Reformed Epistemology (2)

“To know in a general and confused way that God exists is implanted in us by nature.”[1] So said probably the greatest of the medieval theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin developed this idea further. But how could this work?

One of the most sophisticated developments of this idea in our day has been done by Alvin Plantinga, one of the Reformed epistemologists mentioned previously [link: http://cfsint.org/blog/philosophical-views/202-reformed-epistemology], and his model is an example of one way that we could know God exists without recourse to an argument.

Plantinga’s model, which he calls the “Aquinas/Calvin” model (or A/C model) proposes that humans have a kind of cognitive faculty that produces a properly basic belief in God. A properly basic belief, as I mentioned previously [link: http://cfsint.org/blog/philosophical-views/202-reformed-epistemology], is a rational belief that isn’t held on the basis of any other belief. Many perceptual beliefs are among these, as are some others like our belief in other minds. And a cognitive faculty is just a part of our psychology that produces beliefs for us; so our memory faculty, say, produces beliefs about the past when appropriate.

But how does this faculty work? Since not everyone affirms that God exists, the sensus divinitatis is unlikely to be working actively and properly all the time. It’s more likely that, just as you remember a great meal when some trigger reminds you (say, the smell of the same kind of dish), so the sensus divinitatis tends to kick in when conditions are right.

What are these right conditions? Tapping into a tradition as old as the Psalms, Plantinga suggests that the wonder of the natural world provides this trigger:

“You see the blazing glory of the heavens from a mountainside at 13,000 feet; you think about those unimaginable distances; you find yourself filled with awe and wonder, and you form the belief that God must be great to have created this magnificent heavenly host.”[3]

It isn’t just magnificent views of the stars from the Rockies that can have this effect, though; a field of sunflowers or the moon shining on a river can provoke the same response.

It’s important to realize that Plantinga is not saying that we typically think to ourselves “Ah! God exists” when the sensus divinitatis operates. Typically we have a deep feeling of awe that makes us think “the One who made this must be amazing“, or feel gratitude towards Someone for the gift of the world, and so forth. In other words, we don’t think about God’s existence; we think about God, and about his gifts. But of course we can’t think about what God has done without the unconscious belief that God exists.

So our experience of the wonder of nature works with our natural human faculties to produce belief in some kind of divine being.[4] That doesn’t itself prove Christianity, of course, but it shows a plausible way how, if Christianity is true, our belief in God’s existence is rational. Plantinga has a similar (but not identical) story about other key Christian beliefs, but that’s a story for another time.

For now, grace and peace.

Tags: Reformed epistemology, Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, sensus divinitatis