Humility and moral seriousness: requirements for knowing God

To whet my appetite for this Sunday's meeting of the Socrates Cafe of West Palm Beach (you're all invited!) I've been revisiting Loving Wisdom: Christian Philosophy of Religion by my friend and fellow elder Paul Copan. This book is an accessible entry point to a variety of topics related to apologetics and philosophy of religion. I heartily recommend it. You can read my full review of Paul's book ("Compelling, highly readable and accessible") at the Amazon link. I especially enjoyed reading again the chapter on the hiddenness of God. Here's a taste.

Humans don't need Ph.D's to know God exists and to put their trust in him. From the least of them to the greatest, God's presence and grace can be known. Those determined to resist or ignore God, on the other hand, can still find loopholes for nonbelief. Again, the evidence is ample, not coercive. . .

God doesn't want us to come to know him apart from knowing him as loving Lord and Father—personally embracing and committing ourselves to him. Purely intellectual knowledge of God's existence is inadequate; God doesn't want us to treat him as just another object of knowledge—like memorizing lines from Shakespeare or having figured out how a computer program works. He desires personal, loving knowledge.

So instead of being passively "open," we must be morally serious toward God who makes momentous demands of us. And we can't be morally serious seekers if we say we'll believe in God if and only if we have firsthand miraculous signs from him. We also must be humble and undemanding seekers, grateful for indicators or pointers to the God who hides, seeks, and graciously reveals. God, by his Spirit, will not disappoint (Rom. 5:5).

Copan, Loving Wisdom (Chalice Press, 2007), p. 138