Philosophy of Religion 30" 1-19, 1991. 9 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Alvin Plantinga and natural theology HUNTER BROWN Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, King's College, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3

Alvin Plantinga tells the story about Bertrand Russell who was once asked how he would reply "if, after dying, he were brought into the presence of God and asked why he had not been a believer. Russell's reply: 'I'd say "Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence! ''1 To an extent, Plantinga the theist would agree with Russell on this point. Plantinga would go on to argue, however, that since theistic belief is not, in the first place, a function of evidence which provides it with a foundation - at least in the way that Russell understands it - Russell's complaint does not bear directly on the issue. For Plantinga, religious belief does possess foundations, but such foundations are not the kind which would be attributed to it by evidentialists or classical foundationalists. One of the major aspects of the case that Plantinga develops in support of his view is a strident critique of natural theology. His own Reformed epistemology acquires much of its distinctiveness in relation to such a critique. This is particularly the case with regard to its major tenet that belief in God is a basic belief. The prominent Roman Catholic T/.ibingen theologian Walter Kasper, however, has argued at length in favour of an understanding of natural theology which is substantially different from that rejected by Plantinga. 2 What is more, natural theology, in Kasper's rendering of it, seems to me on many points to support the basicality of belief in God so prized by Plantinga. A study of Plantinga with a view to Kasper on natural theology, then, raises questions about the adequacy of Plantinga's portrayal of natural theology. It also thereby raises a derivative question about the distinctiveness of the "Reformed" character of his epistemology, given the closeness of Reformed epistemology's ties to a rejection of natural theology as so portrayed. An analysis of Plantinga with

2 a view to Kasper on natural theology also has significant implications visa-vis possible responses to persistent charges of arbitrariness which seem to be perennially levelled against arguments to the basicality of religious belief, whatever form they may take. Plantinga's understanding of natural theology is derived from his reading of Aquinas, whom he considers to be the "natural theologian par excellence. ''3 According to Plantinga's analysis, Acquinas is epistemologically a foundationalist, whether or not religious issues are involved. Aquinas's epistemology follows Aristotle's Posterior Analytics "in holding that scientia, properly speaking, consists in a body of propositions deduced syllogistically from self-evident first principles. ''4 Aquinas, then, "distinguishes what is self-evident, or known through itself (per se nata), from what is known through another (per aliud nota); the former are 'principles' and are apprehended by understanding, while the latter constitute science. ''5 The former truths which are self-evident or evident to the senses are grasped immediately by the understanding and from them, further truths can be deduced. Plantinga also understands Aquinas to be a foundationalist in matters of religious truth which exceed the capacities of natural reason. In the Summa Contra Gentiles Aquinas treats the acceptance of propositions "for which the human reasons offers no experimental evidence.''6 There, according to Plantinga, he justifies the acceptance of such propositions on the basis of recourse to the prophetic and miraculous circumstances which surround their historical occurrence. What he means to say...is that to believe in the mysteries of the faith is not to be foolish...because we have evidence for the conclusion that God has proposed them for our belief. This evidence consists in the fulfilment of prophesy and in the signs and wonders accompanying the proclamation of these mysteries.7 For Aquinas, then, Plantinga thinks, certain propositions can be embraced as basic on the strength of their self-evidence or self-evidence to the senses; others are deducible from these foundational beliefs; others are embraced on the basis of extraordinary phenomena authenticating their divine origins. For Plantinga, what is most significant is that all three cases are evidentialist in character. Aquinas, therefore, in Plantinga's view, shares basic philosophical assumptions with more recent evidentialist critics of religious belief, with the exception that more recent forms of

