The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology [Hardcover]

Paul K. Moser (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521889030 | ISBN-13: 978-0521889032 | Publication Date: April 7, 2008 | Edition: 1

Three questions motivate this book's account of evidence for the existence of God. First, if God's existence is hidden, why suppose He exists at all? Second, if God exists, why is He hidden, particularly if God seeks to communicate with people? Third, what are the implications of divine hiddenness for philosophy, theology, and religion's supposed knowledge of God? This book answers these questions on the basis of a new account of evidence and knowledge of divine reality that challenges skepticism about God's existence. The central thesis is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans, that is, available only in a manner suitable to divine purposes in self-revelation. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a needed reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of an authoritative, perfectly loving God.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'I found The Elusive God to be the most profound and interesting work I have read in the past twenty years at the intersection of philosophy and theology. Instead of beginning with a demand for evidence of the existence of a divine being, the author argues that we should expect any intrusion into our lives of the sort that would convince us that God exists to be authoritative evidence that calls us not only to a cognitive viewpoint but also to a surrendering of our wills. The result of such an investigation is a re-conceptualization of the epistemological landscape relevant to the possibility of the knowledge of God.' --Jonathan Kvanvig, Baylor University

"*The Elusive God* ... is clearly a profound and illuminating treatment on as big an issue as issues get." --Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh

"This is an exciting thesis that merits further study and analysis." --Choice

"...important and challenging book." --John Bishop, of The University oF Auckland

"...remarkable, noteworthy volume. ...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!" --Review Metaphysics

Book Description

This book argues that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of a loving God.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521889030
• ISBN-13: 978-0521889032
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,064,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul K. Moser is Professor and Chairperson of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and the Editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly. His most recent book is The Evidence for God (Cambridge University Press, 2010). The book is a sequel to his book, The Elusive God (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which won the 2011 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award for Philosophy. Paul Moser's next book will be The Severity of God: Rigor and Lenience in Religion (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2013). Currently, he is co-editing a collection entitled The Wisdom of the Christian Faith (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2013). He is also Co-Editor of the new Cambridge University Press book series, Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review "The Elusive God", December 15, 2010

By 

Lisa N. Wheeler (Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Paperback)

Moser provides a convincing counterargument to Russell's claim that if God exists, he has given us insufficient evidence. He argues that we are not in a position to demand what kind of evidence God gives us. Furthermore, we should expect the kind of evidence revealed to be in keeping with the character of God.

A loving God would make his evidence available--but rejectable, in keeping with human freedom. His evidence is like a face hiding in the bushes, visible to those who are truly seeking, but "can be readily overlooked, ignored, suppressed, or dismissed by us, because it's intended by God not to coerce a will toward or against God but to be willingly received by humans. In particular, it's designed to woo or to invite us rather than to force or dominate us."

He asserts that God is not obligated to create a spectacle for simply curious or even hostile hearts, describing good reasons for him to hide himself in such cases. For instance, simple belief that God exists will not itself engender a relationship. (Everyone believed in the existence of Pres. Bush during his term but not all were happy about his authority.)

Moser claims that this certainty of God's existence rests on the conviction of the Spirit of the trinitarian God, speaking through the conscience. (At first thought, one might prefer Hanson's Zeus-like figure in the sky, but how convincing is that anyway? Could the blind see it? Could children understand the significance? Would we not wonder if it weren't simply communication from highly intelligent extra-terrestrial beings? What speaks beyond the senses, then, other than the conscience?) Unfortunately, many skeptics will likely misconstrue this as fideism.

I do have one bone to pick with Moser. He utterly eschews natural theology. While I recognize that his emphasis lies in our rethinking how we observe God's existence, he practically dismisses the tangible means through which the Spirit might speak to the conscience. Consider Thomas, whose heart was open, who believed when he touched the wounds of Jesus of Nazareth.

Thinkers and academics today give us access to these wounds, so to speak. N.T. Wright, Craig Blomberg, Alister McGrath, William Lane Craig, etc. offer empirical data that shows the plausibility of Christianity, its historical and even scientific legitimacy. Their work HAS convinced those with willing spirits and has bolstered the faith of believers.

