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Essay about Finding Hope in James Muyskens' The Sufficiency of Hope

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Finding Hope in James Muyskens' The Sufficiency of Hope

Most people hope the world is the way they believe it is. That is, most people hope that their view of the world is right. They usually do not hope for the truth about things to be much better than what they suppose it is. Sometimes the hope is a factor in causing the belief; sometimes the hope stems from the desire to be right about one's belief; and in some cases the hope may follow the belief, i.e., one becomes accustomed even to an austere view of the world and finally comes to prefer it. It seems that most people, especially most philosophers, would rather be right than have the world turn out to be even a better place than their theory allows. They might not admit this …show more content…

Certainly many people believe in him who are sure that their manner of life puts them in danger of his wrath.

There have always been many people who believe that there is inadequate evidence for supernature, whether God or the afterlife. Supposing there is indeed little evidence for God, this raises the intriguing question, would there be anything epistemologically sinful in permitting oneself, not to believe in God's existence, but to hope for his existence? James Muyskens, in his book, The Sufficiency of Hope, makes a curious argument to the effect that such hope is not only epistemologically permissible, but also an agnostic may actually be a full-fledged Christian based upon this hope. According to Muyskens, an agnostic who honestly does not know what to think on the subject of God, who does not believe there is enough evidence to make a judgment either way, is entitled to do two things: first, he can hope Christianity is true; and second, if he does hope that Christianity is true, he can be a Christian, a full-fledged, praying, worshiping Christian, based merely upon his hope and without at all believing in God as we usually think of the term believing. This is a strange but important thesis. The agnostic Christian says, I do not know if God exists; I neither believe nor disbelieve in his existence, but I do hope he exists, and I'll pray to him,

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