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Can arguments boost warrant for Christian belief? Warrant boosting and the primacy of divine revelation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2010

KEVIN S. DILLER
KEVIN S. DILLER
Affiliation:
BSCEP, Taylor University, 236 West Reade Avenue, Upland, IN 46989 e-mail: kevin_diller@taylor.edu
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Abstract

It is well known that in Reformed circles there is significant doubt about the extent of the role natural theology might play in warranting Christian belief. I argue that even if we accept the core theological reservations and philosophical commitments shared by the likes of Karl Barth and Reformed epistemologists, there remains room for the arguments of natural theology to serve a vital, positive function. I offer a proposal for how we might think about the co-ordination of multiple sources of warrant for Christian belief such that arguments function as catalysts to or extensions of the deliverances of faith.

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Religious Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 185 - 200
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Christian philosophers and theologians have long wrestled over what role reasoned arguments might properly play in the formation of Christian belief. While there is an enormous variety and complexity of thought on this question, my hope here is to make a suggestion that will contribute to debates about what kind of basis is required for Christian belief to count as knowledge.Footnote 1 Must Christian believers be able to provide an argument for the reasonability of their belief? Or, are the deliverances of human reason an inadequate or even an inappropriate basis for Christian belief? Karl Barth seems to have taken the latter view;Footnote 2 and, to some extent, Reformed Epistemologists seem to agree.Footnote 3 My aim here is to show that, even if one accepts Barth's fundamental theological convictions and, broadly speaking, the perspectives of Reformed epistemology, arguments and human reason still serve a vital function. This goes not only for negative arguments which defend against objections to Christian belief, but for positive arguments as well.

I begin with an attempt to clarify three claims which lie at the heart of the discussion. I then suggest, in light of these three claims, that the deployment of negative arguments is not problematic. The difficulty is with the role of positive arguments, which, along with the work of the Holy Spirit, would offer a basis in human reasoning for Christian belief. I then make a proposal for how we might think about the coordination of multiple sources of warrant for Christian belief – a proposal that those with Barthian sensibilities might countenance. This proposal suggests a way in which arguments might serve the formation of Christian belief positively, whether or not they become part of the basis for that belief.

Before proceeding further, it may be helpful to mention that the expression ‘Christian belief’ may be taken to indicate not only specific cognitive content, but also a manner of believing, as well as the level of commitment to or degree of confidence in that belief. In the ensuing discussion I will employ the expression in a narrower sense to indicate that aspect of Christian faith which involves cognitive assent to those essential Christian truth-claims specified by essential Christian faith.Footnote 4 It is not my concern here to become embroiled in the task of stipulating exactly which claims these are.Footnote 5

Christian belief and divine self-revelation

The primacy of divine revelation (PDR)

In the first volume of the Church Dogmatics Karl Barth attempts to establish what is for him a crucial theological insight – namely, that the knowledge of God is only possible as initiated by the effectual self-revealing action of God.Footnote 6 Following Barth, the first commitment we identify affirms the centrality and indispensability of divine self-revealing for genuine Christian belief. I have in mind here what many believers recognize about their own ultimate noetic dependence on the work of the Holy Spirit who plays a uniquely decisive role in the human reception of the gift of faith,Footnote 7 including the proper cognitive component of that gift – Christian belief. We might refer to this as the primacy of divine revelation (PDR), formally stated as follows:

  • PDR Primary to the formation and continuation of genuine Christian belief is the self-revealing, faith-giving action of God.

At least two clarifications will be helpful in specifying what is and is not being claimed about God's action vis-à-vis the formation of Christian belief. The first has to do with the nature of this action with respect to creaturely involvement, and the second has to do with the restriction to Christian belief that is genuinely Christian.

Are we suggesting that the action of God nullifies or trivializes human participation and creaturely mediation in the formation of belief? Certainly not. God's intention for human engagement in the formation of Christian belief is the theological commitment we will turn to next. Other intermediating phenomena are not excluded and indeed may serve as instruments of the Holy Spirit in the process of coming to and maintaining Christian belief.Footnote 8 The proposal at the end of this paper is in fact centred on a suggestion about how one might conceive of the relationship between intermediate human processes and the coordinating work of the Spirit. What PDR affirms is a fundamental dependency on the self-revealing action of God.Footnote 9

A second point of clarification has to do with the restriction of the application of PDR to Christian belief that is ‘genuine’. This qualification provides an opportunity to expand upon our previous clarification of what is meant by ‘Christian belief’. Genuine Christian belief, in the narrow sense which I am adopting here, indicates a cognitive assent which is an aspect of genuine Christian faith. Genuine Christian belief is, therefore, distinct from the kind of cognitive assent that, for instance, demons may have – a cognitive assent which would clearly not be an aspect of Christian faith.Footnote 10 How might the propositional content of genuine Christian belief differ from what the demons believe? Two differences come to mind.

