Neo-Calvinism: early failures and post-Reflections

This post can be similarly titled, "For and Against Van Til." I've decided not to write this in a strictly logical order. Rather, it will be written in Nietzschean style [bracketed paragraph numbering]. As a side note: I have read William Young's WTJ article on Neo-Calvinism. I have no problem with it. He simply points out that Neo-Calvinism tended to denigrate experiential religion. Perhaps they did. That's an emphasis argument, though, and does not bear on whether other distinctives are true or false. (And almost identically tragic results can be found in the Anglo-Scottish Calvinist tradition).

[1]

What would Neo-Calvinism look like without its emphasis on politics? Yeah, I know sphere sovereignty and all that, but let's be honest: among neo-Calvinists what gets talked about the most, the church or politics?

[2]

One area where Neo-Calvinism [let's just call it Reformational Theology from now on) actually got right and later generations, even the Banner of Truth men, dropped the ball was in theological prolegomena. If you read Kuyper and Bavinck, they are fighting hard for ectypal theology. Can Together4theGospel say the same thing? Can Banner of Truth?

[3]

But theology is more than prolegomena, and the Reformational theology didn't do a great job on anthropology. Wanting a rich creation theology, and fearing gnostic dualisms (both admirable goals), they came very close to rejecting the doctrine of the soul. I've summarized their position here.

[4]

The most important aspect of Reformational Theology is that it was a constructive theology. That's very hard to do. It's easy to build a theology of critique, whether Rome or other deviant systems. And that's important, for the battle must be fought in every generation. But a soul (pun intended) cannot live long on a theology of criticism.

Bavinck constructed an entire theology around "New Creation." Yet he never drifted from Reformed Principial theology. This is nothing short of an ultimate triumph. Dooyeweerd's 14 or 15 modalities might sound odd, and I suspect he overdid it, but he simply wanted to outline man-in-the-world and man-in-relation-to-God.

Now for the Criticism of Reformational Theology

[5]

The emphasis on politics, at least practically speaking, failed miserably. Amsterdam is Sodom. The American front is slightly different. In America Reformational theology went in two directions. One school, the Toronto school (and with is periphery in the CRC and other Dutch American communities), systematically embraced sphere-sovereignty but with a temptation to more left-wing, socialistic politics. The more conservative appropriating of Kuyper is best seen in the Reconstructionist school and the Christian Right, neither of which is a success today. Recons are on the extreme margin of society (and may they stay there) while the Christian Right/Moral Majority has more or less lost the war.

The Way Forward: What Should We keep and where should we go?

[6]

To the degree that the Reformation School sees itself primarily as a Dutch(y) outpost, it is a non-starter. The worst thing that anyone can do is contrast "Amsterdam with x." This prevents Reformational Theology from fully incorporating gains from other traditions.  For example, Nicholas Wolterstorff has suggested commonalities between Bavinck and Reformed Epistemology, which has its roots in the Scottish Common Sense tradition (Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “Herman Bavinck—Proto Reformed Epistemologist.” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (2010): 133–46.). This is a major advance in epistemology and only possible because Wolterstorff didn't get blinded by a Dutch ghetto mentality.  

[7]

I admit I don't care too much for the "reclaiming politics for Christ" mindset.  Christ makes claims to the political life, to be sure, but I am also reminded of something Don Carson said, "If Kuyper lived in the killing fields of Cambodia, one suspects he would have framed the relationship between Christ and culture differently" (Christ and Culture Revisited, ix). Of course, that doesn't change whether or not Christ owns politics, but it does highlight the tensions--tensions that are already evident in Scripture (see Romans 13 and Revelation 13).  

[8]

I like the organic motif.  Some have suspected a latent Hegelianism within the organic motif, but I think that criticism falls short for a couple of reasons.  For one, it's never argued that "organicism necessitates Hegelianism." It's just asserted.  Secondly, Christ himself had no fear of using it because of future Hegelian overtones (John 15).  Thirdly, let's assume it's a valid criticism.  Even then, it doesn't prove what people fear most in Hegel: Pantheism.  If it does prove pantheism, then we need to see an argument for that claim, which would include primary sources from both Dutch Reformed theology and German idealism. A tall order.