foundationalism have laid greater emphasis on incorrigibility. Both Aquinas and the evidentialists agree, however, that warrant is required for all non-basic propositions, including religious ones. Where such warrant is lacking, a proposition surrenders its entitlement to acceptance. What is common to Aquinas and all cases of classical foundationalism, in Plantinga's judgement, is a certain "thesis about rational noetic structures. ''8 In such a view, "to be completely rational...[is] to do the right thing with respect to one's believings. It is to violate no epistemic duties, ''9 as defined by foundationalism. This, Plantinga wishes to underscore, is in all cases a 'normative' claim "about how a system of beliefs ought to be structured, a thesis about the properties of a correct, or acceptable, or rightly structured system of beliefs. ''1~ Plantinga's antagonism towards natural theology arises out of his understanding it in terms of classical foundationalism and there is a close link between Plantinga's epistemological case against classical foundationalism and his theological sympathies with a Calvinist Reformed tradition of christian belief. Both Nicholas Wolterstorff and Plantinga himself have referred to his view as "Calvinist epistemology" or "Reformed epistemology." The link between Plantinga's allegiance to Reformed theologians and his philosophical epistemology is clear. "In rejecting natural theology...these Reformed thinkers mean to say first of all that the propriety or rightness of belief in God in no way depends upon the success or availability of the sort of theistic arguments that form the natural theologian's stock in trade."ll Plantinga's philosophical position, then, rejects evidentialist demands that theistic belief conform to certain widely-held canons of rationality. Nicholas Wolterstorff has summarized this evidential view so as to bring out its close connection with foundationalism: The form assumed by the vision of the Enlightenment when it came to matters of religion was what may be called the evidentialist challenge to religious belief. The challenge can be seen as consisting of two contentions. It was insisted, in the first place, that it would be wrong for a person to accept Christianity, or any other form of theism, unless it was rational for him to do so. And it was insisted, secondly, that it is not rational for a person to do so unless he holds his religious convictions on the basis of other beliefs of his which give to those convictions adequate evidential support. No religion is acceptable unless rational, and no religion is rational unless supported by evidence. That is the evidentialist challenge.12

In sum, the evidentialist claim is that (a) "it is irrational or unreasonable to accept theistic belief in the absence of sufficient evidence or reasons" and that (b) "there is no evidence or at any rate not sufficient evidence for the proposition that God exists. ''13 Plantinga does not wish to challenge the need for foundations. He says somewhat facetiously: If you have evidence for every proposition you believe, then (granted certain plausible assumptions about the formal properties of the evidence relation) you will believe infinitely many propositions; and no one has time, these busy days, for that. So presumably s o m e propositions can properly be believed and accepted without evidenceA 4 What Plantinga does wish to challenge are certain assumptions about the process by means of which propositions are included in such a class of foundational beliefs. In this regard, Plantinga asks, "How do we rightly arrive at or develop criteria for meaningfulness, or justified belief, or proper basicality"? 15 His understanding of the basicality of faith is closely allied with the case he makes on this issue. One major component of Plantinga's answer is an attack upon the foundationalist principle that only those propositions are to be deemed as foundational which are self-evident, self-evident to the senses or incorrigible. First, Russell's paradoxes have shown the unreliability of the criterion of self-evidence. 16 Second, if traditional foundational criteria are maintained, then "enormous quantities of what we all in fact believe are irrational ''17 including belief in physical objects, other persons and memory of the past. Third, the foundationalist axiom itself is neither selfevident, nor incorrigible nor self-evident to the senses. Since the criterion of basicality is itself not basic, it ought not to be accepted until proper argumentation can be marshalled on its behalf and it is unlikely, in Plantinga's judgement, that such compelling argumentation is going to be forthcoming. "The fact is, I think, that neither [the foregoing principle of basicality] nor any other revealing necessary and sufficient condition for proper basicality follows from clearly self-evident premises by clearly acceptable arguments. ''18 This brings him to conclude that "classical foundationalism is bankrupt ''19 as is also, therefore, the evidentialism which thrives upon it. It is "both false and self-referentially incoherent; it should therefore be summarily rejected. ''2~ In the end, while Plantinga wants to make some room for the principle that "a proposition is properly basic/f it is self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses, ''21 he does

take issue with the additional claim that "a proposition is properly basic only if it meets this condition. ''22 Notwithstanding his antagonism towards classical foundationalism and the natural theology which builds upon it, Plantinga claims that he is neither a fideist nor an h-rationalist. His argument is with traditional criteria by means of which decisions as to what will count as foundational and what will not have been arrived at. Given the above critique of conventional criteria, his proposal is that "the proper way to arrive at such a criterion is, broadly speaking, inductive". 23 This inductive process requires that we assemble examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously properly basic in the latter, and examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously not properly basic in the latter. We must then frame hypotheses as to the necessary and sufficient conditions of proper basicality and test these hypotheses by reference to those examples. 24 In other words, "criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below rather than above; they should not be presented ex cathedra but argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples. ''aS Such an inductive procedure, he claims, allows for designation of theistic belief as basic and it is such basicality which allows for his rejection of natural theology. He makes no suggestion that universal agreement will be forthcoming on this issue, however, or, for that matter, on many particular claims to basicality made on this basis. Nevertheless, according to Plantinga, one may have grounds for taking certain beliefs as basic even when those beliefs fail to achieve consensus or satisfy traditional foundationlist criteria. The basis for such acceptance is a certain quality possessed by the experiences which give rise to those beliefs. As a matter of course, he says, for example, we can observe that there is a wide array of common beliefs which are, in fact, treated as basic. There are perceptual beliefs ('I see a tree'), beliefs ascribing mental states ('That person is in pain') and memory beliefs ('I had breakfast this moming') 26 none of which is normally held on the grounds of other more basic beliefs or satisfies the normal foundationalist criteria. They are held, rather, on the strength of a certain quality possessed by the concrete experiences which give rise to them. "In each case there is some circumstance or condition that confers justification; there is a circumstance that serves as the ground of justification."27