Firstly, genuine Christian belief might include affirmations that demons would not embrace (e.g. of the desirability of living in submission to God).Footnote 11 Secondly, genuine Christian belief involves a genuine human acquaintance with God, which is only possible to the degree that one is properly related to God, which, in turn, is only possible by the reconciling work of God. The genuine Christian believer not only believes propositions about God but is given by God a warranted grasp of those propositions and the subject to whom they refer. For this to become a human possibility, the epistemic limitations imposed by fallenness and finitude must be overcome. The only hope of overcoming these limitations is an ultimate dependence on the antecedent action of the Holy Spirit, enabling communion with the risen and ascended Christ, by whom we are redeemed. Genuine Christian belief fundamentally originates from this comprehensively transformational, self-giving, self-revealing action of God. God's self-revelation creates its own possibility of being successfully received or warrantedly grasped.Footnote 12

The humanness of Christian belief (HCB)

Having affirmed the priority of God's action in Christian belief we now turn to an affirmation of God's intention that human noetic equipment be engaged in Christian belief. Christian belief, as the aspect of Christian faith which involves cognitive assent, is unique among human beliefs both in content and generation. It remains, nevertheless, an instance of genuine human believing – indeed an instance of genuine human knowing. Christian belief is not consigned to an insulated, supra-rational realm, nor are human cognitive faculties bypassed or overridden in the formation and sustaining of Christian belief. The reduced and distorted capacities of fallen intellects may leave many of the cognitive fruits of Christian faith unenjoyed; but, in its fullest human form, Christian faith will delight the mind as well as the heart.Footnote 13

The notion that Christian faith involves a genuine, human, cognitive grasp of particular realities (i.e. truths) finds relatively uniform agreement within the Christian tradition. For ease of discussion, we will refer to this as the humanness of Christian belief (HCB), stated as follows:

  • HCB God intends (and acts according to the intention) that Christian belief be an instance of genuine human believing, which ideally actively involves human cognitive faculties in both its formation and its continuation.

I will not spend much time defending HCB, but I will make a brief suggestion about its theological warrant and attempt to clarify both what I mean to affirm and why it is important.

HCB affirms that Christian belief is not wholly dissimilar from other more mundane human beliefs. Human faculties are involved in the formation and continuation of Christian belief. Part of that involvement includes negotiating the connections between Christian belief and the rest of what one believes. Precisely what role is played by our faculties in the formation and preservation of Christian belief? Is it possible that the designed mechanisms for this bypass our ‘normal’ human noetic equipment altogether?

There is a strand of thought in Christian theology which argues for an inborn seed of religion or an innate knowledge of God. On some construals, this is immediate and exists without any conscious development, or even triggering conditions. On any construal, however, such knowledge does not amount to full-fledged Christian belief. Christian belief not only has greater scope, but – and more to the point at hand – full-fledged Christian belief could not arise without conscious development, or triggering conditions. The Christian notion of revelation is nearly unintelligible without the category of witness. Divine self-revelation is effected by means of creaturely media which are appropriated by God for this purpose. By the enabling of God, scripture, the Church, and creation itself is made to witness to the truth.

In the gift of faith, God communicates to human beings by such means. These forms of testimony, and by extension persuasion and argumentation, become the instruments by which the Spirit speaks. Unless we adopt a thoroughly occasionalist attitude toward the receipt of this testimony, where the properties of the witness become entirely inconsequential to the conveying meaning,Footnote 14 we are forced, it seems to me, to admit the involvement of a full gamut of human noetic faculties and processes, involved as they are in hearing, interpreting, contextualizing, conceiving, systematizing, etc.Footnote 15

In affirming HCB, therefore, we are affirming that God intends Christian belief to be an authentic cognitive human believing which fully engages human noetic equipment in its initiation and its preservation. If we accept HCB, it seems difficult to deny that arguments may play a role in the formation of Christian belief. We can (and should) conclude, furthermore, that Christian belief is subject to the same general criteria for warrant that govern all instances of human knowing.Footnote 16 If we accept standard intuitions about justification and warrant,Footnote 17 this means that Christian belief does not count as knowledge if it is merely the result of epistemic luck.Footnote 18 Christian belief must have some truth grounding – that is – there must be some indispensible connection between the truth of what is believed and the precise way and conditions under which the belief is formed.Footnote 19

Moreover, Christian belief ought to cohere with the rest of what one believes (a point we will return to when we briefly consider negative apologetics, i.e. defensive arguments for Christian belief). Debate about the epistemological particulars is vigorous, but that should not deter our conclusion that if Christian belief is an instance of human knowledge, then the general criteria for warrant, justification and rationality apply to it.

The ideal basicality of Christian belief (IBB)

The final theological claim I want to endorse homes in on the relationship between Christian belief and our other beliefs. Thus far we have asserted PDR, that divine self-revealing is primary and indispensible to Christian belief. We have also asserted HCB, which opens the door to a positive role for reasoned arguments in the formation of belief. These commitments do not exclude the possibility that Christian belief might be maintained on the ultimate ground of divine revelation, but by means of an intermediary, perhaps even an argument from other beliefs or evidence. But, would this be the ideal way to hold Christian belief? In this final theological claim, I assert that while Christian belief may be supported by intermediary arguments or reasoning, and perhaps often is, this is not the ideal condition for Christian belief.

Christian belief, taken minimally as the aspect of Christian faith involving cognitive assent, is ideally maintained with maximal credence.Footnote 20 Ideal Christian belief would also have what we might call a comprehensive depth of ingression in one's noetic structure, or framework of beliefs.Footnote 21 Depth of ingression would be a measure of the significance of a belief to the rest of one's network of beliefs. Core religious and philosophical beliefs typically have a high depth of ingression, because they deeply inform many other beliefs. My contention is that ideally Christian belief would have the greatest impact on all of one's other beliefs.Footnote 22 The question then becomes: Is it possible for a belief to be held with maximal credence and have the greatest comprehensive depth of ingression in one's noetic structure and still be held on the basis of an inference from other beliefs? I see no room for this possibility.Footnote 23 Ideally Christian belief will be free from any dependency on inference, which is to say that it will be held in the basic way. We will refer to this final theological claim as the ideal basicality of belief (IBB), formally stated as follows:

  • IBB Ideal Christian belief, as that aspect of ideal Christian faith involving cognitive assent, will involve maximal credence, have a comprehensive depth of ingression in one's noetic structure and be held in the basic way.