[8.1]

But what does Bavinck mean by the organic metaphor?  A full discussion will be found in his Dogmatics, but we can offer a brief one here.  The metaphor  traces the idea of revelation in its form and content and how it correlates with the rest of life (Bavinck, Philosophy of Revelation, 18). Revelation doesn't appear in the abstract. It is always context-ed. God's unfolding drama in history is never a bunch of propositions falling from the sky. Not even Plato can be accused of that crude a view (though many Calvinist critics of Reformational Theology tend hold just that view). It meets Israel at Israel's situation--calling, changing, and challenging that situation.

Conclusion

[9]

We can say two things about it:
1) In terms of a Reformed theology for future generations and a Reformed social ethic, Reformational theology failed miserably. 2) In terms of future philosophical reflection, it was a mighty triumph of the highest order. Without neo-Calvinism we would not have Alvin Plantinga. Without Alvin Plantinga, we would not have seen a renaissance in Christian Philosophy.
3) I know a lot of his cultural philosophy borders on the bizarre, but James K. A. Smith is a highly competent philosopher who has done more than anyone today to make Dooyeweerd relevant.

Therefore, we should mine the Reformational theology for insights on the human person and his knowing within his life situation. We should never content ourselves at having arrived--or even worse, having arrived in our ethnic situation. (It's really hard to nail Eastern Orthodoxy's phyletism when we have slogans like "Ain't Dutch, Ain't Much.")

Works Cited

Bavinck, Herman. Philosophy of Revelation.
Carson, D. A. Christ and Culture Revisited.
Wolterstorff,  Nicholas. “Herman Bavinck—Proto Reformed Epistemologist.” Calvin Theological Journal 45, no. 1 (2010): 133–46.
Young, William. "Historic Calvinism And Neo-Calvinism." Westminster Theological Journal 36:1 (Fall 1973) p. 49. 
Recommended Websites
Paideia Press.
All of Life Redeemed (probably the classic site).

Recommended Works
Bavinck, Herman.  Reformed Dogmatics 4 volumes.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2008.
Clouser, Roy. The Myth of Religious Neutrality.  Notre Dame Press.
Dooyeweerd, Herman.  New Critique of Theoretical Thought 4 volumes.  Good luck finding it.
Kuyper, Abraham.  Principles of Sacred Theology. Westminster Discount Books.
Spykman, Gordon. Reformational Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992.
Plantinga, Alvin. and Wolterstorff, Nicholas. eds. Faith and Rationality. Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Plantinga, Alvin.  God and Other Minds.  Cornell University Press, 1990.
Wolters, Al.  Creation Regained.  Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005. A beautiful manifesto.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Until Justice and Peace Embrace. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983.
--------------. Reason within the Bounds of Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988.

The Van Til Files

Most of my notes on Van Til, both pro and con. I am not saying whether I think Van Til is right or wrong.  

My non-existent neo-Plantingian Interview

Sep24

This interview never happened.  It is between me and myself.  On a more serious note, I have noticed that my philosophical readings do not fit into any specific category.  That is good, I suppose, since “joining a school” is not the best start.

Question: You read Van Til, doesn’t that make you a Van Tillian?
Answer:  Not really.  I don’t find all of his apologetics convincing, but I do appreciate his reading of Greek and medieval theology.  I think he has a lot of promise in that area.  More importantly, Van Til, better than anyone else at his time, showed the importance of God as a Covenantal, Personal God.
Q.  But didn’t you used to promote Thomas Reid’s Scottish philosophy?  All the Van Tillians I know reject it.
A. There are two different “Van Tillian” answers to that question, and his reconstructionist disciples only knew one of them.  In Survey of Christian Epistemology (p. 132-134) he notes that if the Scottish school takes man’s cognitive faculties as a proximate starting point and not an ultimate one, then there is no real problem.  Further, we see Thomas Reid and Alvin Plantinga saying exactly that.   Elsewhere, however, Van Til was not as careful in his reading of Reid, and the reconstructionists read him as condemning Common Sense Realism.
Q.  So, is there a contradiction between the two schools?
A.  If the above distinction is made, I am not convinced there is.
Q. You keep mentioning Alvin Plantinga.  Are you a Reformed Epistemology guy?
A. I’ve read quite a bit of Wolterstorff and Kelly James Clark.  I like what they have to say.  I am not an expert on Plantinga so I have to demur at that point.  I do think there is a dovetailing between Thomas Reid and Plantinga, and if that convergence holds there is an exciting opportunity to unite Reformed guys along different epistemological and even geographical lines.
Q. What do you mean?
A. The guys in Westminster (either school) claim Van Til.  There is a debate on how well they understand him, but that’s beside the point. I think I have demonstrated above that there is no real contradiction between the two at least on the starting point.  This means that guys who hold to some variant of Common Sense epistemology and/or Van Tillian presuppositionalism do not have to be at loggerheads.

