ABSTRACT
Talk of God tends to be elusive. A helpful option uses the term “God” as a perfectionist title connoting worthiness of worship. Such a title can have good semantic sense but fail to refer to an actual object. So, even atheists can use it with a good conscience. We shall see that this title, owing to its moral perfectionist implications, involves a notion of offered friendship, and that this notion is morally robust in demanding a rigorous kind of moral self-reflection and decision. The relevant friendship is intended to be redemptive for persons in supplying divine–human interpersonal reconciliation, and thus it differs from what many people understand to be friendship. We shall identify how this consideration bears on salient evidence of God’s reality and thus on divine self-hiding and self-revealing in connection with redemptive friendship.
