This is a bit late, but there are two things that don't seem to be addressed by the argument in the book (as you summarize it) and haven't come up in the comments as far as I can see.
First, I'm uncomfortable with requiring logical consistency in definitions on this topic, because I'm personally familiar with two independent lines of theological reasoning (Taoism and Jewish kabbalism) that claim that as finite beings, any definition we can put forward for "god" is necessarily incomplete and inconsistent. How much does the book's argument depend on the notion that we need to be able to define this term in a logically consistent manner, and why does he take this position in the first place?
Second, and this might not be addressed in the book at all, but I would like to raise the issue of direct subjective experience of the supernatural (not necessarily of "god"). A lot of modern philosophical debate of atheism .vs. theism (from both sides, AFAICT) takes it as an axiom that this just doesn't happen, but I think if you asked a random sample of "ordinary" believers you would get a substantial number of them saying yes, I have personally experienced something for which my only available explanation is supernatural. [This is not to say that there might not be a wholly natural explanation available to e.g. someone with more knowledge of the workings of the brain; only that a supernatural explanation is the only one the questionee's got.]
I raise this because it seems to me that as long as argument from the atheistic side dismisses all such experience in terms like "well, of course there is a natural explanation, you're just not edumacated enough to know it, and we're not going to consider it any further" they're not going to get anywhere. In fact, I would imagine that that would be a hurl-book-with-great-force moment for anyone who's had such an experience.
no subject
First, I'm uncomfortable with requiring logical consistency in definitions on this topic, because I'm personally familiar with two independent lines of theological reasoning (Taoism and Jewish kabbalism) that claim that as finite beings, any definition we can put forward for "god" is necessarily incomplete and inconsistent. How much does the book's argument depend on the notion that we need to be able to define this term in a logically consistent manner, and why does he take this position in the first place?
Second, and this might not be addressed in the book at all, but I would like to raise the issue of direct subjective experience of the supernatural (not necessarily of "god"). A lot of modern philosophical debate of atheism .vs. theism (from both sides, AFAICT) takes it as an axiom that this just doesn't happen, but I think if you asked a random sample of "ordinary" believers you would get a substantial number of them saying yes, I have personally experienced something for which my only available explanation is supernatural. [This is not to say that there might not be a wholly natural explanation available to e.g. someone with more knowledge of the workings of the brain; only that a supernatural explanation is the only one the questionee's got.]
I raise this because it seems to me that as long as argument from the atheistic side dismisses all such experience in terms like "well, of course there is a natural explanation, you're just not edumacated enough to know it, and we're not going to consider it any further" they're not going to get anywhere. In fact, I would imagine that that would be a hurl-book-with-great-force moment for anyone who's had such an experience.