It is worth noting that IBB does not commit us to the present possibility of the realization of either ideal Christian faith – or ideal Christian belief – prior to the eschaton. What IBB suggests, however, is that growth in Christian faith should result in Christian belief having a reduced dependency on the support of arguments. IBB, taken together with PDR and HCB, provides adequate motivation for thinking about ways in which arguments might play a positive role in the formation of Christian belief without being required as the basis for that belief. Before we turn to the details of how this might go for positive arguments, let us first consider the situation with negative arguments.

Negative arguments and the no-defeater condition

Negative apologetics endeavours to respond to objections to Christian belief. On a defeasibility theory of knowledge, we could say that negative arguments for Christian belief aim to defeat defeaters for Christian belief. In this brief section I will first endorse a modest no-defeater condition for all human knowledge, including Christian belief that would count as knowledge. I will then argue that even where negative arguments for Christian belief play a vital role in defending Christian belief, we should not think that they, qua negative arguments, provide material support or serve as a source of warrant for Christian belief. We turn first to a few comments on defeaters.

The so-called no-defeater condition Footnote 24 is concerned with the rationality of a belief which is in conflict with other beliefs.Footnote 25 Our structure of beliefs ought to be internally consistent and in some sense unified. We recognize that there is something wrong if we believe propositions p and q, and also believe that if q then not-p. Defeaters are things like propositions, attitudes towards propositions or experiences, which prevent beliefs (those which they defeat) from counting as rational. Michael Bergmann distinguishes between propositional defeaters and mental-state defeaters.Footnote 26 Propositional defeaters are true propositions which effect defeat quite independently of whether or not any given subject has even so much as considered the propositional defeater. Mental-state defeaters, on the other hand, are the kinds of things (attitudes towards propositions and experiences) which subjects can acquire. Our concern here is with mental state-defeaters. In typical cases, a mental-state defeater will be a belief that is rationally in tension with another belief, which it either fully or partially defeats, requiring the suspension or attenuation of the defeated belief.Footnote 27

For a belief to be rational and fully fledged, it cannot be held in conjunction with another belief that undermines, refutes or overwhelms it – a defeater belief. Acquiring a defeater may involve relinquishing a previously held belief. It is possible, however, to restore the rationality of a formerly defeated belief in cases where the defeater belief is relinquished. A defeater belief may itself be defeated by a defeater-defeater belief, requiring its withdrawal. A defeater-defeater belief is yet another belief which undermines, refutes or overwhelms the defeater belief. Acquiring a defeater-defeater may result in the rational reacquisition of the originally defeated belief.Footnote 28 We can state this formally as: given any person S, for S's belief x to count as knowledge,Footnote 29 it is necessary (though not sufficient) that S does not have an undefeated defeater belief n for x.

Does this mean that a Christian believer must have a response to or see a problem with every argument against Christian belief that they encounter? No. Arguments against Christian belief do not become actual mental-state defeaters until they undermine, refute, or overwhelm Christian belief. An actual defeater belief for a belief x must be a belief n which is believed strongly enough to challenge the strength of x, thus resulting for the rational person in a reduction in the strength of x or an abandoning of x altogether. If, however, n is not believed strongly enough relative to the strength of x, then the rational course of action may result in a reduction in the strength of n or an abandoning of n altogether. In the later case, x could be referred to as an intrinsic defeater-deflector Footnote 30 because x has the strength by itself to ward off defeat without requiring some other means of addressing the would-be defeater. If one is presented with an argument that appears to move validly from apparently acceptable premises but the conclusion is a potential defeater for a more strongly held belief, then it may be rational to doubt the potential defeater and assume that there is an undetected problem in the premises or validity of the argument commending it.Footnote 31 For this reason, a person possessing Christian belief may be rational and warranted in maintaining their Christian belief, even in cases where they encounter an argument with which they can detect no flaw, the conclusion of which, if accepted, would undermine, refute or overwhelm Christian belief.

In reality, however, Christian belief, having not yet reached ideal maturity, may not be sufficient in itself to deflect all objections to it. Given our interest in the relationship between Christian belief and reasoned arguments, we face the question: Does an affirmation of this no-defeater condition, and the consequent possibility that in some cases defending against defeaters by means of negative arguments may be required for Christian belief to be warranted, mean that negative arguments lend material support to, or act as a source of warrant for, Christian belief?Footnote 32 Is it the case that every instance of defeater defeat or deflection adds something to the basis for x? Does every defensive argument provide an additional connection between x and the truth of the content of x?

The answer, it seems to me, is that only a particular kind of defensive argument could become part of the basis for x and that other kinds could not. The intrinsic defeater-deflector, for instance, is simply x and offers nothing new that could become an addition to the basis for x. An undercutting or rebutting defeater-defeater/deflector that merely undermines a defeater or potential defeater may add nothing to the material basis for x itself.Footnote 33 The defensive arguments which clearly do add to the basis for x are those which effect their defeater-defeat/deflection by adding to the basis for x, thereby bolstering the strength of x to overwhelm the defeater or potential defeater.

