Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
“Many questions are answered wrongly, not because the evidence is contradictory or inadequate, but because the mind through its fundamental dispositions and presuppositions is out of focus with the only kind of evidence which is really available.”
– H.H. Farmer 1927, p. 5.The question of whether God exists is at least as old as the hills, and the human race, too, but old age in this case has not yielded undisputed wisdom or even broad clarity. In fact, although obviously of first importance, the question of whether God exists has suffered from a certain widespread human bias regarding the manner in which we should approach it. The bias obscures how human inquirers themselves are arguably put under question, before God's authority, in raising the question of whether God exists. This book uncovers this bias, challenges it, and offers an alternative, more defensible approach to the question of whether God exists. The result is a new perspective on the evidence for God.
Upon asking aright the question of whether God exists, the book contends, we find a morally robust version of theism that is cognitively resilient. We also then find that the evidence for God is not speculative, abstract, or casual, after all, but is, instead, morally and existentially challenging to us humans. This evidence thus extends beyond the argumentative domain of philosophers and theologians, and engages people from all walks of life at the levels of who they are and who they should be.
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- The Evidence for GodReligious Knowledge Reexamined, pp. 1 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009