Q.  There is still one other Dutch giant you haven’t mentioned.

A.  You mean Herman Dooyeweerd, right?
Q. Correct.
A.  If you trace the development of the Reformed Epistemology school, you can find something like Dooyeweerd at the very beginning.  When Wolterstorff and Plantinga edited Faith and Rationality, they were at that time strongly influenced by Dooyeweerd. I am not saying that’s where they are today.   However, I do believe that Dooyeweerd’s contention that all men have a pre-theoretical “faith commitment” from the heart is in line with what Kelly James Clark and Van Til say about pretended neutrality.

Survey of Christian Epistemology (Full)

 

Apr27

Typical van Til book.  Numerous interesting insights on Greek philosophy.  Sort of spirals out of control on Idealism as he (likely) tried to fit his dissertation into three chapters.

Medieval Epistemology
CvT is friendlier to Augustine in this volume than he was in A Christian Theory of Knowledge.   Here he emphasizes the differences between Augustine and Plato and focuses the discussion on the problem of knowledge that Plato raised in the previous chapter: what is the principle of Unity (One) and Diversity (Many)?

For CvT this solution lies in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Without a doctrine of creation, the sense world is seen as an “ultimate” (48).  And if we start with an ultimate plurality, how will we get to unity?  Plato never found unity in the Ideal world, for the Idea of the Good never acquired supremacy over the other ideas, and there remained the problem of the Idea of mud, hair, and filth.

The scholastics accepted the Greek idea of the soul, which parallels the chain of being.   At the lowest level is the vegetative part, then the appetitive, then the cognitive (this also parallels comments made by John of Damascus).

Universals and Paganism
The problem of universals is simply a restatement of the problem of the One and the Many.

Donum Superadditum
Something (image of God) received with man’s being.  The origin of this thought lies in the pagan idea of a material universe with an evil inherent in it existing independently of God (62).  It’s hard to see on this gloss how God could have created man “good” apart from endowing him with a little something extra.

Modern Epistemology: Lutheranism
Luther thought of the image of God in purely moral categories, neglecting such as the will and intellect. Van Til analyzes the Lutheran view of the sacrament as it relates to the person of Christ, and as such to epistemology:  the human can become divine.  It is an intermingling of temporal and eternal (70).  As such, Lutheranism also finds itself facing the same difficulties that Platonism faced.

Original Sin and Representation (78)

Van Til has an illuminating discussion on original sin.  He addresses the common challenge to it:  it is illogical because we can’t be tried for someone else’s actions.   But he points out that this only works if we reject the category of representation.

He says that the principle of representation holds because the members of the Trinity are mutually representational.  That is an interesting suggestion, but I am not sure what he really means by that.  He goes on to say that God creates in representational categories (78-79).  Again, very intriguing but not really that clear.

Modern Epistemology: Arminianism
For Watson finitude involves evil (82).  “No creature can be entirely perfect because he is finite” (Watson, Theological Institutesvol 1, p. 33).  This mutes the distinction between general and special revelation. But as Van Til points out, this is paganism.  It posits a world independent of God.  If God created the world there is no reason why it can’t be perfectly good (Van Til, 82).  Van Til asks the question, “Why [on the Arminian gloss]could not God create a perfect though finite being?”   The only real answer for the Arminian is that there must be laws and conditions above God to which he must answer (90).

Van Til then employs the standard (and in my opinion, devastating) objection to Arminianism:  was it in God’s plan that man should fall into evil?  If he says yes, then he is a Calvinist.  If he says no, then he posits a Platonic man outside the plan and power of God (83).  Like Plato, this posits a world independent (to some degree, anyway) of God.

Van Til then goes on to discuss the Arminian contention that for an ethical act to be truly free, it must occur in an impersonal vacuum (Miley, Systematic Theology, I: 409, quoted in Van Til, 87).  The problem with this is given what we confess about God, and that all facts are in a God-vacuum, then on Miley’s gloss it’s hard to see how any action could occur. Van Til points out this is an anti-theistical position.  He writes, “[this] act could not occur except in the Void” (88).