This is an important insight for our primary interest in the role of arguments in the formation of Christian belief. Negative apologetical arguments aimed at defeating or deflecting objections to Christian belief which are strictly of the rebutting or undercutting type may not add anything to the basis for Christian belief. Those defeater-defeaters/deflectors which are intended to become part of the basis for Christian belief are in fact positive apologetical arguments that have been conscripted into the negative apologetical task. Sometimes the best defence is a good offence.

Two warrant-boosting roles for positive arguments

We are now ready to move to the main proposal. I will begin by considering a suggestion from Alvin Plantinga, no small champion of the proper basicality of Christian belief,Footnote 34 who is also interested in affirming the value of arguments for belief.Footnote 35 Launching from Plantinga's suggestion we will look at two belief scenarios and briefly develop the proposal. The key question here is: Do successful arguments always enhance the positive epistemic status of a belief by becoming a positive source of warrant for that belief?

Alvin Plantinga's warrant-boosting suggestion

On Alvin Plantinga's model for the formation of warranted Christian belief, warrant is generated by a divinely designed and intended doxastic experience whereby the truth of Christian propositions becomes apparent without inference from other propositions. In this situation there is an analogy to perception.Footnote 36 The warrant for the belief is conferred by a process wherein the believer is enabled to apprehend the truth of the belief. Because this kind of belief is more directFootnote 37 than one that is mediated by inference, it is arguably a firmer and more satisfactory way to believe, in the same way that seeing for oneself is superior to depending on external testimony.Footnote 38

It would appear that Plantinga would agree with our IBB that believing in the basic way is superior. He does not, however, deny that some basic beliefs could receive additional warrant by means of an argument from inference.Footnote 39 Plantinga appeals to Calvin's notion that arguments might serve as secondary confirmations or aids.Footnote 40 He also makes the interesting suggestion that historical evidence for the resurrection could boost the warrant one already has directly from the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit (IIHS). In a response to Stephen Wykstra, Plantinga writes, ‘So suppose I'm a beneficiary of the IIHS, but the warrant enjoyed by my belief in the resurrection doesn't come up to the standard for knowledge: learning of the historical evidence could bring it up to that standard.’Footnote 41

What are we to make of Plantinga's suggestion that rational (including historical evidential) arguments for Christian belief might have a warrant-boosting role? How might we best conceive of the coordination of multiple sources of warrant combined to produce warrant sufficient for knowledge? It seems to me that there are at least two ways that warrant for a single belief could come from multiple, combined sources.Footnote 42 To make the distinction between these two ways more evident, we will begin with a fairly ordinary kind of belief scenario.

Combined warrant belief scenarios and proposal

The mail carrier At around ten in the morning as my wife is deeply engrossed in the translation of some French manuscript, she is distracted by a sudden though indistinct sound. She walks to the front window where she catches a glimpse of a person in the shadows, just exiting through the gate. She does not know what to conclude from this until she realizes the time and remembers that at about this time each day, and with consistent regularity, the mail carrier delivers the post through the slot in our front door. She immediately forms the warranted conclusion that she has seen the mail carrier and heard the sound of the mail coming through the door.

There are at least two ways to understand the nature of the combination of warrant in this scenario. One possibility (for ease of reference – CW1) is that warrant for the belief actually derives by an inference made on the basis of beliefs that issue from multiple independent faculties. Sense perception weakly captures a sound and a figure, and issues the belief, along with the attending obscure phenomenology, that a sound was heard and a figure seen. A belief about the time of day is formed perhaps purely on the basis of circadian rhythm. And, a belief about the regularity and punctuality of the mail carrier issues from memory. At this point, reason takes on a coordinating role forming the belief on the basis of inference from other beliefs that the mail carrier was seen and heard. As with any case of inference, the warrant for the inference in CW1 will only be as strong as the warrant for the beliefs it is inferred from. In CW1 there is a real combination of sources. If any of the sources mentioned is removed, warrant for the conclusion would be diminished.

There is, however, a second possibility for how things might go – CW2. CW2 proceeds exactly as CW1 except that something interesting happens with respect to the faculty of sense perception. The faculty of sense perception does not always complete its task immediately. As my wife is processing the other sources of warrant for her conclusion the phenomenal experiences of the faculty of sense perception are still fresh in mind. In CW2 the suggestion of the inference assists either external rationality in its formation of the phenomenal experience, or internal rationality in its forming of the appropriate belief in response to that phenomenology. In other words, the inference serves as a catalyst for the proper functioning of the faculty of sense experience.

My wife now more clearly perceives the sound that initially broke into her state of concentration and the figure she saw exiting our gate. The belief she holds about having heard and seen the mail carrier is no longer based on a deduction, but, more securely, on a perception. The warrant for the belief now swings free from the other sources and the inference. It is even possible that she might discover she was incorrect about the time, or forgot that the post is wildly unpredictable in our town. But, if it were indeed the mail carrier she encountered, she may now be warranted in her belief, held in the basic way on the basis of sense perception alone,Footnote 43 even if the same belief earlier held on the basis of the catalyzing inference was, in fact, unwarranted.Footnote 44

Returning to the possibility of a positive role for reasoned arguments in the formation of Christian belief, we can now ask whether there is a construal of multiple sources of warrant along the lines of either CW1 or CW2 that would move us in the direction of IBB. It seems to me that this is exactly what we have if the relationship between inference and basic belief is as it is in CW2. Consider another scenario, this time one of Christian belief:

Christian belief (IIHS+human testimony): Joe Bloggs does not believe the gospel, but he does notice that he has some inclinations to believe. Unbeknownst to Joe, the Holy Spirit is active in his life, offering him transforming faith. Unfortunately, because of internal and environmental resistance, the deliverances of faith are not yet strong enough in Joe to warrant belief. He does, however, have a few new friends who are strong believers and insist to Joe that Jesus is real and explain to him the gospel. On the basis of the testimony of his friends in combination with the otherwise insufficient deliverances of faith, Joe finds himself believing and warrantedly so.