What is that "circumstance?" Plantinga says in connection with beliefs about a tree, for example, that more than a simple perceptual event is involved. "Being appropriately appeared to...is not sufficient for justification; some further condition - a condition hard to state in detail is clearly necessary. ''28 He admits elsewhere, in the case of beliefs related to memory which he would deem to be basic, that we are dealing with experience of a phenomenologically "rich and unexplored realm. ''29 There is, in other words, a phenomenological case to be made for the claim that "basic beliefs are not, or are not necessarily, groundless beliefs."30 The same pattern of argument is extended to theistic belief. Plantinga argues that there are numerous beliefs - aesthetic, moral, emotional and mystical - which are analogous to the examples above and which provide warrant for acceptance of theistic belief as basic. As to what feature of their originating experiences is being singled out, the same response emerges: "A complete job [of enquiring into such a feature] would explore the phenomenology of all these conditions and of more besides. ''31 The foregoing general position underlies Plantinga's Reformed opposition to natural theology. As a preliminary comment and apart from the live issue as to whether Plantinga's interpretation of Aquinas is broad enough to do justice to the full scope of Aquinas's position, it is worth noting that contemporary opposition to natural theology is certainly not exclusive of the Reformed tradition. The pattern of natural theological thought which Plantinga describes as Thomistic was destined to come upon hard times in modernity as a number of developments tipped the scales against it. 32 One was the emergence of higher literary criticism of scripture. Progress in historical, form and redaction criticism increasingly called into question the precise historical accuracy of the scriptures, including the historicity and original intent of the accounts about miracles and prophecies which had formerly been taken to be authenticating grounds of accepting suprarational truths of revelation. Biblical criticism also brought increasingly to the fore the Middle Eastern character of the scriptures and the degree to which that cultural world view clashed with some of the philosophical tenets of the Greek tradition which lie behind natural theology. The more central question for this article, however, is whether the enterprise described by Plantinga as natural theology and subject to these various destructive forces in recent times in fact adequately describes what

christianity has actually practised in the name of natural theology throughout most of its history. On this question I want to turn to Kasper's account of natural theology. Plantinga is given to contrasting philosophically undeveloped faith such as can be found in prominent biblical figures with a more philosophically developed faith typical of post-biblical thinkers such as Aquinas. The importance of biblical belief - a form of belief which Plantinga values as genuinely 'basic' - makes it appropriate to begin with Kasper's understanding of belief as it occurs in scripture. Like Plantinga, Kasper acknowledges the basicality of religious belief in scripture. In so far as the biblically unselfconscious appeal to nature, for Kasper, is non-argumentative in not reflecting upon its presuppositions one can say - and here Kasper would agree with Plantinga, I think - that "there is no natural theology in the Bible. ''33 This is not to deny, however, adds Kasper, that implicity "the Bible practises natural theology to a surprising degree. ''34 The Genesis creation accounts, the creation psalms and the Wisdom Literature, for example, all exhibit a clear pattern of appeal to the natural order as manifesting the divine. Plantinga would not necessarily object to this point as long as it were stipulated that such appeal to the "starry skies" is not argumentative but immediate in its support of belief and as such is at variance with later, more rationalistic forms of natural theology. Kasper, for his part, treats the relation between the biblically spontaneous unreflective practice of appealing to nature and the later more philosophically self-conscious patristic and medieval appeals to principles of natural theology as less discontinuous than does Plantinga. For Kasper, the subsequent explicitation and formalization of the earlier immediate appeal to nature was a necessary extension of the earlier less developed posture and an extension which was accomplished without abandoning the immediacy and basicality of the earlier biblical faith. That faith was taken up into the more developed forms of natural theology. Such development was necessary because early in the history of the christian church, Gnosticism's portrayal of a basic incompatibility between the orders of creation and redemption required that the biblically implicit relation between natural knowledge and faith would have to be recognized and developed explicitly. Such a process, which involved the emergence of the canon and the inclusion in it of the Jewish scriptures with their creation narratives, required the emergence of a critical reflectiveness in the long-standing but less self-conscious practice of appealing to the natural order.

