Philosophy of Religion Research

God's Self-manifestation and Moser's Moral Approach in Justifying Belief in God

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

1 PhD Student of Comparative Philosophy, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

2 Professor of Islamic philosophy, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

3 Professor at Department of Ethics, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

Abstract

The present paper depicts Moser’s view on the justification of the belief in God. By debunking the efficiency of mere theoretical reason in proving the existence of God, introducing God as the source of justification, and using a moral perspective, he proposes a kind of voluntary knowledge. He assumes the right path to acquire true knowledge of god to be a direct and purposeful evidence, which is found in accordance to divine attributes. For their own redemption, before the interference of thought and feelings, God wills the voluntary moral revolution of human beings from selfishness to selfless absolute love. In this respect, Moser puts forth a virtue-based evidentialism, on the basis of which people can accept God’s invitation to friendship with absolute love and therefore experience God’s blessing in their motivational core. This experience indicates God’s self-manifestation and offers direct evidence for his existence, which causes the subject, by gaining moral attributes and receiving God’s absolute love and sharing it with others, to become a personified evidence of God himself. Moreover, according to the inference to the best explanation, Moser justifies the belief in God by this empirical and non-propositional evidence. As a result, Moser’s existential and moral account, despite being criticized for its being subjective and relative, and the unreliability of religious experiences, has revived a number of forgotten theological concepts.

Keywords

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Philosophy of Religion Research
Volume 16, Issue 1 - Serial Number 31
May 2018
Pages 41-64