"The Liturgical Knowledge of God" (Nicholas Wolterstorff)

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philsophical Theology at Yale University AAR & SBL Annual Meetings in Atlanta, GA November 22, 2015 Abstract: In this lecture I take for granted that knowing propositions about someone is not to be identified with knowing that person. My topic is knowing God, not knowing propositions about God. Philosophers, in general, have focused on two ways of coming to know God: by having an experience of some sort of God, and by reading or being told narratives about God's actions. In this talk I develop the idea that one can also come to know God by participating in liturgical enactments. Liturgical enactments are a certain mode of acknowledging God. An obvious question is: doesn't one have to know God already if one is to engage in the liturgical activity of acknowledging God? I argue that the answer to this is No.