Editing Argument from nonbelief (section)

=== Unreasonable demands on God ===
This argument is sometimes seen as demanding God to prove his existence, for example by performing miracles. Critics have argued that even in Schellenberg's more refined version, the nonbeliever is imposing their own [[epistemological]] expectations on the will of God. A detailed discussion of these kinds of demands, and their moral and spiritual implications, is provided by [[Paul Moser]],<ref name="pm_ne">{{Cite book |last=Moser |first=Paul |year=2001 |chapter=Cognitive Idolatry and Divine Hiding |chapter-url=http://www.luc.edu/faculty/pmoser/idolanon/CognitiveIdolatry.html |title=Divine Hiddenness: New Essays |isbn=0-521-00610-4 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York}}</ref> who says that such demands amount to cognitive idolatry. He defines [[idolatry]] as "our not letting the true God be Lord in our lives" and instead committing to something other than God by pursuing a quest for self-realization in our own terms. If this is idolatry in our actions, then idolatry in our knowing, he says, is as follows:
{{blockquote|Cognitive idolatry relies on a standard for knowledge that excludes the primacy of the morally self-transforming knowledge of God central to knowing God as Lord. It rests on an epistemological standard, whether empiricist, rationalist, or some hybrid, that does not let God be Lord. Such idolatry aims to protect one's lifestyle from serious challenge by the God who calls, convicts, and reconciles. It disallows knowledge of God as personal subject and Lord to whom we are morally and cognitively responsible. It allows at most for knowledge of God as an undemanding object of human knowledge.<ref name="pm_ne" />}}

Schellenberg considers this criticism irrelevant to the argument, which in his opinion, does not impose any demands for demonstrations of God's power, but rather looks for evidence that "need only be such as will be causally sufficient for belief in the absence of resistance... This result might be effected through the much more spiritually appropriate means of religious experience, interpreted in the sensitive manner of a [[Blaise Pascal|Pascal]] or a [[Kierkegaard]]."<ref name="jl2005a" /> Schellenberg then expresses a certain frustration that theistic writers who otherwise extol the value of religious experiences deny non-theists the right to do so.