God and Other Spirits: Intimations of Transcendence in Christian Experience

Many people believe in angels and evil spirits, and popular culture abounds in talk about encounters with such entities. Yet the question of the existence of such spirits is ignored in the academy. Even the Christian Church, which one might expect to show keen interest in transcendent realities, does not appear to be paying much attention. In this book Phillip Wiebe defends the plausibility of the traditional Christian claim that spirits are real. Wiebe examines descriptions of encounters with both good and evil transcendent beings in biblical times and in later Christian history, along with recent accounts of similar experiences. He argues that invisible beings can be postulated to explain events just as unobservable objects are postulated in many scientific theories. Beyond supporting claims for the existence of lesser spirits such as demons and angels, this empirical approach yields important results for assessing common arguments surrounding the existence of God - a question that has become artificially separated from the question of spirits as such. Grounding his argument in a wide range of phenomena - from near death experiences to demonic possession - Wiebe offers a sophisticated case for belief in God on philosophical and epistemological grounds.

Review :
"Those who believe in spirits will be pleased with this book. Those who are convinced of their non-existence will not be persuaded by this bool. Most importantly, however, those who are open-minded about the possibility that there are such encounters will be given much to think about, and that alone makes it a worthwhile book, in my opinion."--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "It is appropriate that shortly after the centennial celebration of William Jamess classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, a book worthy to be called a sequel has been produced. In God and Other Spirits, Wiebe demonstrates that it is in the careful phenomenological study of seemingly anomalous experiences that researches will find the necessary empirical data to assess the ontological claims of religions. In a philosophical tour de force of alternative views, Wiebe defends an abductive methodology as the most appropriate method for the study of human spiritual experiences. This methodology allows believers and non-believers alike to transcend the limits of naturalistic explanation if only they will be open to the empirical data and to seeking the most adequate explanation for experiences that no longer can be dismissed out of hand nor explained away."--Ralph W. Hood, Jr., Past President, Division of Psychology of Religion, American Psychological Association "Phillip H. Wiebe's God and Other Spirits is a model of scholarly excellence and a groundbreaking work in the philosophy of religion. Its unique, masterful, cutting-edge methodology combines aspects of classical philosophical sense realism, ordinary sense experience, and contemporary standards of scientific and critical reasonableness to establish beyond reasonable doubt the plausibility of the existence of metaphysical entities. It should become the benchmark for doing philosophy of religion well into the future."--Peter A. Redpath, Professor of Philosophy, St. John's University