Modern Epistemology: Calvinism

Van Til links Calvin’s project under the “Covenant” (96).  He notes that we see his “representation” in the Trinity as well.   The persons of the Trinity are exhaustive of one another.  This allows man to find the principles of unity and diversity within the Trinity (and hence, within eternal categories).

If the Trinity is representational, then man, too, thinks in representational categories (97)

Epistemology and non-being participation

 

Apr21

Some of this will be my own reflections on CvT’s A Christian Theory of Knowledge and the rest will be towards a construction of anti-scale of being philosophy.  I am not reviewing the whole book because it’s unnecessary.   Why do a review of any CvT work after Bahnsen’s magnum opus?  Further, the last 150 pages of CTK could have been left off and the book would have been better.

While CvT’s critique of Romanism was good, he didn’t integrate his earlier (and fine) critique of Plotinus, Augustine, and being/non-being into his larger critique of Romanism, which likely could have buried Romanism.  Instead, he got sidetracked on showing how Karl Barth is secretly in line with the nouvelle theologie of post-Vatican II theology.  That simply doesn’t wash.   For all of Barth’s problems, he rejected the analogia entis and the substance metaphysics upon which Rome is built.

CvT gives a fairly good summary and critique of the early church fathers.  There is some difficulty in this, since no one, even anchoretic traditions, are entirely clear on who constitutes (and when!) the ECFs.  Even admitting Tertullian is a heretic, I don’t think you will find many exceptions in the ancient world to the epistemology CvT is summarizing.   

The later Palamite epistemology is simply a refinement (and perhaps bungling) of some neo-Platonic themes, so to the degree that CvT accurately summarizes and critiques the being theologies of Augustine, Plotinus, and Eurigena, the criticism applies to Palamas (and Palamas and Augustine are closer than one might suspect).  CvT writes that the early church could not find a Christian view of freedom to coalesce with a Christian view of necessity, with the result the fathers opted for a nonbiblical view of free will.

Non-Christian Continuity and Discontinuity
A non-Christian view of continuity sees an identification of God and man, as seen below:

The higher on the scale, the more real and “true” the thing is.  Van Til notes that Tertullian sees sin as “the opposite of good.”  This sounds correct until we realize that means sin is “lower” on the scale of good.   Sin has “slenderness of being.”
On the principle of continuity it is hard to see how Tertullian (and Justin)’s view of God is different from the Stoics’.  But when he argues against Marcion, he says the Christian God is “Other” than man (107).

Later Platonisms
Moving to the fathers (Origen and Clement) we see the scale of being hardened in place.   CvT quotes Plotinus to the effect, “thought is motion” and this is inferior to ecstasy.   (Rowan Williams has a helpful summary on this point).

Here our chart is modified. God is now seen as hyper-ousia, above ousia.  How does one then get from the highest point on the scale of being to “above being?”   Mysticism, ecstasy.   Van Til can then make the critique that many of these fathers employed both rationalism (scale of being, continuity principle) and irrationalism (ecstasy, mysticism).  In fact, rationalism and irrationalism on this gloss are dialectically correlative.

If man is on the scale of being and participates in good, then consistently we must say he also participates in non-being.

Is Finitude Evil?
This is the key point: on metaphysical accounts (and yes, I used the word “metaphysical”) man is defective because he is finite (he participates lower on the scale of being, even to participating in non-being.   Biblical religion, by contrast, sees man’s problem as ethical:  he is in rebellion to God.   CvT then gives a helpful discussion on “total depravity.”  We are not saying that man’s noetic capacity is ruined.   It is in rebellion.

A Metaphysical Fall from Oneness
Augustine is very clear (City of God section on the Platonists) that One = Truth = Being.   The further away from the One we get, the more irrational we get.   The problem is that historical facts are in the realm of the many (further, since history is contingent).  This is similar to Plato’s problem of learning by experience.  Van Til writes,

When Plato took his line and divided it sharply between eternal being of which there was genuine knowledge or science, and non-being of which there was no knowledge, he was faced with the question of how learning by experience is possible (129).