Such developments, however, did not abandon the basicality of scriptural belief, according to Kasper's analysis. The appearance of their having done so is at least in part a byproduct of the attempt that was undertaken to make explicit in a Greek cultural tradition what had been implicit in a semitic cultural tradition. This process introduced a perennial conceptual ambivalence into the subsequent understanding of natural theology. Different concepts of 'nature' were at the heart of much such ambivalence. On the one hand, the meaning of the term physis (nature) in the Greek tradition had been affected by the movement of pre-Socratic natural philosophers and sophists away from the mythical tradition of early Greek thought. As a consequence, it had come to stand for "what gods and men are by their nature ''35 as distinct from thesis - "what they are by reason of arbitrary human determination, ''36 that is, according to the mythical traditions. This early Greek movement had given rise subsequently to a distinctive form of non-mythical rational inquiry, a form of inquiry which would eventually make itself felt in the acquisition by christian reflection of an increasingly theologically detached appearance. On the other hand, the appropriation of such Greek currents by the early christians was a "tension-filled reception," to use Kasper's characterization, which would eventually yield "a new and specifically Christian understanding of natural theology. ''37 The christians brought an influence of their own to the understanding of the term 'nature.' Their scriptures were interested in the real order "not as nature (physis) but as creature (ktisis), ''38 that is, in nature in so far as it originates in God. The concept of ktisis weakened the autonomy conveyed by physis although it did not eliminate it. The partial dependence which was therefore conveyed alongside autonomy meant that in the emerging christian natural theology the world, human life and its activity and history were all embraced by the concept of nature and they were together considered in relation to God, reflecting scripture's portrayal of nature as "the term which expresses a relatively independent and meaningful structure within the order of grace."39 In its formative stages, then, natural theology was not simply a detached analysis of an impersonal natural backdrop to human historicity but was reflection upon all existence, including human history, in the light of its assumed relation to God. It is this "integration of natural theology into the history of salvation," argues Kasper, which characterizes the work of many great christian scholars including Augustine, Anselm, Bonaven-

ture and Aquinas and which lies behind the Roman Catholic axiom that "grace presupposes nature and completes it. ''40 That it is the essence of nature to point beyond itself and so to support natural theological argumentation is presumed in this spirit and not in a post-Enlightenment spirit of devotion to inquiry cut free from faith and from all theological assumptions. The foregoing analysis of the development of natural theology carries over into Kasper's understanding of the specific arguments for the existence of God. Under the influence of Schelling and the Ttibingen theologian J.E. Kuhn, Kasper argues that traditional a posteriori arguments were historically more theological in character than they have often been purported to be since the Enlightenment. That is, they originated essentially as readings of the natural order in the light of an existing (basic, it could be argued) faith in God. The cosmological and teleological arguments, while looking to the natural order for their point of departure, reached a religiously significant conclusion, claims Kasper, only when "a conversion of mind and conduct" allowed for a grasp of that order which could open up an otherwise undisclosed significance in it.41 The moral argument, for its part, was undergirded by the conviction, shared in different forms by church fathers, Augustine and Aquinas, for example, that "in the spiritual nature of man there is a presentiment and tacit presupposition''42 about the existence of a God. Plantinga's approval of Calvin's thought regarding the innateness of the idea of God is notable in this connection. Not as far removed from such patterns of thought as is sometimes thought, Anselm's a priori ontological argument also worked from a concept of God which, Kasper insists, must be understood in relation to its origins in Anselm's adherence to a "doctrine of the image of God in man. ''43 Kasper recognizes, of course, that the cosmological, design and moral arguments all originate in the experience of certain features of the world and that they seek a ground of such features. The degree to which such argumentation from the natural order has been theologically detached throughout the most of its history in its use by major christian thinkers, however, must be judged with a view to the extent to which for so many centuries prior to the Enlightenment it was rooted in the foregoing convictions about the necessity of the openness of the converted mind, and rooted in convictions about the innateness of the idea of God. It must also be judged with a view to how 'nature' was understood and with a view to the extent to which for most centuries of christian history, "there was a

