divinity that Christian philosophers do not believe in).
The problem of evil is a pseudo-worry in many Old Testament texts, where Yahweh was neither omnipotent nor all-good. In addition, the ability to do evil in the sense of being destructive was in fact a great-making property in ancient theism. Yahweh is powerful precisely because he can do evil when he wants, whether natural, moral, or metaphysical (see Exod. 4:11; Lam. 3:38; Isa. 45:7; Amos 3:6; Eccles. 7:13–14; etc.). Ancient believers were not as spoiled as those today who believe a god has to be perfectly good (read: “user-friendly”) before he deserves to be worshipped. What made a god divine was great power (which is not the same as omnipotence), not client-centered service, family values, or human rights.
The second problem follows from the first: What kind of God is it that is warranted according to the Christian philosophy of religion? It is useless to say belief in God is justified unless one can specify what the contents of the beliefs about God are supposed to be (and who this god is in whom one basically believes). But this Christian philosophy of religion is radically undermined by its failure to take cognizance of the fact that it is committing the fallacy of essentialism. It brackets the philosophical problems posed by theological pluralism in the Old Testament and the diachronic changes (read: “revision”) in the beliefs about Yahweh in the history of Israelite religion. At many junctions in its arguments it seems blissfully unaware that there is no such thing as the “biblical” perspective on God. So if it is the “biblical” God that is supposed to be believed in, most Old Testament theologians would like to know “which version?” (or, “whose interpretation?”)
A third problem concerns another way in which Christian philosophy of religion fails to apply the Old Testament's own forms of verification. Now aside from the possibility of pluralism that may once again rear its ugly head (e.g., in the incommensurable religious epistemologies of Daniel and Ecclesiastes), the fact is that it is wrong to assume the Old Testament is not evidentialist. On the contrary, there is ample reason to believe that a primitive type of evidentialism is in fact the default epistemology taken for granted in ancient Israelite religion given the nature of the many prephilosophical assumptions in the biblical narratives. Thus the whole point of “miracles” (signs) and revelation via theophany, audition, dreams, divination, and history can be said to presuppose an evidentialism (see the oft-repeated formula “so that they may know…”). Philosophers of religion will deny that one can verify the existence of God in this empirical sense, and yet according to the Old Testament, Yahweh himself assumed this to be possible.
After all, of all the religious epistemologies that come to mind, it is difficult to imagine that the prophet Elijah in the narrative where he takes on the Baal Prophets on Carmel was endorsing anything remotely similar to the Christian philosophy of religion's claims that one need not prove anything empirically (see 1 Kings 18). If that is not an instance of evidentialism in the Old Testament, what is? Christians may have their own reasons why these things no longer happen and why no philosopher of religion will agree to a contest on Mount Carmel. But the fact is that Christian philosophers of religion, be they fundamentalist and analytic or postmodern and continental, all love dogmatic rationalization more than biblical epistemology. Again this shows that not even Christian philosophers of religion actually believe in Yahweh. They, too, are atheists in relation to the biblical divinity.
From this we see why belief in Yahweh is for both atheists and Christians as impossible as belief in Zeus. One might as well be asked to “just believe the Bible!” or any other ancient god. But few Christian philosophers ever ask why it is that a
The problem of evil is a pseudo-worry in many Old Testament texts, where Yahweh was neither omnipotent nor all-good. In addition, the ability to do evil in the sense of being destructive was in fact a great-making property in ancient theism. Yahweh is powerful precisely because he can do evil when he wants, whether natural, moral, or metaphysical (see Exod. 4:11; Lam. 3:38; Isa. 45:7; Amos 3:6; Eccles. 7:13–14; etc.). Ancient believers were not as spoiled as those today who believe a god has to be perfectly good (read: “user-friendly”) before he deserves to be worshipped. What made a god divine was great power (which is not the same as omnipotence), not client-centered service, family values, or human rights.
The second problem follows from the first: What kind of God is it that is warranted according to the Christian philosophy of religion? It is useless to say belief in God is justified unless one can specify what the contents of the beliefs about God are supposed to be (and who this god is in whom one basically believes). But this Christian philosophy of religion is radically undermined by its failure to take cognizance of the fact that it is committing the fallacy of essentialism. It brackets the philosophical problems posed by theological pluralism in the Old Testament and the diachronic changes (read: “revision”) in the beliefs about Yahweh in the history of Israelite religion. At many junctions in its arguments it seems blissfully unaware that there is no such thing as the “biblical” perspective on God. So if it is the “biblical” God that is supposed to be believed in, most Old Testament theologians would like to know “which version?” (or, “whose interpretation?”)
A third problem concerns another way in which Christian philosophy of religion fails to apply the Old Testament's own forms of verification. Now aside from the possibility of pluralism that may once again rear its ugly head (e.g., in the incommensurable religious epistemologies of Daniel and Ecclesiastes), the fact is that it is wrong to assume the Old Testament is not evidentialist. On the contrary, there is ample reason to believe that a primitive type of evidentialism is in fact the default epistemology taken for granted in ancient Israelite religion given the nature of the many prephilosophical assumptions in the biblical narratives. Thus the whole point of “miracles” (signs) and revelation via theophany, audition, dreams, divination, and history can be said to presuppose an evidentialism (see the oft-repeated formula “so that they may know…”). Philosophers of religion will deny that one can verify the existence of God in this empirical sense, and yet according to the Old Testament, Yahweh himself assumed this to be possible.
After all, of all the religious epistemologies that come to mind, it is difficult to imagine that the prophet Elijah in the narrative where he takes on the Baal Prophets on Carmel was endorsing anything remotely similar to the Christian philosophy of religion's claims that one need not prove anything empirically (see 1 Kings 18). If that is not an instance of evidentialism in the Old Testament, what is? Christians may have their own reasons why these things no longer happen and why no philosopher of religion will agree to a contest on Mount Carmel. But the fact is that Christian philosophers of religion, be they fundamentalist and analytic or postmodern and continental, all love dogmatic rationalization more than biblical epistemology. Again this shows that not even Christian philosophers of religion actually believe in Yahweh. They, too, are atheists in relation to the biblical divinity.
From this we see why belief in Yahweh is for both atheists and Christians as impossible as belief in Zeus. One might as well be asked to “just believe the Bible!” or any other ancient god. But few Christian philosophers ever ask why it is that a
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