Back to Augustine:  Eternal Truth and History are dialectical opposites.  If Christ is the Eternal Word (and true) then how could he be historical? If historical, then not eternal, and thus not true, and thus unknown.  This is where one’s onto-epistemology leads.  As Van Til says, “The first option leads to truth without content.”
Van Til has a nice phrase to summarize all of this:  slenderness of being.  (And that is where these traditions find man’s free will).
Other notes:
Rejecting the Augstino-Platonic view of Time:  sheer timeless (moving image of eternity) would swallow up all distinctions.
Problems:
I almost understand what CvT means when he says pure rationality and pure irrationality demand one another (144).  I wish he would have clarified it.
I understand his criticisms of Barth and some of them are valid.  I don’t think he fully showed how Barth’s actualist ontology is at odds with Rome’s analogia entis.

Can a coherentism hold?

The Eastern Orthodox view of the Patrum Consensus, and of the evaluating of theological claims, presupposes some form of coherentism.  Briefly defined, coherentism is the belief the essence of truth (or better, a true particular) is whether belief x properly coheres within a system.  Bertrand Russell explains it “forms part of the completely rounded system of truth” (Russell 1964, 122).  As Alvin Plantinga notes, “It is a relation that holds just among beliefs” (Plantinga 1993, 179).  

We see something similar with Eastern Orthodoxy.  How can we evaluate a particular teaching of a church father?  Here is a clear example (and also a response to yours truly).  Summarizing Vincent of Lerins,

This approach examines a doctrine by asking three questions: (1) Was this doctrine held by early Christians? (the test of antiquity); (2) Was this doctrine widely held among early Christians? (the test of ubiquity); and (3) Was this doctrine affirmed by the church as a whole? (the test of catholicity).

Explained another way:

The solution to this problem is to read Scripture not individually, but corporately in solidarity with the Church.  The early Church viewed Scripture and Tradition (T¹) not in tension with each other but as congruent.

Practical Problem 1: So let’s flesh this out.  Father Z advances teaching x. How do we know x is right?  We judge it in light of the teaching of the church (x*).  How then do we know that x* is right?  

When you evaluate a later father in light of earlier teachings, this isn’t a problem.  When you evaluate fathers contemporaneous with one another, then it gets problematic.  Let’s assume Fathers Y and X minister around the same time and leave a corpus of work.  Further, let’s assume they write about an issue that had not yet been decisively solved.  

Back to (PP1).  Let’s say that x* is indeed the inherited tradition of the church.  It is Truth.  It is what has been always taught.  Said this way, it sounds like a standard to compare other teachings--and indeed it can (and sometimes should) be used that way.  Here’s the problem, though:  some of the terms that constitute x* were themselves not yet part of x*.  We will call these terms x*...m, n, p...z.  Examples would be later ecumenical councils, later fathers, different liturgies, etc.  Orthodox love to say that “their view of tradition isn’t static.”  Indeed, it is not.  The question is how to know whether x*...n is part of tradition.

I suggest that this problem is best seen in a logical fallacy.  In other words,

p ⊃ q

q

---

p

This is the fallacy of asserting the consequent

“If this, then that.”
That,

Therefore, this.

If (T¹) is true, then x*...n

x*...n

Therefore, an unbroken T¹.

If (T¹), then the Dormition of Mary.

The Dormition of Mary is celebrated as tradition.

Therefore, T¹.  

Stated less formally, the Orthodox must prove that the current instantiation of tradition, be it the Dormition of Mary or whatever, is already within p from the beginning.  This has not been done.  

Back to Coherentism

Does a doctrine like the Dormition of Mary cohere within Orthodox Tradition?  I actually think it does.  But that’s not good enough for truth.  All coherence can demonstrate is consistency.  To be good enough for warrant it must demonstrate a correspondence with an external standard.  Any such standard, either the Scriptures or the earliest (i.e., writings contemporary with the Apostles) Christian writings, must bear witness to it.

There is a possible rejoinder: one can demonstrate that x*...n is compatible with such a standard.  That is certainly possible, but it does not demonstrate the historical evidence of x*...n from the earliest days.  Therefore, the Evangelical is warranted in not practicing x*...n.  

Reformed Epistemology Beyond Plantinga

Owen Anderson has written a small piece aiming to show difficulties in Alvin Plantinga’s conception of warrant.   Anderson asserts that Plantinga’s position leaves the unbeliever with a legitimate excuse for not believing in the Christian God.  Along the way Anderson advances a number of philosophical theses that I maintain are problematic for a Reformed Christian and subsequently limit the agreement one has concerning his critique of Plantinga.

