This article analyzes and evaluates how Alvin Plantinga speaks of the status and authority of the Bible. It shows the relevance of his insights into two kinds of Christian biblical scholarship, which he develops in Warranted Christian Belief and Knowledge and Christian Belief. Plantinga argues that we can speak of knowledge when we have a warrant to do so. Not only sense experience but also the sensus divinitatis and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit are cognitive faculties. When a cognitive faculty functions properly, it produces knowledge. When a Christian believes that the Bible is the word of God, this is not just a conviction but knowledge—knowledge that leads one to glorify and enjoy God.
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Introduction
Alvin Plantinga (1932–present) is a Christian philosopher, and as such, he specializes in epistemology. He wants to help Christians by showing them that the Christian faith is not unreasonable.[1]9 When one claims that we can only be Christians by closing our eyes to the real evidence, we can make plain that this is certainly not the case. Plantinga has also argued that if God exists, faith in him is likely to be reasonably founded. That convinced atheists consider Plantinga a formidable conversation partner and are even impressed by the greatness and power of his thinking is an indication of his significance.[2] It is not without reason that he is considered one of the greatest American philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century and the first decades of the present century.
When it comes to objections to faith in God and, in particular, to the Christian faith, Plantinga distinguishes between de jure and de facto objections. De jure objections consider the existence of God and the content of the Christian faith unreasonable as such, or at least that it is not possible to guarantee or warrant its truth epistemologically; that is, even if God does exist, belief in God is irrational or intellectually irresponsible. De facto objections are factual and substantive objections. Plantinga shows that de jure objections are always related to de facto objections and see the Christian faith as unwarranted and therefore unreasonable.[3] In defending the Christian faith, Plantinga begins by refuting de jure objections. In this context, the notion of “warranted true belief,” belief or conviction based on sound working knowledge-producing faculties, is of vital importance.
This article draws attention to this aspect of Plantinga’s thinking and then focuses on its relevance to the doctrine of Scripture and its authority. The relevance of this aspect of Plantinga’s thinking applies to both the authority of Scripture perse and how we are convinced of the authority of Scripture.
Plantinga is a philosopher and not a theologian, let alone a biblical scholar. Thus, when it comes to the authority and content of Scripture, he contents himself with merely indicating some key frameworks. Theologians who interact with him, therefore, are mostly systematic theologians, not biblical scholars. However, Plantinga’s frameworks are fundamental to biblical scholarship. Reflection on these frameworks can only benefit biblical scholars because biblical scholars are often unaware of the epistemological presuppositions that are behind the methods or approaches they use. Or, to nuance it a little, they can benefit from greater awareness of their epistemological presuppositions.[4]
Plantinga himself shows the hermeneutical consequences of the view of Scripture that he advocates. It is clear that his emphatic identification of Scripture with the word of God has hermeneutic implications. This is also evident from the critical reactions of theologians, including biblical scholars, to Plantinga precisely on this point.[5] It is a pity that Plantinga has barely engaged with these criticisms. Indeed, we could greatly benefit from responses from his insight, and they would reinforce his exposition of how we are to read Scripture.
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I. Plantinga’s Epistemology
A characteristic of Plantinga’s approach is that objective reality, not the knowing subject, is the starting point of knowledge. In other words, epistemology is subordinate to ontology. This also explains why he approaches problems and questions from a point of view different from that of many others.
Plantinga has criticized classical foundationalism and its view that we can only speak about knowledge when we are dealing with self-evident truths or truths based on an account of our sense perceptions, neither of which can be corrected.[6] For him, classical foundationalism does not justify its own criteria of knowledge. How do we know that sense perception alone leads to knowledge? That conviction cannot be confirmed by sense perception.[7]
Plantinga also accepts as basic those beliefs that pass the tests of self-evidence and sense perception, but he also believes that we must have basic beliefs that are neither self-evident, uncorrectable, nor evident to the senses. A Christian has the full right to accept the existence of God and to regard the Bible as the word of the living God as properly basic convictions.[8]
II. The Nature of Knowledge
Plantinga has painstakingly analyzed the nature and character of knowledge. When can we speak of knowledge? He gives three criteria or conditions. First, there must be a conviction or belief. Second, such a conviction must turn out to be true. Third, he considers warrant: knowledge is “warranted true belief,” which he emphatically distinguishes from “justified true belief.”[9]
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III. Justification and Warrant: What Is the Difference?
In epistemology, “justification” means that there are reasonable grounds for one’s knowledge. However, Plantinga has denied that this is either a necessary or a sufficient condition for knowledge. Our knowledge-producing faculties can mislead us or be set on a misleading track. He points to René Descartes, who suggests the possibility that an evil genius is misleading us. Plantinga argues that every one of us actually accepts numerous claims as knowledge, not because he knows the reasons for them but because he considers reliable those witnesses who provided him with that knowledge. Without assuming the reliability of witnesses, a society cannot function. Plantinga adduces this argument to defend his view of knowledge as “warranted true belief.”[10]
Where the criterion “warrant” is at issue, it is understood and argued that knowledge should be based on an adequate cognitive faculty in a suitable cognitive environment and that its raison d’être is that it is aimed to know what is true. For example, directedness-at-truth is absent from a cognitive faculty that is intended to produce illusions.