The sources of warrant are different in this scenario than they were in the previous scenario, though inference may still play a role. Belief on the basis of testimony may involve an inference from a basic belief in the credibility of Joe's friends and the earnestness of their conviction.Footnote 45 There is, in any case, a CW2-like way to think about the relationship of the identified contributors to warrant. Warrant by way of human testimony could be seen to be acting as a catalyst for belief that will properly rest on divine testimony alone. If things go in the CW2 way, Joe's belief will grow independent of the testimony and credibility of his friends. The testimony of friends serves the cognitive process of divine illumination whereby one is given a knowledge of God by God – in accordance with proper function. Human testimony cooperates with the testimony of the Holy Spirit not as an independent source of warrant, but as one condition under which faith by the Spirit is realized.

This scenario is particularly helpful for thinking about the general problem of the role of arguments in the formation of Christian belief. Firstly, the scenario seems to capture the experience that many believers have when coming to belief. Many believers experience a transition from the partial support of the testimony of friends or parents to believing in the basic way. Secondly, the fact that this is so does not violate any of the theological commitments or epistemological intuitions we have advanced. This scenario of belief, even though it begins with a belief based partially on inference (or a natural capacity to believe testimony), moves in the direction of belief as specified by IBB. This is especially the case if we understand God to be directly involved with Joe's believing the testimony of his friends or perceiving their credibility. Thirdly, we can quite easily alter the scenario by replacing the testimony of friends with a reasoned argument. If it is true that warrant from the IIHS and human testimony could combine in the CW2 way, then it should also be possible for warrant from the IIHS and an argument to combine in this way.

The proposal, therefore, is that arguments can be understood to function as warrant catalysts within the orchestration of the sovereign action of God, without themselves directly contributing to the source of warrant for Christian belief. Allowing this positive function to arguments maintains our affirmation of the humanness of Christian belief (HCB) – that Christian belief is an instance of genuine human believing, engaging human faculties and subject to general criteria for knowledge. There is, however, no sense of an independent rational capacity to bring oneself to belief, which would compromise the primacy of divine revelation (PDR); neither is there a need to affirm even a rational capacity to contribute to the warrant for full fledged faith. Moving in the direction of the ideal basicality of belief (IBB), we can see that – taken in the CW2 way – what is compelling about a proclamation or what seems reasonable about an argument does not become a permanent fixture of the warrant for belief. Argumentation, like proclamation, serves (non-arbitrarily)Footnote 46 as a catalyst by the power of God to clarify the deliverances of faith according to proper function. Read in the CW2 way, we can see that there is room for a positive warrant-boosting role for arguments which does not require that those arguments become part of the warrant-contributing basis for Christian belief.

What is more, we can make this proposal without repudiating the legitimacy of a CW1 construal of the role of argumentation. We can take a CW2 construal of warrant source collaboration, where mature belief will derive from the deliverances of faith alone, but allow the possibility of a CW1 construal, where knowledge is enabled partially on the basis of the supplementary warrant provided by an argument. If we follow Plantinga, the work of the Spirit and the deliverances of faith have a critical enabling impact on other sources of warrant. The IIHS is conceived of as part of a process that addresses the noetic effects of sin to restore proper function in other faculties and create renewed conducive cognitive environments (i.e. communities of faith). The deliverances of faith, moreover, begin to transform one's interpretive grid in ways that may be enormously influential to those processes involved in the formation of the right beliefs on the basis of the deliverances of the other faculties.

Assessing the probabilities associated with historical evidenceFootnote 47 or the strength of the premises of an argument depends to a great degree on the relative priorities of one's existing nexus of belief. It is, therefore, possible to maintain that, even on the CW1 construal of collaborative warrant, those sources of warrant that supplement the deliverances of faith, to the extent that they are contributing to the warrant for Christian belief, do so by the influence of the transformational work of the Holy Spirit. In this case, alternative sources of warrant are not understood strictly as catalysts for belief by the deliverances of faith, but rather as extensions of the deliverances of faith. In this light, even arguments that support faith can be seen as operating not by mere human strength, but by the deliberate action of God. God creates and sustains his own possibility of being known, making use of arguments from reason as the harmonic cognitive reverberations of faith, creating a crescendo of warrant sufficient for knowledge.

Conclusion

I have argued that there are good ways of thinking about the function of rational theological arguments that maintain key intuitions and commitments held by Christian theologians and philosophers on all sides of the debates. If we understand arguments for Christian belief to function as catalysts to or extensions of the deliverances of faith, we in no way violate the primacy of divine revelation as the basis for belief, nor do we accept the possibility of independent human sources of the knowledge of God outside of the deliberative action of God's self-revelation in Christ by the Spirit. At the same time, this proposal unflinchingly acknowledges the value and importance not only of negative apologetics, but also of positive arguments for Christian belief.Footnote 48

References

Notes

1. The argument of this paper may also be seen as a response to Sudduth, Michael ‘Reformed epistemology and Christian apologetics’, Religious Studies, 39 (2003), 299–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. The legendary exchange between Barth and Brunner is paradigmatic; Karl Barth Nein! Antwort an Emil Brunner (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1934).

