God's Activity in Today's World: a Review Essay on Kingdom Triangle

In this review essay, I consider 1. P. Moreland's Kingdom Triangle as a recent example that takes seriously the incursion of God's Kingdom into the human realm. Among other things, Moreland's book helpfully provides some needed leadership and modeling for Christian philosophers as we reflect upon what it means to know and indeed experience first-hand the supernatural in-breaking of God's power. Moreland's approach locates the experience of God's miraculous activity within the panoply of the Christian lmowledge tradition and alongside what it means for Christ to be fonned in our interior. I conclude with some of my own research examples of God's healing power. 1. E.g., Alvin Plantinga, "Advice to Christian Philosophers," Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984): 253-71. 2. For several enlightening perspectives, see Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser, eds., Divine HiddenlJess: New Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 200 I); Paul Moser, The Elusive God: Reorienting Religiolls Epistemology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 216 PHILO SOPHIA CHRISTI this occur? Are there certain necessary and sufficient conditions for such visitations? Does God ever act in a miraculous manner? . Paul Moser holds that God does indeed supply ample eVIdence that he IS alive and well, but it might not be the sort of manifestations that we ex'p~ct. God reveals himself personally, but not for the sole purpose of ~ro.vldmg signs, arguments, or proofs. Rather, God desires to be our first ~nonty, t:le Lord of our lives. Therefore, any interaction with us would 1110st lIkely be for the purpose of developing a loving relationship with him. Solitary proof~, to the contrary, could actually work against the goal of a personal connectI?n. Such filial knowledge of God is available to every sincere seeker, accordmg to God's timetable. 'Sometimes it seems that the tentacles of Plantinga's admonitions are reaching into philosophical contexts that we never thought were possible. That an imminent epistemologist like Moser is devoting so much study ~nd energy to God's filial work in humans would sil1l~ly have b~en amazmg. prior to Plantinga's advice. Moser is hardly followmg th.e ~rall1 of secular philosophers here! Rather, he is doing exceptionally sophIstIcated work, all the while making statements that professional philosophers would hardly have touched years ago. r would suggest that similar moves are also being made through?ut ~he evangelical philosophical community. A recent example is the publIcatIon in 2007 of J. P. Moreland's provocative volume, Kingdom Triallf!le. H~re another very sophisticated and influential philosopher tackles the mcurSlOn of God's Kingdom into the human realm. Like Plantinga, ~oreland s?unds the trumpet, by beginning (preface, 14) and ending (concluSIOn, 19~) 111s t~xt with a call to act: "Join me in the revolution. This is your opportUnIty. SeIze it and rejoice in it" (99). . All three points of the triangle, but especially the thn'd, produce profound insiahts. Moreland's vision could serve as another, further call to a philosophi~al reawakening. Like C. S. Lewis,.) he envisions tl~e reign of.an earlier paradigm, one that was far more faithfill not only to reah~y and Scnpture, but one that inaugurated a fuller, classical lifestyle that IS far d.e~per (Moreland would say "thicker") than that ofth~ contemporary COl11pe~ltlOn. The purpose ofthe remainder ofthis essay IS to explore Moreland s t~x~. While r intend to summarize briefly Moreland's notion of the cU~Tent.cns~s along with the first two underpinnings, my primary interest in tl1lS article IS 2(08); for~popul~r over~i~\v. see P~~IIMose;,-TYhyJ~n I GodMore Obl:ious? ~inding the God Who Hides and Seeks (Norcross, GA: Ravi Zacharias InternatIOnal Mll1lstnes, _(00). 3. Moser, Why 1sn I God J1;lore Obviolls? esp. 2, 11, 13, 17, 19-20,26,30,34; 55. 58. For further implications of some of these ideas, see Joseph GOlTa's very recent ll1tervICW With Moser, at the Evangelical Philosophical Society's blog, http://www.epsociety.org/blog/20081l2/mterview-with-paul-k-moser-kerygmatic.asp. .., . 4. C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to ldeciIemi and Renaissance Lltel ature (London: Cambridge University Press, 1964). GARY R. HABERMAS 217 the third foundation. Is it possible that God is actively and miraculously present in the world today? Could it be possible, contrary to evelything we hear from naturalistic scholars, that this is really a supernatural universe? Dare we really believe this, even in the deepest recesses of our hearis? The Contemporary Worldview Crisis This volume could never be confused for a contentless romp through a Christian theme parle In Pari 1, entitled "Assessing the Crisis of Our Age," Moreland introduces in chapter 1 the "three-way worldview struggle" raging in our culture today between scientific naturalism, postmodernism, and what he calls "ethical monotheism," especially Christianity (22). He holds that there is at present a widespread hunger for ultimate meaning in life, such as that which is contributed by objective values, God, and an afterlife (21). Only what Moreland terms a "thick" world offers such beliefs, standards, and benefits. On the other hand, a "thin" world offers "no objective value, purpose, or meaning" at least in any ultimate sense, no God, and no life after death (26-29). Thus Moreland argues that Christianity offers such a thick world, while naturalism and postmodernism fail to do so. In chapter 2, he finds that naturalism, for example, fails to supply adequate answers in the following six areas: the need for free will to ground our lives, real intrinsic values that can be known, the ability to acknowledge the reality of evil and offer hope, the intrinsic value of human beings, the need for purpose and goals that are relevant to the human life, and a satisfying answer to the question of why I should be moral (48-58). Later, Moreland argues that naturalism is unable to account for the empirical data that are available to us (195-99). He concludes boldly that, "naturalism is exposed as the shallow, destructive fraud that it really is" (59). The other contemporary rival to Christianity is the loose coalition of assOlied ideas known as postmodernism, producing a movement that infects not only society as a whole, but even a growing number of Christian intellectuals (67). Chapter 3 analyzes some of its key suppositions (77-85), with Moreland asking the same five questions that he had already asked of naturalism. He finds that post-modernist claims crumble, in that they are misleading, self-contradictOlY, and end up espousing untenable positions (85-88). Moreland concludes that "postmodernism is a form of intellectual pacifism that, at the end of the day, recommends backgammon while the barbarians are at the gate." While perhaps comforting in some areas, "postmodernism is the cure that kills the patient, the military strategy that concedes defeat before the first shot is fired, the ideology that undermines its own claims to