This paper will follow the following structure:

1. Plantinga and Warrant
2. Anderson’s Critique
3. Anderson Critiqued
4. Warrant without Defeaters
5. Anderson’s position incompatible with Reformed Theology
6. Plantinga Reconsidered
7. Conclusion

Plantinga and Warrant

In short, Plantinga’s position maintains that one is warranted in believing in God without having to give justification for foundationalist evidential demands.  Further, one is warranted in knowledge if one’s cognitive faculties are functioning properly in a proper environment.

Anderson’s Critique

Anderson says Plantinga’s position is incompatible with Christian teaching because of the following claims:

1. Guilt presupposes inexcusability
2. Inexcusability presupposes ability
3. Ability presupposes clarity
4. Clarity presupposes rationality

The main criticism is that Plantinga (seems) to allow that other religions can claim warrant for belief and thus evade Romans 1:21.  Another criticism is that Plantinga does not allow that God’s existence is sufficiently clear.

Anderson Critiqued

P1 seems like standard ethical and Christian teaching.   P2 is incompatible with Reformed Theology (see below).  P3 is not necessarily wrong, but it rests upon a major confusion throughout Anderson’s paper.  When he says “ability presupposes clarity,” does he mean moral ability or natural ability?  In fact, I don’t think he can answer the question because of his commitment to P2.  However, I don’t disagree that there is a clear, rational standard to which men are held accountable. P4 is fine; however, I have a problem with the way this clause is phrased:  if the alternatives to knowing God are rational then humans have an excuse to not knowing God.

Further, there is a difference between the clarity of God’s revelation and willing not to worship God.  Indeed, Anderson writes, “Inexcusability requires that if they had wanted to, they could have known God as they should have.”  Besides the confusion of moral and natural ability, this entails Anderson’s rather unique view about Romans 1:21. In another essay Anderson argues that this verse does not teach that the heathen knew God, but that God’s special revelation has undergone decay.   

For the moment I feel justified (warranted?) in standing with the tradition of commentaries on Romans 1:21 and say that the unbeliever knew (in some sense; I wonder if we are all interpreting “know” in a univocal sense) God.  

Excursus:  Commentaries on Romans 1:21

(Instead of quoting publisher, text, and page number, I will simply say Charles Hodge in loc, etc.)

John Murray:  “The knowledge of God must in this context be the knowledge derived from the manifestation given in the visible creation...The inexcusableness resides in the fact that being in posession of this knowledge they did not render to God the glory.”

John Calvin: “He plainly testifies here, that God has presented to the minds of all the means of knowing him, having so manifested himself by his works, that they must necessarily see what of themselves they seek not to know.”

Charles Hodge:  “Thus, in the first instance, in verse 19 and 20, he proved that the heathen had a knowledge of God which rendered them inexcusable, and then the fact that they were without excuse, is proved by showing that they did not act in accordance with the truth.”

Anderson says his paper is about “the clarity of God’s existence, not epistemic rights.”  Well, if that’s true then why is Anderson discussing Plantinga’s earlier works (Warrant and Proper Function and Warrant the Current Debate)?  Those books are defending the claim of warrant against foundationalism; they are not attempting to set forth God’s existence.  

A critique on more factual grounds

This doesn’t really affect the substance of the paper, but it’s worth pointing out.  Anderson says “Plantinga never endeavors to show that it is clear that God exists.”  This is odd, since Plantinga has defended the Ontological Argument (Doubleday 1965) and has offered Two Dozen or So arguments for the existence of God.   If this is indeed what Anderson is saying, then (P)3--4 fall.  

Warrant Without Defeaters

Much of Anderson’s critique seems to operate on only half of the Plantingian position.  Anderson writes, “All the adherents of world religions are rational in this broad sense of the term,” yet Christianity holds them accountable without excuse.  This is similar to the famous “Great Pumpkin” charge thrown at Plantinga:  Why can’t someone say that belief in the Great Pumpkin is perfectly basic and one has rational warrant?

