In the best-case scenario, these spokesmen are able to come to the conclusion that God is not lacking in power and is incapable of deception using just logic and natural philosophy, aka science. Revelation isn’t knowledge in the same way that philosophy and science provide knowledge. Revelation is knowledge gained by an act of the will, i.e, you just assent to it. The other types of knowledge are gained by human reason through the senses.
Many people throughout theological history have thought they could not only prove the existence of God, but also prove he has those qualities which we generally associate with God, like omnipresence, simplicity, and goodness. Many of these arguments do prove something, but generally not something we would consider a loving, personal God. For that you generally need a Holy Writ and Divine Inspiration.
In theological epistemology there is a logical impossibility for the Supreme Being to do something heinous. If the source of the inspiration is indeed God, you will not need to doubt its truth (you’d just do that assent thing). But what if the inspiration isn’t from God, but a very powerful, invisible, and ineffable being that seems similar? Now we’re cooking with oil. How would we know? Could you tell the difference?
Here’s a digression.
Imagine a voice comes to you and says, “I want you to be the Father of my people. You will have a son even though your wife is wicked old.” Then you discover that your wife is pregnant. You have a son! Later the voice comes again and says, “Kill your only-begotten son, even though you love him, in my name.” When you go to kill your son, an angel of the same God stops you at the last moment, and your faith that the voice was not evil is vindicated (supposedly).
This is the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac in the Hebrew Bible. Abraham is the Father of all three monotheistic traditions today. Why did Abraham think the one God was speaking to him and not some demon? How is it that God can make what seems an unethical command? This is the subject of Kierkegaard’s book, Fear and Trembling.
End of digression.
I think at a practical level, we have to reject the type of skepticism you are proposing. If we did live in such a world, there would be very little, if any, reliability in inductive reasoning, and we would have to radically doubt all knowledge that wasn’t either tautological or reducible to non-contradiction. Imagine if the Abrahamic God did exist but wasn’t God, just a powerful, deceiving spirit who has been working in the world, pretending to love it this entire time.
If observation is tampered with, you can’t know for certain. If it isn’t tampered with, you might accept something like, “there is an act of love which a pretending God couldn’t fake.” Choose your Schelling-point for true love vs. seeming love and go from there.
In the best-case scenario, these spokesmen are able to come to the conclusion that God is not lacking in power and is incapable of deception using just logic and natural philosophy, aka science. Revelation isn’t knowledge in the same way that philosophy and science provide knowledge. Revelation is knowledge gained by an act of the will, i.e, you just assent to it. The other types of knowledge are gained by human reason through the senses.
Many people throughout theological history have thought they could not only prove the existence of God, but also prove he has those qualities which we generally associate with God, like omnipresence, simplicity, and goodness. Many of these arguments do prove something, but generally not something we would consider a loving, personal God. For that you generally need a Holy Writ and Divine Inspiration.
In theological epistemology there is a logical impossibility for the Supreme Being to do something heinous. If the source of the inspiration is indeed God, you will not need to doubt its truth (you’d just do that assent thing). But what if the inspiration isn’t from God, but a very powerful, invisible, and ineffable being that seems similar? Now we’re cooking with oil. How would we know? Could you tell the difference?
Here’s a digression.
Imagine a voice comes to you and says, “I want you to be the Father of my people. You will have a son even though your wife is wicked old.” Then you discover that your wife is pregnant. You have a son! Later the voice comes again and says, “Kill your only-begotten son, even though you love him, in my name.” When you go to kill your son, an angel of the same God stops you at the last moment, and your faith that the voice was not evil is vindicated (supposedly).
This is the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac in the Hebrew Bible. Abraham is the Father of all three monotheistic traditions today. Why did Abraham think the one God was speaking to him and not some demon? How is it that God can make what seems an unethical command? This is the subject of Kierkegaard’s book, Fear and Trembling.
End of digression.
I think at a practical level, we have to reject the type of skepticism you are proposing. If we did live in such a world, there would be very little, if any, reliability in inductive reasoning, and we would have to radically doubt all knowledge that wasn’t either tautological or reducible to non-contradiction. Imagine if the Abrahamic God did exist but wasn’t God, just a powerful, deceiving spirit who has been working in the world, pretending to love it this entire time.
If observation is tampered with, you can’t know for certain. If it isn’t tampered with, you might accept something like, “there is an act of love which a pretending God couldn’t fake.” Choose your Schelling-point for true love vs. seeming love and go from there.