Warranted Christian Belief

Warranted Christian Belief
By Alvin Plantinga
OUP. 508 pages
ISBN 0 19 513193 2

Professor Alvin Plantinga is a Reformed Christian, a member of the Christian Re-formed Church in the USA, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, having taught philosophy for 20 years at Calvin College, Michigan (the college of the Christian Reformed Church).

He has been President of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and President of the American Philosophical Association. He is, without any doubt, the world's leading philosopher of religion and leading Christian philosopher.

In his latest book Warranted Christian Belief Plantinga argues for 'Reformed epistemology' -the view, derived from Calvin, that one does not need reasons (and, indeed, should not have reasons) for one's belief in God or Christianity. Belief in God or Christianity is nevertheless rational in Plantinga's book because it is produced, directly or indirectly, by God, and how can a belief be irrational if God himself produces it? On the way, Plantinga demolishes many alleged reasons not to believe in God or Christianity: from the psychological or sociological theories of Freud and Marx, through the alleged discoveries of postmodernism, to the view of John Hick and Gordon Kaufman that God is so transcendent it is impossible for us to know anything about him.

Two groups of readers

Plantinga writes his book for two sorts of people. On the one hand, it is an example of negative apologetics (that is, refuting objections to the rationality of Christian belief) directed at the unbeliever.

On the other hand, it is an exercise in Christian philosophy directed at the thinking Christian, in which Plantinga discusses how Christians should approach the philosophical questions of epistemology-in particular, how a Christian should think of his or her Christian beliefs as being rational. Warranted Christian Belief is not of interest just to professional apologists or philosophers, however-it will be of interest also to anyone faced with objections to the rationality of Christian belief and to any Christian who is wondering about whether he or she needs reasons to believe in Christianity.

It is a commonplace of philosophy that not every belief can rest on reasons, else we would have a vicious circle or an infinite regress. (What would be the reasons for the reasons for our beliefs? And the reasons for those reasons? In addition, what are the reasons for believing that one shouldn't believe anything without reasons?) So, if some of our beliefs may be rational without reasons, why shouldn't Christianity?

Reasons for reasons?

Plantinga's central claim in the book is that what determines whether a belief is rational is not whether it is based on reasons but rather whether it is produced by mental faculties which are functioning according to God's plan. Plantinga gives his explanation of that plan, which is, for belief in God, that God has created everybody with a natural mental faculty, in Calvin's phrase, the sensus divinitatis, along with our other natural mental faculties (perception, memory, reason), which in appropriate circumstances directly creates in us belief in God without this belief being based on any reasons. Since belief in God formed in this way is obviously formed in accordance with God's plan it is rational. On the other hand, belief that there is no God is obviously not formed in accordance with God's plan. So it is atheism, not belief in God, which is irrational.

Christian belief

Plantinga then turns to the defence of specifically Christian belief. He argues here that belief in 'the great things of the gospel' is produced, without being based on reasons, in Christians by the Holy Spirit by way of testimony from the Bible. This testimony may be direct or indirect (e.g., via preaching), but the 'internal instigation of the Holy Spirit' is always direct.

In the final part of the book, Plantinga turns his attention to objections to the rationality of belief in Christianity. He considers in detail the claim of Historical Biblical Criticism that we cannot deduce from Scripture in the accepted scientific-historic manner Christian beliefs. He replies that the Christian does not base his or her beliefs on deductions from Scripture in the accepted scientific-historic manner, and so the objection is irrelevant.

Not probabilities

Plantinga next turns to pluralism, confronting the objection that, given the plurality of religions, the probability of Christianity, over and against the other religions, is low. Plantinga responds that this is irrelevant since the Christian does not base his or her belief on the balance of probabilities.

Finally, he considers the objection from suffering and evil. Since he has already refuted the objection that God and evil are logically inconsistent in his earlier books, Plantinga considers only the claim that the existence of evil and suffering makes atheism more probable than belief in God. The reply is, once again, that the Christian does not base his or her beliefs on the balance of probabilities.

Plantinga also argues against the view that our belief in Christianity may rationally be based on good reasons; since, he says, there is no proof beyond reasonable doubt of the great things of the gospel, such an argument will be an argument on the balance of probabilities. But because of the many aspects of 'the full panoply of Christian belief in all its particularity', viz. 'trinity, incarnation, Christ's resurrection, atonement, forgiveness of sins, salvation, regeneration, eternal life' such a complicated argument on the balance of probabilities could yield at most a 'halting and tentative' belief. Plantinga also identifies his view that reasons are unnecessary with the Reformed doctrine that Scripture is self-authenticating, saying 'Scripture is self-authenticating in the sense that for belief in the great things of the gospel to be rational, no historical evidence and argument for the teaching in question, or for the veracity or reliability or divine character of Scripture [. . .] are necessary.'

Reliable faculties

Plantinga is not just defensive, he often goes on the attack: for instance, he gives an extremely interesting argument that atheism is self-defeating, claiming that one who doesn't believe in God, but, say in a Godless evolution, has no reason to believe that his or her belief-producing faculties are reliable, and so has good reason to give up every belief, including atheism, that he or she holds.

Professor Plantinga has produced a tour de force, which turns a lot of conventional wisdom on its head, and has profound implications for apologetics and religious epistemology. Nevertheless, one has certain questions: what about 1 Peter 3.15: 'Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have'?. If Plantinga is right then one has (or shouldn't have) any reason for one's hope.

And what about positive apologetics (the project of giving reasons for Christianity) more generally? Couldn't a Muslim, say, rebut all attempts to evangelise him or her by claiming that he or she believed without reasons and that his or her belief was rational because directly produced by Allah? Furthermore, is God just in his damnation of a Muslim if it would not be rational for him or her to believe in Christianity, since he or she lacks the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit? These are difficult questions, and they should not detract from the impressive achievement of Professor Plantinga in destroying almost every argument one may think of against Christianity and providing a detailed explanation of how Christianity may be impregnably rational even for those who have never considered the arguments for or against.

Two groups of readers

Reasons for reasons?

Christian belief

Not probabilities

Reliable faculties

Daniel Hill

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