Deane-Peter Baker's Tayloring Reformed Epistemology is a product of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. The guiding principle is that theology and philosophy need one another to be adequately understood, and Baker's book reflects this as he treats Reformed epistemology and the moral phenomenology of Charles Taylor. Baker, in blending Plantinga and Taylor, tries in this book to bring analytic and continental thinking together.

His goal is to ‘demonstrate the feasibility of combining the Reformed epistemologist's position with an argument for theism that [he draws] from Charles Taylor's work, and to show the value that would be added to the Reformed epistemologist's position by such a combination’ (p. 2). If successful, this conjoined position will answer a robust version of the de jure objection to Christian faith (crudely, why unbelievers should regard Christian belief as not only rational and warranted (if true) but why they should give serious consideration to its claims). It is not intended to constitute a full defence or positive apologetic.

In part 1 of his book, Baker gives an excellent summary of the history of Reformed epistemology. He considers the work of Wolterstorff and Alston before concluding that Plantinga's version of Reformed epistemology is the strongest. The central theme of Reformed epistemology is that ‘belief in God is (at least in some cases) properly basic’ (p. 1). Plantinga develops a concept he calls warrant, which is essentially an ‘externalist’ refinement of justification. It relies on the notion of proper function, which implies a design plan (and a designer), specifically one where cognitive equipment is aimed at the production of true beliefs. In Plantinga's epistemological model, the sensus divinitatis ‘in certain circumstances, causes us to form beliefs about God’ (pp. 10–11). These beliefs are basic in the same way as other basic beliefs (beliefs coming from perception, memory beliefs, etc.). The sensus divinitatis can malfunction on account of sin, but this can be overcome by the work of the Holy Spirit.

With Plantinga's model, Christian belief is only warranted if it is in fact true – it is this limitation which Baker intends to address with the addition of Charles Taylor. If Reformed epistemology's account of Christian belief is to have credibility from those who are not already convinced of Christian theism, something more is needed. In part 2, Baker gives an admittedly contested interpretation of Taylor (p. 12), but his goal is to extract a worthwhile argument, not necessarily to defend an interpretation of Taylor's work as accurate. Baker extracts a moral phenomenology, arguing that ‘human experience has an inescapably moral dimension’ (p. 199). This feature of our phenomenology comes in a structure or framework which is controlled by what Taylor calls ‘hypergoods’ – goods which are superior in significance and which define the framework. Christian theism provides the best account of this moral phenomenology (as the sensus divinitatis), argues Baker, and when this argument is wed with Plantinga's account of the nature of Christian belief, the result is that the truth claims of the Christian faith are worthy of consideration by believers and unbelievers alike.

This book is remarkably concise for how much it covers; its argument is as engaging as it is carefully crafted. Despite Baker's excellent summary, those not versed in the relevant works of Plantinga might be playing a bit of catch-up, and this reviewer wonders if accompanying the addition of Taylor's argument to Plantinga's system with further arguments for Christian theism might result in an overall case that is even stronger (albeit one which decidedly breaches the boundaries of de jure questions). His ‘best explanation’ move with moral phenomenology, as buttressed by Plantinga, seems to usher readers into forming questions about worldviews and truth claims – he seems to have provided reason for unbelievers to seriously consider the de facto question of Christian theism.