The Descriptive Criterion and Models of God-Modeling: Response to Hustwit’s “Can Models of God Compete?”

摘要

In “Can Models of God Compete?”, J. R. Hustwit engages with fundamental questions regarding the epistemological foundations of modeling God. He argues that the approach of fallibilism best captures the criteria he employs to choose among different “models of God-modeling,” including one criterion that I call the Descriptive Criterion. I argue that Hustwit’s case for fallibilism should include both a stronger defense for the Descriptive Criterion and an explanation of the reasons that fallibilism does not run awry of this criterion in virtue of its apparent inability to make sense of debates among models of God extant in religious communities. This paper was delivered during the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God.