3. See Alvin Plantinga Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), [hereafter WCB], 67–107, 167–198; William Alston Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); and, Wolterstorff, Nicholas ‘Can belief in God be rational if it has no foundations?’, in Alvin Plantinga & Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds) Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 135–186Google Scholar.

4. This does not imply that Christian faith is reducible to belief, nor am I suggesting that a minimum threshold of cognitive function is required for Christian faith to take root in a person. I employ the term ‘Christian faith’ very specifically to indicate the gift of our human reception of the knowledge of God which comes as relationship with God is established by God. Faith in this context is not a synonym for ‘trust’ or ‘psychological conviction’.

5. Though we can say that an explicit commitment to a doctrine of the Trinity, for example, would not be a claim specified by essential Christian faith, since essential Christian faith was possible prior to explicit expression of such a doctrine.

6. Barth argued, furthermore, that recognizing human dependency on divine self-revealing for the formation of Christian belief is itself an affirmation that arises retrospectively out of properly formed Christian belief. In Barth's view, there are no first principles one must establish or grasp. God has taken the initiating action, such that ‘already on the way, we give an account of the way which we tread’; Geoffrey Bromiley & T. F. Torrance (eds) Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), I, 1, 43.

7. Christian theology confesses that this is the gift of the triune God – by the Spirit, ministering God the Son, who through the Incarnation reveals God the Father. See Ephesians, 2.18, which informs the following statement from the 1992 Orthodox-Reformed Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity: ‘The priority of the Father does not imply that there is something more in him compared to the Son, for all that the Father is the Son is apart from “Fatherhood”, and likewise all that the Son is the Spirit is apart from “Sonship”. Thus, the order inherent in the Trinitarian relations is grounded on the fact that the Son is begotten of the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. This applies also to the unique revelation of the Father through the Incarnation of his only begotten Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father in the name of the Son’; T. F. Torrance (ed.) Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and Reformed Churches, II (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1993), 222.

8. Similarly, from Plantinga: ‘Only God bestows saving faith, of course, but his way of doing so can certainly involve cooperation with his children, as in preaching and even argumentation’; Plantinga, Alvin ‘Christian philosophy at the end of the twentieth century’, in Griffioen, Sander & Balk, Bert M. (eds) Christian Philosophy at the Close of the Twentieth Century: Assessment and Perspective (Kampen: Uitgeverij Kok, 1995), 40Google Scholar.

9. We could extend this claim to affirm, following Alan Torrance, that: ‘it is a fundamental claim of Christian orthodoxy that the conditions for the recognition and affirmation of Christian truth are intrinsic to the event of revelation’; Torrance, Alan ‘Auditus fidei: Where and how does God speak?’, in Griffiths, Paul J. & Hütter, Reinhard (eds) Reason and the Reasons of Faith (London: T & T Clark, 2005), 28.Google Scholar

10. James, 2.19 seems to indicate that even demons have some true beliefs about God.

11. This would not be the case on the view that demonic corruption is isolated to the will.

12. Knowledge of the real referent, God, is enabled not by an impersonal supernatural infusion of information, but is a function of our being brought into communion with God in Christ, the ‘one true human who is both the incarnate Logos and the eschatos Adam’. By the Spirit, humans may participate in Jesus Christ's perfect human knowing of the Father. See Torrance ‘Auditus fidei’, 50–51.

13. Some would refer to the perfected condition not as faith but as sight (see Aquinas Summa Theologica, I.12 and III.9). As I note above, I employ the term ‘Christian faith’ as the gift of our human reception of the knowledge of God. Both the knowledge and the reception are a gift that grows with the transformation that comes as communion with God increases. On this view, the perfected condition is a matter of degree. Fullness in faith is fullness in sight.

14. Just as we cannot countenance a docetic Christology with its denial of the reality and significance of Christ's material body in which the mediation of our salvation is accomplished, so also we cannot allow a trivialization of the creatureliness of those witnesses by which the mediation of revelation is accomplished.

15. On Alvin Plantinga's model, for instance, both human external and internal rationality are involved in the formation of Christian belief; WCB, 110–112, 255–257.

16. This requires no subjugation of revelation to human standards for knowledge. It is instead an expression of the conviction that God's design for human knowledge includes His design for His own self-disclosure to human beings.

17. ‘Warrant’, as Plantinga indicates, is that which distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief. Warrant is that which provides the truth-motivated connection between reality and belief, giving the belief what Chisholm calls ‘positive epistemic status’; see Plantinga, AlvinWarrant: The Current Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 43–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chisholm, Roderick M.The Foundations of Knowing (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982), 94Google Scholar.

18. Consider Duncan Pritchard's formulation of a principle of epistemic safety intended to rule out luck: ‘For all agents … if an agent knows a contingent proposition ϕ, then, in most nearby possible worlds in which she forms her belief about ϕ in the same way as she forms her belief in the actual world, that agent only believes that ϕ when ϕ is true’; Pritchard, DuncanEpistemic Luck (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 156CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Some construals of justification fall short of ensuring that belief is truth-grounded, as Gettier famously shows; Gettier, Edmund ‘Is justified true belief knowledge?’ Analysis, 23 (1963), 121–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. Ideally Christian belief would be held with maximal psychological and epistemic confidence. For more on the distinction between psychological and epistemic confidence, see Yandell, KeithThe Epistemology of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 120Google Scholar, 169.