10 tacit consensus that the ultimate, supreme and all-embracing reality is God, ''44 a consensus which constituted the cultural backdrop of such argumentation and which only relatively recently has collapsed. It must also be judged with a view to the recognition on the part of major natural theologians such as Aquinas of the extent to which the abstract and limited nature of the ideas of God concluded to by such argumentation were assumed to require revelatory supplementation which in turn could be argued to involve a form of basic belief. In the end, for Kasper, as regards these long standing arguments, the conviction that nature understood theologically rather than philosophically appears in a way which attests to the cogency of the beliefs which have caused it to so appear, is the determinative principle which lies behind traditional natural theology's appeals to the natural order'. The postEnlightenment amplification of the rationalist element in natural theology an element which is prominent in Plantinga's understanding of natural theology - represents a departure from and abberation of this tradition. It is the business of natural theology, Kasper claims, not to preempt the more basic religious rationality with another but rather to explicate it. As he concludes in his comments on High Scholasticism: "Natural theology does not substantiate the faith; rather the faith grounds natural theology. ''45 Prior to modernity, such appeals to the natural order were by no means a matter of a deductivist causal argument from world to God. They presupposed, rather, the recognition of God, known in faith, as the hermeneutical key to the natural order, a recognition which, in turn, allowed the significance of certain features of that order to be more clearly seen and to be more effectively articulated philosophically. As Plantinga and Wolterstorff often point out, however, natural theology in more recent times has not been particularly theological in character and this is obviously an important source of denominational conflict. The relationship between such disputes and the decline in the theological character of natural theology is an important one to clarify, especially given the strong denominational emphasis in Plantinga's position. In Kasper's analysis, denominational fragmentation generated by the Reformation directly implicated natural theology but natural theology was not a source of such fragmentation; it would become a source only later. The Reformation implicated natural theology in so far as the transformation of christianity in the post-Reformation period from a socially cohesive institution to a socially disruptive one forced modernity "to find a new and religiously neutral basis, and for this purpose it turned to nature and reason -

11 as common to all human beings. ''46 This shift contributed greatly to an increasing emphasis upon the subservience to unaided reason of philosophical reflection upon religious matters. Such subservience, in tum, created a "new and independent natural theology''47 in the process. Religious understanding would more and more come to be seen in terms of detached rational inquiry into the natural order. Such a shift would in tum inspire a reactionary denial among some christians of any religious competence whatever to reason. Such divisions, however, were not a prominent feature of the sixteenth century Reformation debates. Luther, for example, was ambiguous in his presentation of natural theology. On the one hand, "he knows that God has given all human beings a general knowledge of God. ''48 On the other hand, this general knowledge falls short of providing the specificity which is necessary to prevent natural knowledge from sliding into idolatrous distortion. "The generally conceived being of God and man can be specified only by the very concrete knowledge given through revelation and justification. ''49 At this level of specificity the disclosure of the truth about God and humanity does not exist as an extension of a larger body of natural knowledge but possesses a revelatory autonomy of its own. Subsequent seventeenth century Protestant thought which moved along such lines, contends Kasper, was "fully in accordance with Catholic presentations ''5~ in this regard. It was an Enlightenment, rationalistic form of natural theology and not its long standing more theological form, argues Kasper, which became the object of intense denominational divisions, and these "only in the NeoProtestantism of the nineteenth century. ''51 Criticism of natural theology would eventually find a preeminent form in Karl Barth's work with which Plantinga has sympathy. Even in the case of Barth, however, Kasper questions the distance which has been placed between a basic faith and natural theology. Barth was not alone in his criticism of natural religion. Feuerbach, Marx and Nietzsche had also reacted against the rationalistic optimism of the Enlightenment and had also attacked 'natural religion' as a fabrication built upon human projection. For Kasper, Barth's attacks upon natural theology are "structurally comparable" to these other currents. Such structural comparability allowed for Barth's work to be brought into conversation with the natural "consciousness of the age" and this amenability, in Kasper's eyes, allowed Barth's view to be a form of natural theology. As to the Roman Catholic side of the picture, Kasper acknowledges the

