Unless the philosopher solves problems by laying adequate analytical foundations for demonstration and, in the light thereof, by proving conclusions from self-evident premises, he does nothing. – Mortimer J. Adler

I still remember when Alvin Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology became popular. For me, it was when I was an undergrad in the mid-1990s. I know that Dr. Plantinga was working on his theory well before the 1990s but that was the time that I was introduced to it. At first, I will admit to having been taken with some of its ideas, so much so that I wrote my senior thesis on the topic (I attended a small liberal arts college which required a written thesis from its seniors) in which I attempted to show the connection between Reformed epistemology and St. Augustine’s religious conceptual scheme. I still have much respect for the contributions Alvin Plantinga has made to philosophical theology and his careful reflection on the big issues of God and how one might know Him made a powerful and positive impact in my intellectual journey.

Since then, I have moved away from Reformed epistemology, due to a more complete reading of St. Augustine and other thinkers. To make St. Augustine a Reformed epistemologist might be a stretch1. That said, I still have a deep respect for St. Augustine (I just do not think he was the intuitionist that some Reformed thinkers have made him out to be) and I still believe it is very good advice to read him thoroughly before going on to read St. Thomas Aquinas and others in the Western Christian tradition.

This will be the first in a series of posts evaluating Reformed epistemology from the standpoint of classical realism and classical apologetics. In short, I do not think it is a very good apologetic methodology (but I am not sure it ever was intended for Christian apologetics because its focus is on religious epistemology and many of its key proponents have said as much2). On the other hand, I do not think it is a complete failure. I think it is important to account for intuitions and the nonrational side of human existence in religious knowledge. It broadens foundationalism (the belief that all knowledge rests ultimately on fundamental truths which are themselves not subject to any proof and are the foundations of all other truth) against Enlightenment evidentialism and strict empiricism (and, as will be developed, it helps us define these terms). It reminds all of us that whatever position we end up taking, some kind of account needs to be made for the nonrational and immediate knowledge we have of the world around us inherently. I think one difference is that I am coming from a Thomistic stance which emphasizes the common sense data that we all have and Reformed epistemology emphasizes a kind of Platonic rationalism which falls very close to the idea that all genuine truth comes independently of sense experience, through reason and logical thinking alone (you would not be wrong, either, to sense traces of Kant here and religious personalism). I hope to illuminate these important themes and address other concerns such as fideism as we go along. I also hope to show how Reformed epistemology drove me to classical apologetics as the correct methodology.

Before we get to criticism, however. Let’s understand what Reformed epistemology is first.

The best summary of Reformed epistemology I have found is in Ed Miller’s textbook, Questions that Matter. From Miller: Some recent philosophers (primarily Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Kelly James Clark, and others) have introduced what they call “reformed epistemology” and have argued that belief in God is a “properly basic” belief, that is, a belief that may be accepted immediately, without evidence, as with “2 + 2 = 4,” “the world has existed for longer than five minutes,” “I had breakfast this morning,” and “it is wrong to kill people for the fun of it.” This of course does not mean that belief in God can be arbitrary or unjustified anymore than any other properly basic beliefs. These thinkers find in the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer John Calvin an account of a possible and appropriate ground for the properly basic belief in God:

“There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. … God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. … men one and all perceive that there is a God and that he is their maker” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Battles edition, Westminster Press, I, 43-44).

Dr. Plantinga also draws on Aquinas’s conception of the “sensus divinitatis” (sense of the divine) from which Calvin makes his claim that a knowledge of God is implanted in everyone. Reformed epistemologists also think that Romans 2:15 support this idea, “So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them …” In general, reformed epistemology teaches that an understanding of God is already intuitively and immediately understood because it is written on the heart of every person. They go so far as to say that belief in God is reasonable without evidence because it is “properly basic.” Belief in God may be embraced apart from rational evidence, and at the same time be justified as a natural disposition implanted in the soul by God himself (Miller, 280).

In Reason and Belief in God, Plantinga makes this statement, “What the Reformers meant to hold is that it is entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all; in this respect belief in God resembles belief in the past, in the existence of other persons, and in the existence of material objects” (17). 

Now, this is a very odd claim. Who are the Reformers Plantinga is appealing to? Luther and Calvin never held such a position and neither did the Lutheran and Reformed scholastics. Although very different in their theological perspectives, both Luther and Calvin had a place for natural theology. Luther, in fact, approved of the cosmological argument. On the Reformed side, there is a tradition that values natural theology, common-sense perception, empiricism, and facts. They, too, claim Calvin as a primary influence. The Reformed scholastics such as Zacharias Ursinus, Francis Turretin, and the Old Princetonians (Alexander, Hodge, Warfield, and Machen, who were common sense realists) would not have adopted such a claim (and neither would modern reformed thinkers such as RC Sproul, and John Gerstner). On the Lutheran side, Melanchton, Chemnitz, and Gerhard would equally have rejected such a universal statement. Either Dr. Plantinga is overstating his case here, or he is unaware that the “Reformers” to which he refers, and the Reformed and Lutheran traditions, generally, are certainly not monochrome in this regard.

A further worry, here, is that Reformed epistemology is a type of fideism–The idea that human reason has no part in Christian faith and rejects any knowledge of God that comes through natural reason and natural revelation. For example, theologians influenced by Kant’s epistemology are often fideists, due to their rejection of natural reason. Plantinga of course, may not be a fideist in the strict sense because he has put a lot of work into what justifies a properly basic belief. Nonetheless, his argument seems to fall under the broad category of fideism at least to the degree in which “it is entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all”. In other words, his argument is fideistic although he may not be a fideist.

As I indicated at the beginning of this post, I have a very strong appreciation for Alvin Plantinga and the intellectual support I received from studying Reformed epistemology was a genuine gift. I understand Dr. Plantinga now has some health concerns and I pray for him. As I will develop in future posts, I just do not think that Reformed epistemology is the complete story or provides the full picture of human knowing or the relationship between faith and reason.

1Augustine, for example, lays a basic foundation for natural theology in his Confessions, Book VII chapters 14 – 17. In Chapter 17 he quotes Romans 1:20 twice–For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Plantinga has a non-traditional view of natural theology and comes from a strain of Calvinist thinkers who down-play or deny natural theology.

2In a couple of places, one of Plantinga’s students, Kelly James Clark has indicated that Reformed epistemology is applicable to many different apologetic methodologies.