12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a review of *The Elusive God*, November 29, 2008

By 

William M. Haney - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Hardcover)

Where in the world is Waldo!? This is probably the question we ask ourselves when we are looking at a Where's Waldo? book created by Martin Handford, a children's writer and illustrator. John Ortberg says in his book God is Closer Than You Think "This guy Waldo is supposed to be on every page. The author assures us that it is so. But you couldn't prove it by me. He is often hidden to the untrained eye. You have to be willing to look for him. "Surely Waldo was in this place, and I knew it not." When you find him, there is a sense of joy and accomplishment. In fact, developing the capacity to track him down is part of the point of the book. If it were too easy-if every page consisted just of a giant picture of Waldo's face-no one would ever buy the book. The difficulty of the task is what increases the power of discernment. The author said he hides Waldo so children can learn to "be aware of what's going on around them. I'd like them to see wonder in places it might not have occurred to them." But sometimes it takes a while to find Waldo. It demands patience. Some people are better at it than others. Some people just give up. Part of what makes it hard to find Waldo is that he is so ordinary-looking. In the initial pages his presence is obvious. Later on, he's hidden but the other occupants of the page are giants and sea monsters, so Waldo still stands out. Then eventually we come to the last and hardest page. By the end he's in a room full of Waldos virtually identical to himself, the only distinction being that one detail is different, such as he's missing a shoe. Handford allows rival Waldos to counterfeit his identity. You can be looking right at him without even knowing it. Where's Waldo? Why doesn't he show himself plainly? Why does he hide his face? He may not be absent, but he is elusive. He is Waldus absconditus-the Waldo who hides himself." (pages 31-32) Philosopher Paul Moser argues (without the Waldo analogy) on a sophisticated level yet still accessible to the average person in his book The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology that the Judeo-Christian God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, is like Waldo; there (as in this God does exist) but hidden or incognito for specific divine loving purposes and intentions. Not only is this God's existence disguised but also evidence for this God's existence. In Moser's words, "this book contends that, despite being concealed at times, the reality of the God of traditional monotheism is knowable firsthand by humans on the basis of salient and conclusive, if elusive, evidence." (page 2) This elusive evidence isn't kept hidden because God is morally bankrupt; the evidence is kept elusive due to the morally loving character of God keeping with loving divine aims. The loving divine aims have to do with bringing selfish and destructive humans into a loving, volitionally surrendered fellowship with an unselfishly loving God. To make this possible, the evidence at hand cannot be given coercively. This evidence cannot coerce a will toward or against God, for that would violate a loving God's loving aims, purposes, and intentions for humans. In Moser's words, "Conclusive firsthand evidence for divine reality is, I'll contend, purposively available to humans, that is, available in a way, and only in a way, that accommodates the distinctive purposes of a perfectly loving God. The latter purposes, we'll see, would aim non coercively but authoritatively to transform human purposes to agree with divine purposes, despite human resistance of various and sundry sorts." (page 2) This evidence is not spectator evidence. As humans, this evidence challenges us to get off the bleachers of our search and onto the field of our search. In other analogical words, the evidence is found on the field of our search and even challenges who we are becoming as persons and how we play the game of life. In Moser's words, "we'll consider purposively available evidence that is both person-involving and life-involving in its identifying and challenging both who we are and how we live as morally accountable personal agents under the authority of a perfectly loving personal God. Such purposively available evidence would seek whole-hearted transformation of humans toward God's character via volitional fellowship with God, where such fellowship between God and a human requires sharing in each other's concerns guided by love. The relevant evidence, then, wouldn't assume that humans are just spectators in need of further information or intellectual enlightenment. It would thus contrast sharply with any kind of spectator evidence that fails to challenge humans to yield their wills to a perfectly authoritative agent." (page 2) All throughout the book, Moser argues that question (a) Do we humans know that God exists? is better answered if we start with question (b) Are we humans known by God in virtue of (among other things) our freely and agreeably being willing (i) to be known by God and thereby (ii) to be transformed toward God's moral character of perfect love as we are willingly led by God in volitional fellowship with God, thereby obediently yielding our wills to God's authoritative will? In Moser's words, "We'll