12 development of rationalistic forms of natural theology. This can be seen, for example, in the movement of Catholicism towards a separation of the orders of nature and grace, particularly in the development of such a notion as "pure nature" among Baroque and neoscholastic theologians. He argues, however, that originally the concept of pure nature was an "auxiliary construct" intended to buttress the case for the gratuity of grace. Unfortunately it was not held to its original purpose but was allowed to support the development of a position espousing "a twofold order of natural and supernatural theology. ''52 However intent Catholicism may have been to restrain such developments from creating a fundamental division between faith and reason, what in fact resulted was a "'two story model' of natural and supernatural theology ''53 in which the relation between the two was at best a "loose juxtaposition" or a "superimposition." As Kasper points out, such a relation was highly susceptible of being assimilated into Enlightenment patterns of thought "to the extent that it develops natural theology in an abstract and unhistorical manner and fails to grasp its proper integration into the history of salvation."54 The shape which such Catholic thought was giving to natural theology was not in keeping with its longer history, in Kasper's judgement. It was not even in keeping with the spirit of Catholic High Scholasticism or with major nineteenth century conciliar developments. High Scholasticism, Kasper argues, did not assume a commonly held independent horizon of natural understanding as an existing frame of reference within which religious truth could be deduced from the natural order. It affirmed, rather, that natural theology is "relatively independent; ''55 that is, that it possesses a genuine intellectual cogency of its own but does so only from within the frame of reference of, or, to put it another way, against the horizon of belief. In the nineteenth century as well, he argues further, much less in more recent times, there were also reservations about the rationalistic shape which natural theology was acquiring, even among members of the Roman Catholic magisterium. Such reservations are reflected in the very limited claims behind the conciliar description of faith, for example, as an 'act of obedience consistent with reason.' By means of such a definition, claims Kasper, the nineteenth century First Vatican Council was doing nothing more than trying to maintain confidence in the reasonableness of faith without yielding to rationalism's exclusive commitment to reason or to fideism's and traditionalism's prejudice against it. The Catholic position did not propose "that one can prove God by the natural light of reason. ''56

13 It affirmed, rather, "simply the openness, in principle, of reason to God, ''57 a position which, it seems to me, would not necessarily preclude a form of basicality in belief. That this intent of Catholicism's formulations on the relation of faith and reason became lost ought not to be surprising, Kasper suggests. It was at least in part a result of Catholicism's having formulated its understanding of the relation of faith and reason with two different intents in response to two different challenges. "In opposition to rationalism it made a distinction in principle between faith and understanding; against fideism it maintained the conformity between faith and reason. This led to a theory of a twofold order of knowledge, one natural, the other supernatural, no contradiction between the two being possible. ''58 The negative addendum that no contradiction between the two was possible could not hold the line against the positive assertion of a twofold order of knowledge, however. As a result, the effective force of this development was to entrench a dualism of natural and supernatural knowledge which in turn would widely affect the understanding of natural theology and fuel the reaction against it. The foregoing observations regarding the positions of both reformers as well as medieval and nineteenth century Catholics vis-a-vis a more theological form of natural theology point to potential denominational common ground which is often overlooked in the wake of the m o d e m divisions between scholastic and neo-orthodox thought. In the light of Kasper's overall analysis, natural theology appears very differently from the picture presented by some of its more recent philosophical and scholastic practitioners and by Plantinga. If the essence of the natural theology tradition is as theological as Kasper suggests, then arguing on behalf of basicality in religious belief not only does not require a rejection of natural theology as vigorous as Plantinga's, but can in fact appeal to that tradition at some points for support. 59 If Kasper's analysis of natural theology is correct, Plantinga perhaps ought not so sweepingly to identify natural theology as "the attempt to prove or demonstrate the existence of God ''6~ and claim in quite so unqualified a way that the process so described has a "long and impressive history" as if to suggest that it constitutes the very essence of the long tradition of natural theology. The relation between experience of the natural order and religious understanding in the longer history of christian natural theology is too complex to allow for such generalizations. If there is to be a critique of postEnlightenment rationalistic forms of natural theology, consideration

