accounts for the nature and concerns of this particular god that it is impossible to even imagine Yahweh being worshipped by, say, the Eskimos.
Interestingly the concept of divine eternity in the Hebrew Bible is not always the same as the philosophical sense thereof. In one text, Isaiah 43:10, we even find presupposed that Yahweh has a limited lifespan:
“You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.”
Look again closely and try to take the text seriously. It does not just say that there are no other gods. It introduces a temporal sequence that, if all the texts wanted to stress were monotheistic claims, seems quite unnecessary. Yet most people can read this passage and never bother to ask how it is possible for Yahweh to refer to a time “before” and “after” him during which there are no other gods. This text clearly implies that (a) there is a temporal period before Yahweh existed when no other god existed either, and (b) there will come a time after Yahweh during which no other god will exist either. Of course, this outrageous idea makes no sense in the context of philosophical monotheism, but there it is and against the backdrop of ancient Near Eastern theogony it is perfectly understandable. Gods, too, are born from and return to chaos, and not even Genesis 1 says God created the darkness/waters. To be sure, this allusion is basically the only of its kind in the Bible (although the notion of the divine life, or “nephesh,” as diminished in texts such as Exod. 31:18, implies the possibility of degeneration), but because scholars have wanted to see “second” Isaiah as theologically advanced, they have ignored the more primitive elements in his theology.
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
AS “NONSENSE ON STILTS”
Just as you cannot argue Zeus into existence via philosophical speculation and sophistication, so you cannot do it with God, aka Yahweh. Yet Christian philosophers of religion who no longer believe in Yahweh as depicted in the Old Testament can still bring themselves to believe in “God,” an updated version of the older tribal deity of manifold depictions. They use the latest technomorphic metaphors, which they project onto reality and by way of sophisticated jargon and a generic approach make their ideas seem intimidating and almost respectable. But the fact is that all Christian philosophy of religion, be it fundamentalist analytic philosophy or the most postmodern version of continental a/theology, is just reconstructive mythology. It only seems to work because people forget that God used to be Yahweh. They might as well try to rehabilitate any old tribal god under the universal umbrella nowadays covered by the concept of divinity. Thus any philosophy of religion that assumes the god it talks about is in any way basically the same divine reality as that talked about in the Old Testament is in serious trouble.
First of all, conceptions of Yahweh by most Christian philosophers of religion tend to be radically anachronistic and conform more to the proverbial “God of the Philosophers” (Thomas Aquinas in particular) than to any version of Yahweh as depicted in ancient Israelite religion. This means that the prephilosophical “biblical” conceptions of Yahweh, the belief in whom is supposed to be properly basic, are not even believed by Christian philosophers themselves. Their lofty notions of God in terms of “Divine Simplicity,” “Maximal Greatness,” and “Perfect-Being Theology” are utterly alien with reference to many of the characterizations of Yahweh in biblical narrative (e.g., Gen. 18). This means that debates about God's power and knowledge and his relation to evil (etc.), whatever its logical merits, conveniently ignore the fact that there are many biblical texts that contradict it (and that offer representations of
Interestingly the concept of divine eternity in the Hebrew Bible is not always the same as the philosophical sense thereof. In one text, Isaiah 43:10, we even find presupposed that Yahweh has a limited lifespan:
“You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.”
Look again closely and try to take the text seriously. It does not just say that there are no other gods. It introduces a temporal sequence that, if all the texts wanted to stress were monotheistic claims, seems quite unnecessary. Yet most people can read this passage and never bother to ask how it is possible for Yahweh to refer to a time “before” and “after” him during which there are no other gods. This text clearly implies that (a) there is a temporal period before Yahweh existed when no other god existed either, and (b) there will come a time after Yahweh during which no other god will exist either. Of course, this outrageous idea makes no sense in the context of philosophical monotheism, but there it is and against the backdrop of ancient Near Eastern theogony it is perfectly understandable. Gods, too, are born from and return to chaos, and not even Genesis 1 says God created the darkness/waters. To be sure, this allusion is basically the only of its kind in the Bible (although the notion of the divine life, or “nephesh,” as diminished in texts such as Exod. 31:18, implies the possibility of degeneration), but because scholars have wanted to see “second” Isaiah as theologically advanced, they have ignored the more primitive elements in his theology.
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
AS “NONSENSE ON STILTS”
Just as you cannot argue Zeus into existence via philosophical speculation and sophistication, so you cannot do it with God, aka Yahweh. Yet Christian philosophers of religion who no longer believe in Yahweh as depicted in the Old Testament can still bring themselves to believe in “God,” an updated version of the older tribal deity of manifold depictions. They use the latest technomorphic metaphors, which they project onto reality and by way of sophisticated jargon and a generic approach make their ideas seem intimidating and almost respectable. But the fact is that all Christian philosophy of religion, be it fundamentalist analytic philosophy or the most postmodern version of continental a/theology, is just reconstructive mythology. It only seems to work because people forget that God used to be Yahweh. They might as well try to rehabilitate any old tribal god under the universal umbrella nowadays covered by the concept of divinity. Thus any philosophy of religion that assumes the god it talks about is in any way basically the same divine reality as that talked about in the Old Testament is in serious trouble.
First of all, conceptions of Yahweh by most Christian philosophers of religion tend to be radically anachronistic and conform more to the proverbial “God of the Philosophers” (Thomas Aquinas in particular) than to any version of Yahweh as depicted in ancient Israelite religion. This means that the prephilosophical “biblical” conceptions of Yahweh, the belief in whom is supposed to be properly basic, are not even believed by Christian philosophers themselves. Their lofty notions of God in terms of “Divine Simplicity,” “Maximal Greatness,” and “Perfect-Being Theology” are utterly alien with reference to many of the characterizations of Yahweh in biblical narrative (e.g., Gen. 18). This means that debates about God's power and knowledge and his relation to evil (etc.), whatever its logical merits, conveniently ignore the fact that there are many biblical texts that contradict it (and that offer representations of
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