• Book Reviews,  Epistemology,  Paul Moser,  Philosophy of Religion,  Religious Experience

    Review: The Evidence for God by Paul Moser

    Unsatisfied with natural theology and fideism, Paul Moser attempts to introduce a new kind of evidence for God, an evidence, “appropriate for the reality of a God worthy of worship” (20). Such evidence is personified in human agents as they are transformed by God. His argument is as follows: (1) Necessarily, if a human person is offered and receives the transformative gift, then this is the result of the authoritative power of the divine X of thoroughgoing forgiveness, fellowship in perfect love, worthiness of worship, and triumphant hope (namely, God).(2) I have been offered, and have willingly received, the transformative gift.(3) Therefore, God exits. (200) Revelation of the divine, according…

  • Feelings,  Francis Spufford,  John Hick,  Paul Moser,  Religious Experience

    More Than a Feeling

    Francis Spufford, in a metaphor laden piece for the Guardian, defends his Christian faith against atheism on the basis of his feelings: “I assent to ideas because I have feelings; I don’t have feelings because I’ve assented to the ideas.” Spufford claims that no one can know if there is a god or not; God “isn’t a knowable item.” And so all he can go by is his feel of God. One might wonder what Spufford means by “feel.” Surely “feeling” means a sensation. And a sensation is how we know that we have stepped on a pin, but we don’t say that a pin is unknowable. What kind of feeling does…