Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
The question of whether God exists is enduringly with us, whether we like it or not; so, we might as well deal with it straight up. This book approaches the question of whether God exists from a new perspective, in which humans themselves are put under moral question, before God's authority, in raising the question of whether God exists. The result is a new perspective on the evidence for God, including a morally robust version of theism that is cognitively resilient, even against skepticism.
The resulting evidence for God is not speculative, abstract, or casual but is, instead, morally and existentially challenging to humans. This evidence becomes salient to inquirers as they themselves responsively and willingly become evidence of God's reality in receiving and reflecting God's moral character for others. The book calls this personifying evidence of God, because it requires the evidence to be personified in an intentional agent, such as a purposive human, and thereby to be evidence inherently of an intentional agent. The book contrasts its approach with skepticism, scientific naturalism, fideism, and natural theology, and it faces directly the potential problems for theism raised by divine hiddenness, religious diversity, and vast evil. In the end, a morally challenging version of theism emerges as cognitively tenable.
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- The Evidence for GodReligious Knowledge Reexamined, pp. ix - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009