see that question (a) is fruitfully approached via question (b), given that a perfectly authoritative and loving God would be distinctively purposive in relating to humans, cognitively (in terms of evidence and knowledge provided) and otherwise." (page 4) Behind question (b) lurks another important question; question (c) Are we humans known by God in virtue of (among other things) our freely being willing to receive an authoritative call to volitional fellowship from a God of perfect love that is presented to us in order to reveal, at least to us, the adequacy or inadequacy of our moral and cognitive standing before this God? Moser notes that this shift of focus is suggested in some of the apostle Paul's writings found in the Christian writings in the Bible. He goes on to argue that "we are morally responsible for the questions we willingly pursue, just as we are similarly responsible for everything else we intentionally do. The typical focus on question (a) to the exclusion of questions (b) and (c) tends to place the sole responsibility on God for supplying the desired knowledge to humans, as if humans were just spectators who need only to open their eyes to see the relevant evidence. In contrast, this book's focus on questions (b) and (c) as means to answering question (a) directs us to ask whether we humans are well-positioned to receive any purposively available evidence and knowledge of God's reality. Perhaps we aren't thus well-positioned, because our wills have gone awry and thus need attunement to reality, including divine reality." (page 5) Moser argues that this is indeed the dilemma that human beings find themselves in; we aren't well positioned and we are in need of help or a word from a morally loving and perfect God. But what will happen when this elusive word comes? How will human beings respond? Moser argues that there are three main ways humans can respond: conforming (or, obedient) reception, indifferent reception, and negative (or, disobedient) reception. Regarding the most important response (conforming reception), Moser argues that "This book's account of purposively available conclusive evidence and knowledge of divine reality focuses on a distinctive kind of evidence available in experience: evident authoritative divine love expressed via human conscience, including an evident invitation to repentance and volitional fellowship with God." (page 8) The whole of Moser's book focuses on three main questions: (1) If God's existence is concealed, hidden, or incognito, why should we hold that God exists at all? (2) If God exists, why is God's existence hidden at all, particularly if God aims to communicate with people in some way to lead them into better lives? (3) What are the implications of God's concealment for philosophy and religion as they concern talk of God and of knowledge of God? Without falling into some type of fideism, Moser gives due attention to certain skeptical doubts, questions, concerns, and objections all throughout his work. In his words, "careful attention to skeptical qualms will keep us honest in our inquiry, and save us from any uncritical or cognitively arbitrary dogmatism." (pages 8-9) Regarding how this Jewish-Christian epistemology works in other religious conditions and geographical situations, Moser notes that "the true God may indeed be troublesome rather than convenient by our preferred standards, and may need to be thus, given our dire predicament of destructive selfishness. If God seeks to rescue us convincingly from our predicament, God would need to convince us of our need of rescue and of God's reliability in the rescue effort. In addition, God would have to challenge and then noncoercively transform our deadly selfishness. A God of perfect love, as suggested, would aim to elicit not just new beliefs in us, but also new volitional attitudes, including unselfish intentions and desires. That's no small task, of course, and it may succeed rarely if at all. As indicated, however, we shouldn't assume that divine intervention is just in the life of Jesus; it may be wherever God is at work, regardless of geography, even if Jesus is the authoritatively and morally perfect exemplar of divine revelation in a human." (page 14-15) All in all, as one who was an honest and open agnostic (while also seriously entertaining the possibility of atheism), I think Moser's work does indeed offer an enormously effective challenge to skepticism about the reality of the Judeo-Christian God. This book will not only challenge the way you think but also challenge the way you live your life...if you're willing.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Elusive God: Valuable Perspective on Epistemology, September 14, 2010

By 

absit invidia - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Paperback)

I read this book for a class on Philosophic Theology. I was warned by the Professor that this would be a difficult book to read to terms of depth of thought. After reading this book I was impressed with the level of thought and breadth of argument developed by Moser. Moser provided a perspective on Epistemology that I had not encountered in my studies of epistemology.

I would suggest this book for anyone interested in in-depth books on epistemology. I think this books serves as a good way to push back on notions of how we as humans "know" things. If you read this book expect to have your opinions challenged.