Moser, Paul K.: The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology.

Copan, Paul

MOSER, Paul K. The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xii + 292. Cloth, $90.00--In this remarkable, noteworthy volume, Loyola University's philosophy chair, Paul Moser, has made a comprehensive case for a "Copernican revolution" in religions epistemology. He presents a necessary corrective to a history of philosophical and theological armchair argumentation and speculation, detached from human volition. Moser carefully follows the Jewish-Christian scriptures' epistemological approach, including a rejection of fideism, which itself repudiates all evidential considerations. He writes: "The heart of the book's account is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposefully available to humans, that is, available in a manner, and only in a manner, suitable to divine purposes in serf-revelation" (p. x).

God, Moser contends, may purposefully hide himself (perhaps because of prideful human demands insisting on displays of divine pyrotechnics). Frequently, the evidence for God considered by philosophers is personally detached, ignoring whether our human wills are properly oriented to receive God's self-revelation on God's terms--not our own. This means willing conformity to God's ends for us: entering into a loving, filial relationship with God (who is not merely content with our having justified true belief that he exists) and undergoing God's life giving transformation from selfishness to selfless love. A truly authoritative, wholly good, worship-worthy God would desire personal, engaged relationship, not the mere accumulation of theological facts. Indeed, one may have ample propositional evidence for God's existence yet hate God all the more.

This book contains a lengthy introduction, five chapters, and an appendix ("Skepticism Undone," which undermines the major argument--the circularity objection--supporting skepticism). In chapter 1, "Doubting Skeptics," Moser repudiates "spectator evidence" (as opposed to "authoritative evidence"), challenging the reader to be willing to be known by God--a factor almost wholly ignored when evidence for God is presented. Attempts to dislodge evidence of a loving God indicate cognitive bias against God's reality, not genuine truth-seeking (p. 75).

Chapter 2, "Knowing as Attunement," appropriates the metaphor of a radio dial: humans must be properly attuned to God's purposefully available evidence. Here Moser even gives his own argument for God's existence in which an individual's willing, unselfish reception of the divine transformative gift evidences a worship-worthy God (p. 135). A biblical epistemological stance calls for wholehearted seeking--not merely passive, casual observation. In setting the "dials" our way, we will create barriers to truly knowing God as he desires to be known.

Chapter 3, "Dying to Know," speaks of the value of personal knowledge (something reminiscent of Michael Polanyi) as veridical evidence for God, the second-best kind of such evidence being firsthand acquaintance with persons transformed by God's Spirit. Moser here contrasts the wisdoms of Athens (tied to propositionalism, intellectualist enlightenment, postmortem soul-disembodiment as ideal) and Jerusalem (involving personal knowledge, forgiveness/reconciliation with God, eventual bodily resurrection).

Chapter 4, "Philosophy Revamped," calls for reorienting philosophy around what is ultimate namely, the commands to love God and others. This means that rather than being an ivory-tower, abstract, relationally-irrelevant, and often idolatrous discipline, philosophy should be kerygmatic--namely, concerned about the interests of God's redemptive purposes and up-building of the transformed community of God's people. Philosophy (the love of wisdom) should pay more attention to Jesus, the wisdom of God.

Chapter 5, "Aftermath," speaks of the importance of evidence (contra Plantinga's Reformed epistemology)--but without coercion. In light of inevitable death and the hopelessness of materialism, we must recognize our need for outside help; the gift of fellowship with God, our greatest good, involves willingly entrusting ourselves to him rather than living lives morally independent of him.

Some natural theologians will dispute the spectator-evidence versus divinely-authoritative-purposeful-evidence demarcation: (a) significant "spectator evidence" for God's existence, though secondary and not ultimately authoritative, is abundant in Scripture (for example, many miracles fitting into the "divine pyrotechnics" category); (b) such evidence can be, and has been, used by God in combination with--and here Moser's emphasis is critical--a willing, seeking heart open to relationship with God. Moser's observation, however, that natural theologians "often leave their inquirers without an authoritative volitional challenge" (p. 161) is spot-on.

Truly, Moser has done philosophy--and natural theology in particular--an immense service by pointing us in a new, exciting direction. Indeed, his book is a must-read for every philosopher and theologian!--Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University.