>>513151445
>epistomoglcial question
>what is god
>how can we know god
>how can we know god exists
>what does god entail specifically and not in a general vague philosophical sense
>anwsrs may not include 1: utilitarian arguments for optimal mods of thought in a given era, 2: anything based on pure 'notion' or self adherence on an idea that is perpetuated by the governing principle of self adherence , 3: authority in a transmitted text or tradition that ultimately relies on 1 and 2

A direct epistemic definition that doesn’t depend on revelation or feeling could go like this: God is posited as a necessary, non-contingent, causally foundational reality whose existence explains why contingent realities exist rather than nothing.
This is not “god of the gaps” it’s the claim that contingent things cannot, by definition, be the reason for their own existence, so there must be something non-contingent.

Spinoza defined God as the infinite, necessarily existing substance with infinite attributes basically the whole of reality. This looks like it satisfies the rules: no utilitarian payoff, no “I just feel it,” no sacred text dependency. Problem: You can’t get specific commands out of “God = reality.
Aquinus: when Aquinas starts deriving God’s commands or moral law, he leans heavily on (a) a teleology of human nature
Socrates / Plato: Once you say “the Good” determines divine will, you need an epistemology for “the Good” which ends up being rational utilitarianism ( banned #1).
Enlightenment Deism: ethically inert
Kant: God is needed for moral coherence or for justice to be achievable an instrumental role ( banned #1).

Once we remove the “easy” justification routes, the question of God turns into a meta-epistemological problem: Before we can decide if an interaction with God has happened, we have to decide what counts as valid evidence at all, and that itself depends on how much we trust our senses and reasoning.