Not What You Think: The Question about “God”

Comment published in response to William Irwin, “God is a Question, not the Answer,” The Stone, New York Times, March 26, 2016,
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/god-is-a-question-not-an-answer/?comments

Irwin makes the mistake most people make: treating the question of God as epistemic rather than hermeneutic. "God" is the name of what in the Bible is a peculiar kind of person; in the tradition of philosophical theology, this name is a concept of a being, who may or may not be a person, with certain qualities. The first question about "God" must be what kind of being he or it is (and what does it mean for him to exist), and the answer to this question will determine whether or not he does exist. The question of existence may be treated as an a priori one (in which case a clear understanding of what we mean will in itself show that "God" necessarily exists or does not) or a posteriori (empirical), in which case we look for the evidence Russell rightly found insufficient. We can call this the God of empiricism, and the problem with this God is he/it can interest no one. And since the Judaic God by definition is transcendent and unpresentable, never appearing in the world, arguably the empiricist formulation of the question leads inevitably to atheism. Religious piety has never turned on the idea that one has discovered and now affirms that God exists; the question for the pious is only "What is my relationship to God?" or his to us, and what is commanded, and what is revealed. I think a consistent thinking about the relevant questions will reveal "God"-talk to be a useful idiom. There are obligations, and there is creation, revelation, and redemption. The author?