If that is all that warrant said, then that would be a problem.  Yet just because one claims “properly basic belief” and “warrant” does not mean the position is immune to defeaters.  Consider:

1. a more thorough and robust account of a warranted belief is one that is not subject to defeaters.  So, I'd say that and adherent of ____(insert deity)_____ has undefeated defeaters (think Islam, for example).
2. Also, if one includes positive arguments (perhaps revamped natural theology ones), then we actually have reasons *for* our belief as well.  Why should I believe in ____(insert deity)_____?  I can tell others why they should believe in ____Yahweh____, can they do the same?
3. many versions of beliefs in _____(insert deity)____ do not provide a basis for our belief in the reliability of our cognitive faculties, hence they'd have a defeater for all their beliefs, including belief in ____(insert deity)____.  So, why should the believer in ___Shivah___ think his/her cognitive faculties are reliably aimed at truth?  Does ___Shivah___ believe in those categories (i.e., true/false)?  If not, would he design his "children" to have cognitive faculties with beliefs aimed at truth?  And, if so, why believe this?  Is it revealed in the Vedas?  Where?

Anderson’s Position incompatible with Reformed Theology

Anderson holds to the principle “ought = ability.”  This follows upon his confusion of natural ability with moral ability.  This is not an extreme position to hold, as most free-will theists hold it today.   The problem is that Reformed theology rejects this position.  If [moral] ought = [physical] ability, then man has free will to believe in God apart from considerations of sin.  This is perfectly consistent with Kantian ethics and Arminianism.  It is not with Reformed theology.

Anderson writes, “If this [sin] is the result of something outside my control, then I cannot be held accountable.”  But the consequent does not follow, at least not universally.  What about original sin?  Why am I held accountable for what Adam did?  

Plantinga Reconsidered

Let’s pretend for a moment that Anderson’s critique holds.  What must we give up of Plantinga’s position and what can we retain.  Anderson says Plantinga’s views are incompatible with Christianity, yet one suspects that Anderson is overreaching on Plantinga.  Plantinga’s initial forays into warrant  merely dealt with belief in general in response to Cliffordian Evidentialism.

Beyond Foundations

The initial attraction to Plantinga’s “warrant” is not its providing an argument for the existence of God.  In fact, I don’t think that is Plantinga’s position at all.  As I’ve read the development of Plantinga’s corpus, Plantinga developed his “warrant” in response to classical foundationalism’s challenge on epistemic justification, not for whether warrant offers a “silver bullet” argument for God’s existence (to borrow an illustration from John Frame).  

The evidentialist challenge: if it is not rational to accept some proposition about God, then one ought not to accept it; b) it is not rational to accept such propositions without adequate evidence and with firmness not exceeding the evidence (Wolterstorff 136).  But as Plantinga pointed out, evidentialism of this sort usually connotes a form of internalism: I must satisfy some epistemic duty in order to have proper belief in God.  However, why should we suppose that it is irrational to accept theistic belief in the absence of evidence?  What exactly is the obligation here?  Which intellectual obligations?  What about Russellian paradoxes, when a self-evidently false follows from a self-evidently true?

If internalism is false, as I maintain the above evidential variety is, does this mean some form of externalism follows?  I think so, though I can’t argue it here.  But more to the point:  are all forms of externalism versions of warrant?  I don’t think so.  Reliabilism and models of perception are externalist, though inadequate by themselves.  

Let’s Assume Plantinga is in Fact False

If Plantinga’s account is incorrect, must I abandon externalism and embrace internalism?  I have seen no convincing arguments that I should (though to be fair that wasn’t Anderson’s point). But are all of Plantinga’s unique points wrong?  Let’s consider “proper function.”  If I am drunk are my reasoning faculties performing correctly?  Obviously not.  But that’s probably not why people object to “Proper Function.”  Does sin make my cognitive faculties malfunction?  Well, maybe.  This brings us in to the psychology of belief, a study I am not prepared to enter.

Conclusion

Anderson’s critique has forced Reformed Epistemology adherents to clarify a number of issues.  Unfortunately, one has to pay a high price to fully accept Anderson’s position.  His equivocation of natural/moral ability and is ought = can positions render many of his conclusions unacceptable to traditional Reformed theology.

Works Cited:

Calvin, John. Romans.

Hodge, Charles. Commentary to the Romans.

Murray, John. Commentary to the Romans.

Plantinga, Alvin.  “Reason and Belief in God.” Faith and Rationality.

-----------------.  The Ontological Argument.  Doubleday, 1965.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas.  “Can Belief in God be Rational if it Has no Foundations?”  Faith and Rationality.  Notre Dame.