14 should be given to basing it not upon a wholesale attack on natural theology but upon demonstration of the aberrant character of recent forms of natural theology by comparison with the much longer history of its practice prior to modern times. The foregoing analysis has raised a question about the adequacy of the view of natural theology which is rejected by Plantinga. In the process, it has also indirectly raised a question about the exclusivity and distinctiveness of the "Reformed" character of his epistemology. On the positive side, Kasper's analysis points towards potential support for Plantinga's Reformed epistemology in so far as many prominent natural theologians in history can be shown to have exhibit concern for basicality in religious belief, seeking to safeguard such basicality from excessive rationalism. Negatively, however, if Kasper's portrayal of natural theology is sound, the entitlement of Plantinga's position to designation as distinctly "Reformed" in strong implicit contrast to the Roman Catholic tradition of natural theology is seriously weakened. To find parallels between Plantinga's Reformed epistemology and natural theology as regards basicality is also to bring out their common vulnerability to charges of philosophical arbitrariness, however, as so many debates about Plantinga's Great Pumpkin and christianity's apparent fideism bear out. I would like to conclude with a brief afterthought concerning a particular aspect of Plantinga's work which bears on this issue. Kasper was seen above to say that the function of natural theology has not been to preempt a basic faith but to "penetrate more deeply into this experience of belief and to explicate it." Throughout his writings, he has analyzed many instances of this taking place, instances of different periods of christian reflection pressing the conceptual status quo of their times into service of such penetration and explication. Whether in the christological councils' use of ousia language or Aquinas's understanding of God as ipsum esse subsistens, for example, christians, as Kasper points out, have perennially expressed and defended their position in keeping with the conceptual spirit of the times. Notwithstanding the theological or basic character of faith's point of departure, christians have not shied away from pursuing strongly argumentative philosophical accounts of their belief. That is to say, however theological or basic natural theology has been and however apologetically vigilant in preserving the basicality of belief, it has been no less natural theology, in Kasper's portrayal, refining, defending

15 and correcting its basic theistic convictions via rigorous philosophical reflection and argumentation. This activity o f reasoned reflection upon a basic religious disposition is reminiscent of comments which Plantinga himself has made, comments which suggest that there is potentially significant room for serious and decisive, non-theological argumentation related to basic beliefs even given the initial imputation of basicality to such beliefs. What he said is this: The justification-conferring conditions mentioned above must be seen as conferring prima facie rather than ultima facie, or all-things-considered, justification. This justification can be overridden. My being appeared to treely gives me a prima facie right to take as basic the proposition I see a tree. But of course this right can be overridden; I might know, for example, that I suffer from a dreaded dendrological disorder, whose victims are appeared to treely only when there are no trees present. If I do know that, then I am not within m y rights in taking as basic the proposition I see a tree when I am appeared to treely. The same goes for the conditions that confer justification on belief in God. ''61 This point is also included in comments which Plantinga made in Faith and Philosophy of April 1988. 62 He conceded there that the christian is not to hold these beliefs in such a way as to be invulnerable to criticism. Of course not. If I find good reason to modify my understanding of the Christian faith, then (so far forth) I should do so. 'Good reason' could come from many sources: logic, obvious ethical principles, common sense beliefs of various kinds, science and the like. 63 It is important to note these qualifications in connection with Plantinga's claims to the basicality of theistic belief. On the one hand, such qualifications are particularly relevant by way of response to an historical situation in which a widespread anti-theistic philosophical status quo has become wedded to sceptical foundationalist principles in such a way as to virtually disallow reflection on religious issues from the outset. In such times, any attempt even to entertain a theistic position entails that the philosopher "first show, from some allegedly neutral starting point, that these [conventional anti-theistic] assumptions are false. ''64 In relation to this demand, much of Plantinga's work can be beneficially read. On the other hand, however, Plantinga's custom of deploying the foregoing provisions in a predominantly defensive role warrants close consideration. Here again, Kasper may be helpful. Kasper would agree

