disciplinary reform conflates two discrete concepts of “wisdom” (and by extension of “philosophy”).

Here, I argue (i) that these “two wisdoms” are not discrete, but interdependent aspects of a single wisdom, (ii) that current disciplinary norms in academic philosophy violate this interdependence, and (iii) that Moser’s call for reform is therefore justified.

The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.

This paper joins Paul Moser, William Hasker, and Graham Oppy in that part of their discussion which concerns philosophy’s perennial problems. In their challenge to Moser’s project, for the most part, Hasker and Oppy draw from the extensive range of such questions, while avoiding the obvious, namely, philosophy’s “big questions.” The paper argues that it is the latter which, in an important sense, contextualize and serve as prolegomena for the Good News of God in Christ. However, this only occurs for a properly Christian philosophy, when through biblical answers many of these questions come to closure.

On the other hand, when philosophy insists on non-closure and writes the rules of knowing such that what Scripture says about these questions does not count as knowledge, it keeps at bay what Moser calls “God’s inquiry in Christ.”

The full-text of this contribution is available for FREE by clicking here.