21. See Alvin Plantinga ‘Reason and belief in God’, in Plantinga & Wolterstorff Faith and Rationality, 50.

22. Many other beliefs may be equally as basic as Christian belief, but Christian belief has a uniquely maximal impact on the conceptuality informing all other beliefs.

23. A complete defence of this point will need to wait for another time. James Beilby argues, unconvincingly I think, that ‘a belief can be based at least partially on propositional evidence and arguments, and thereby fail to be properly basic, but still have a maximal depth of ingression’: James Beilby Epistemology as Theology: An Evaluation of Alvin Plantinga's Religious Epistemology (Aldershot & Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2005), 197. It seems impossible that ulterior inferential support could enhance the strength of a belief with these maximal credentials. If this were so, then non-basic beliefs would be stronger than the basic beliefs from which they derive their strength by inference. In fact, in the process of inference, to the degree that some probability calculus is in operation, non-basic beliefs will be weaker than the beliefs supporting them. Plantinga takes this further in noting that arguments from historical evidence depend on a chain of ‘dwindling’ probabilities (WCB, 271–280). Plantinga also argues that if Christian beliefs can be properly basic, then the ‘most satisfactory way to hold them will not be as the conclusions of argument’ (WCB, 210). Plantinga seems to agree with Calvin's view that, as Plantinga puts it, ‘the Christian ought not to believe on the basis of argument; if he does, his faith is likely to be unstable and wavering’; Alvin Plantinga ‘The Reformed objection to natural theology’, in Philosophical Knowledge (Washington DC: American Catholic Philosophical Assoc., 1980), 53.

24. A great deal could be said on the subject of defeasibility which is not required for our general endorsement of a commonly held no-defeater condition. See Bergmann, Michael ‘Internalism, externalism and the no-defeater condition’, Synthèse, 110 (1997), 399–417, 407CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem ‘Defeaters and higher-level requirements’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 55 (2005), 419–436CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 420; and Sudduth ‘Reformed epistemology and Christian apologetics’, 309.

25. Plantinga locates the concern for defeaters in the domain of internal rationality (WCB, 112). Plantinga also distinguishes rationality defeat from warrant defeat. Warrant defeat involves a warrant-impeding failure of some kind in one's noetic processes, and may have nothing to do with beliefs in conflict (ibid., 359–360).

26. Bergmann ‘Defeaters and higher-level requirements’, 422.

27. A certain kind of experience might also qualify as a defeater for a particular belief, even if it fails to issue in a defeater belief. Our concern here is more narrowly with defeater beliefs. See John Pollock ‘The structure of epistemic justification’, American Philosophical Quarterly monograph series 4 (1970); and John L. Pollock & Joseph Cruz Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, 2nd edn, Studies in Epistemology and Cognitive Theory (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 195–202. See also Plantinga Warrant: The Current Debate, 216–221.

28. Of course, one always has the option of attempting to maintain two beliefs in conflict by introducing a third belief – that the conflict between the first two beliefs must only be apparent and not real. Maintaining this belief, however, is only possible if one does not acquire a defeater for that belief (e.g. the belief that the conflict is indeed real).

29. We state the no-defeater condition formally as a condition for knowledge, not merely rationality, on the assumption that rationality is a necessary condition for knowledge.

30. Plantinga, Alvin ‘The foundations of theism: a reply’, Faith and Philosophy, 3 (1986), 298–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 311–312. Philip Quinn, to whom Plantinga is replying, accepts the possibility of intrinsic defeater-defeaters, but doubts that typical believers have enough warrant for their theistic beliefs to operate as intrinsic defeater-defeaters for all the potential defeaters typically encountered; see Quinn, Philip ‘The foundations of theism again: a rejoinder to Plantinga’, in Zagzebski, Linda (ed.) Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 39Google Scholar. Similarly, see Sudduth, Michael ‘The internalist character and evidentialist implications of Plantingian defeaters’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 45 (1999), 167–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 181–182. For cases where a defeater is never actually acquired, only repelled, Plantinga has introduced the term defeater-deflector as a more felicitous descriptor; Plantinga, Alvin ‘Reply to Beilby's cohorts’, in Beilby, James (ed.) Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 224Google Scholar.

31. In G. E. Moore's response to Hume on scepticism about the existence of material objects, the move Moore makes has become known as Moore's shift. Rather than taking on the validity of the argument or the truth of the premises, one may simply have a more firmly held belief that the conclusion is not true. In this case then the refutation of the objection is just to restate the objection as a reductio ad absurdum. See G. E. Moore's lecture delivered in 1911 at Morley College in London, ‘Hume's theory examined’, in idem Some Main Problems of Philosophy (New York NY: Humanities Press, 1953), 108–126. Or, as Plantinga suggests, if your belief that God exists is firmer than your belief in the premises of an argument against that belief, ‘you would go modus tollens and take it that you had an argument against the premises’; from an unpublished letter to Clark, Kelly J., printed in his ‘Plantinga vs. Oliphint: and the winner is …’, Calvin Theological Journal, 33 (1998), 160–169, 164nGoogle Scholar.

32. James Beilby seems to assume that any defeater-defeater constitutes additional ‘propositional evidence’ which then becomes part of the basis for continuing in the original belief; Beilby Epistemology as Theology, 197.

33. There is of course the possibility that an undercutting or rebutting defeater-defeater belief might both defeat a defeater and contribute to the warrant for x. One example might be an argument in the form of disjunctive syllogism, where the defeater-defeater ‘not-n’ serves as a premise along with ‘x or n’ in an argument concluding ‘therefore, x’. This does not, however, change the point that defeater-defeater beliefs need make no positive contribution to warrant in order to restore the warranted status of x.