16 with Plantinga, I think, that biblical belief is not argumentative in the way in which some comparatively recent forms of natural theology have been. Kasper would also be sympathetic with the view that a basic theistic disposition towards the world involves a certain immediate experience of the world which points to the divine manifested in nature, as Plantinga also says. The question is, however, having come to experience the wodd in such a way, what is the role of subsequent philosophical reflection upon this experience? Is such reflection only a symbolic expression of an essentially fideistic posture which is itself immune from philosophical analysis? Is such reflection an activity which is limited by the basicality of religious belief to a strictly defensive function? Or is such reflection a proper extension of belief, an extension which must acquit itself responsibly in the larger philosophical arena by including the willingness to undertake critical reflection upon even the basic experience which has given rise to it? I think Kasper's portrayal of the natural theology tradition leads to the latter conclusion - that is, that however basic, such belief must ultimately explicate and defend itself critically and philosophically - and that Plantinga's recent comments could potentially lead further in the same direction than they are presently allowed to do. The philosophical explication of the basic frame of reference in both cases does aim at a kind of argumentative warrant. Such argumentation, having become part of the public philosophical domain, must defend itself there without being dogmatistic and in so doing must constantly be made to come to terms with its own potentially self-serving circularity. That such belief is rooted theologically raises the issue as to whether such argumentation is genuinely philosophical in nature. That issue deserves serious treatment which goes beyond the scope of this essay. For present purposes, however, Plantinga's recent comments to the effect that philosophical argumentation can bring t o the surface serious noetic disorders among the various basic claims to which one subscribes would seem to potentially lead to a larger than strictly defensive role for such argumentation, a role more closely resembling that played by the use of philosophical categories in much traditional natural theology as described by Kasper. It has been my contention in this paper that recent work on the history of natural theology by Walter Kasper has produced a portrayal of natural theology which is in keeping with some elements of Plantinga's position. The long christian tradition of natural theology, as Kasper represents it, is more theological and basic in its point of departure than some particular

17 modem schools of natural theology have been and in this it seems to me to have some commonality with Plantinga's argument for basicality in faith. Its theological or basic point of departure, however, issues in what has historically shown itself to be a demanding self-reflective philosophical articulation which cannot, on the grounds of basicality, claim immunity from the canons of philosophical argumentation. In this respect, natural theology, as Kasper has presented it, is neither fideistic nor arbitrary. Neither must Plantinga's basic faith be so, it seems to me. In the end, however, Kasper's portrayal of the natural theology tradition significandy undermines the sharpness with which Reformed epistemology can be distinguished from the Roman Catholic tradition of natural theology. If Kasper's analysis holds, then such sharpness must be questioned. There emerges at the same time, however, some important potential grist for the ecumenical mill in so far as Plantinga's case can be shown to be less at odds with the Roman Catholic natural theology tradition than Plantinga himself suggests.

Notes 1. Alvin Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God," in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 17-18. 2. I have chosen Kasper because his work in this regard is sufficiently distinctive that it deserves consideration alongside other recently developed critiques of Plantinga's understanding of natural theology such as can be found in L. Kennedy, ed., Thomistic Papers IV (Houston, TX: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1988). 3. Plantinga, op. cit., p. 40. 4. Ibid., p. 40. 5. Ibid., p. 41. 6. Ibid., p. 45. 7. Ibid., p. 46. 8. Ibid., p. 52. 9. Ibid., p. 52. 10. Ibid., p. 48. 11. Ibid., p. 72. 12. Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Introduction," Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, p. 6. 13. Plantinga, op. cit., p. 29. 14. Ibid., p. 39. 15. Ibid., p. 75.

18 t6. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 62. Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., p. 80. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., p. 80. Ibid., p. 81. See Gabriel Daly, Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980); Claude Geffr6, A New Age in Theology, trans, by Robert Shillenn (New York: Paulist Press, 1972); Francis Schfissler Fiorenza, Foundational Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1986). Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. M. J. O'Connell (New York: Crossroad, 1984), p. 65. Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., p. 73. Ibid., p. 73. Ibid., p. 73. Ibid., p. 103. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid.,p. 110. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., p. 78. Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 78.

19 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 74. This essay's case that the tradition of natural theology has been extensively underwritten by faith is not significant in relation to Plantinga's work, of course, if such faith is itself based upon evidence, as Aquinas seems to suggest, for Plantinga's basic beliefs are in no way reliant upon evidence. The matter of the indebtedness of faith to evidence, even in Aquinas's theology, however, is not at all a straightforward one. Aquinas's assent of faith, evidence notwithstanding, can be shown to involve theological commitment, analogy and, above all for present purposes, a fundamental disposition on account of which the concepts involved "are taken up into what we may call the dynamism of a judgement, that is, into a living movement of the human spirit towards the reality of God" which is not necessarily evidentially based. (Coleman O'Neill, "Analogy, Dialectic and Inter-Confessional Theology," The Thomist 47 (1983): 56). O'Neill's article explores the complex interrelation of these various non-evidential elements of faith. Plantinga, op. cit., p. 63. Ibid., pp. 83-84. Alvin Plantinga, "Response to Keller," Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988): 159-164. Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., pp. 162-163.