34. ‘[F]for the beliefs of faith: you don‘t have either sensuous imagery or evidence from other things you believe to go on; the beliefs are none the worse, epistemically speaking, for that. In fact (on the model) they are all the better for that; they have (or can have) much more firmness and stability than they could sensibly have if accepted on the basis of rational argument or, as in this case, historical investigation; they can also have much more warrant. These beliefs (on the model) are not accepted on the basis of other beliefs; in fact, other beliefs are accepted on the basis of them’ (WCB, 264).

35. Despite this, one commonly recurring critique of Plantinga's work is that he unduly minimizes the importance of argument and evidence for Christian belief. Three collections of essays are worth highlighting, not least because they each contain helpful responses from Plantinga himself. The first collection addresses Plantinga's general theory of warrant, pre-dating WCB: Jonathan L. Kvanvig (ed.) Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). The other two collections provide interaction with Plantinga's proposals in WCB: ‘Book symposium on Warranted Christian Belief’, Philosophia Christi, 3 (2001), 327–400Google Scholar; and, ‘Book symposium: Warranted Christian Belief,’ Philosophical Books, 43 (2002), 81–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Unlike perception in its phenomenal imagery, but analogically related to perception in being a direct apprehension (WCB, 181, 286–289).

37. Ibid., 259, 262.

38. This position is strengthened further by Plantinga's treatment of the affective aspect of the gift of faith. Here it is not merely the truth of the proposition that is made evident, but also its loveliness, beauty, and desirability. This affective component is also more satisfactorily arrived at in the immediate, basic way, rather than on the basis of an argument. See ibid., 304–306.

39. As Sudduth notes, even Reformed epistemology with its aversion to natural theology has a high regard for the contribution of good arguments to the Christian apologetical task; Sudduth ‘Reformed epistemology and Christian apologetics’, 299–321.

40. Plantinga ‘Christian philosophy at the end of the twentieth century’, 39–40; idem ‘Internalism, externalism, defeaters and arguments for Christian belief,’ 385; and, idem ‘Reply’, Philosophical Books, 43 (2002), 127Google Scholar, n. 4. In Plantinga's view, however, while such arguments could play a supporting and secondary role, they would in no way be sufficient on their own to deliver the kind of warrant necessary for knowledge and ‘paradigmatic’ Christian belief. An argument from public evidence might show that Christian belief is somewhat more probable than not, but this ‘is insufficient for its being warrantedly believed with any degree of firmness’; Plantinga, Alvin ‘Rationality and public evidence: a reply to Richard Swinburne’, Religious Studies, 37 (2001), 215–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 220; see also WCB, 271, 274, 280, 379. Plantinga's argument is that Christian belief can be properly held on grounds that are in fact firmer than the insufficient, though not insignificant, warrant delivered by propositional or historical evidence.

41. Plantinga ‘Reply’, 128. Plantinga also suggests that if one already, by means of the IIHS, has warrant sufficient for knowledge, upon learning about the historical evidence for the resurrection, it is possible to ‘gain an excess of warrant’ for Christian belief; ibid., 127.

42. It should be clear that the analysis to follow is not a theological argument; instead, I will be adopting an inductive approach from instances of ordinary belief in support of a constructive proposal.

43. Note that I take the faculty of sense perception to be more than the presentation of strictly empirical data. Sense perception also includes the learned apprehension of the forms of that data.

44. Perhaps a Gettier-type objection could be raised to the CW2 construal, if it is possible, as I have suggested, that a mistaken assumption could motivate a fortuitous result. This would only be an effective objection, however, if the belief in question continued to depend on the mistaken assumption to deliver warrant sufficient for knowledge. On the CW2 account above, however, warrant eventually swings free of the mistake and depends on the faculty of perception alone.

45. If we follow Thomas Reid's thought on testimony and credulity, believing testimony involves no inference. Credibility is assumed, though it can be defeated by discrediting the witness. Credulity is an innate gift and a natural faculty – ‘a disposition to confide in the veracity of others and to believe what they tell us’; Dugald Stewart & G. N. Wright (eds) Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind: An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (London: T. Tegg, 1843), 567.

46. Why would it matter on this view that the argument involved is a good argument – especially if the argument need not finally contribute to the warrant for belief? We need to make the same qualification here that we made earlier about testimony. This is not an occasionalist view. The usefulness of an argument as a catalyst in the service of the Spirit's work is not arbitrary; it depends on the strength of the argument. This is not to say that God cannot use weak arguments to lead someone to the truth, but the positive participation of a weak argument in that work would be proportionally diminished.

47. While Plantinga is open to historical evidence supplementing warrant from the IIHS to boost the warrant for belief in the resurrection of Jesus, he is clear that properly judging the probabilities involved is not possible on the basis of the data alone. See WCB, 271–280, and, ‘Ad Wykstra’, in ‘Reply’, 124–128. Keith Mascord incorrectly suggests that Plantinga allows no role whatsoever for arguments from historical evidence in support of Christian belief; Mascord, KeithAlvin Plantinga and Christian Apologetics (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006), 168ff, 207–209Google Scholar.

48. I deeply appreciate comments received on an earlier draft, particularly from Robert Audi, John Hare, Joseph Jedwab, Nathan King, Matthew Lee, Mark Murphy, Alvin Plantinga, Michael Rea, Alan Rhoda, and Scott Williams.