“Warrant” means that a person who has knowledge can furnish “evidences.” However, it is not necessary that everyone can verify these “evidences”; doing so requires a properly functioning knowledge-producing capacity or faculty. This statement brings us to Plantinga’s crucial difference between internal rationality and external rationality. A person may be completely rational internally but nevertheless led astray by his knowledge-producing faculties. When we take external rationality as a standard, the truth itself is central, not the knowing subject. When we use an external epistemology, the claim of truth is evaluated from above or outside itself.
Connected to the issue of internal versus external rationality is the question of whether we must opt for internalism or externalism in epistemology. Adherents of an internalist doctrine of knowledge believe that we and others must have mental access to the factors that convince us of the truth of a statement before we can speak of knowledge. In contrast, Plantinga is an emphatic defender of the externalist doctrine of knowledge.
Plantinga rejects criticisms of the Christian faith that are based on the conviction that it is unreasonable because it is untrue, opining that those who advance this criticism must factually demonstrate the perceived falsehood of the Christian faith. Plantinga argues that both faith in the existence of God and the belief that the Bible is the word of God are beliefs that can be “properly basic”; they do not need argument or evidence. Evidence or arguments can be given, but only a “warrant” is sufficient: the Christian faith is produced by properly functioning knowledge-producing faculties.
Does this mean that we can characterize Plantinga as a fideist? Plantinga would deny it. The consideration that faith in the Triune God and the conviction that the Bible is his voice are properly basic beliefs, yet that does not mean that no grounds exist for these beliefs or convictions.[11]
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IV. Foundationalism
As we have seen, Plantinga criticizes classical foundationalism. However, his approach can also be seen as a form of foundationalism, though Plantinga’s version of foundationalism assumes a much broader conception of human knowledge-producing faculties than does the classic version.[12]
With regard to the Bible, this version of foundationalism is reflected in how the Bible is one of many sources of knowledge for him. However, we do not do him justice if we say that the Bible is nothing more than a source of knowledge for him. The Bible is also a book full of the praise of God. That the Bible is the cognitive foundation and source of divine knowledge links Plantinga to premodern classical Christian theology.[13]
Plantinga argues that what one sees as rationally permissible or warranted is in part determined by one’s metaphysical and religious presuppositions. There is no universal agreement as to the criteria for determining what is reasonable and what is not. That insight is typical of postmodernism; yet, contrary to postmodernism, he denies that what one can view as rational is based purely on the cultural community to which one belongs; rather, there is a solid case for absolute and universal truth.
That not everyone has the same criteria for speech cannot be used as an argument against absolute and universal truth. Therefore, ultimately, the difference between Plantinga and postmodernism is much greater than their agreement. Like Augustine, Plantinga is convinced that all thinking is ultimately religious in nature—and only in God’s light do we see the light (cf. Ps 36:10). Plantinga shares Augustine and Anselm’s premise that we believe so that we may understand.[14]
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V. The Bible Is the Voice of the Living God
Plantinga dedicates a whole chapter of his book Warranted Christian Belief, “Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship,” to the authority of Scripture and the manner of studying Scripture.[15] In the chapter of Knowledge and Christian Belief entitled “Defeaters? Historical Biblical Criticism,” he works out some aspects of his view in great detail, arguing that modern biblical scholarship—historical-critical Scripture scholarship—makes it impossible for us to hold to the Bible as the voice of the living God.[16] However, he goes on to deny that historical-critical Scripture scholarship makes it inevitable that we give up the traditional view of Scripture; instead, he questions the epistemological presuppositions of such scholarship and arguing that the results of historical-critical scholarship are based on its presuppositions. When these results conflict with traditional biblical scholarship, there is no convincing evidence that they are true. In this way, Plantinga makes clear that historical-critical Scripture scholarship is not an actual defeater of the ability to hear Scripture as the voice of God.[17]
For Plantinga, we cannot separate the authority of Scripture from the knowledge of the Triune God. To know God truly, we rely on his revelation in Holy Scripture. That is also the deepest purpose for which Scripture has been given to us: it has been given so that we come to know and glorify God. How Plantinga relates relying on Scripture’s authority and knowing the Triune God is most clearly seen in Warranted Christian Belief and Knowledge and Christian Belief.[18]
Plantinga can be seen as premodern in his view of Scripture. However, this description follows from the observation that, for him, God is the primary and final author of Scripture. In the modern approach, the human author is central; in the postmodern approach, the reader. It is precisely in starting from the knowledge that God is the primary and final author of Scripture that Plantinga distinguishes what he calls “traditional Christian biblical commentary” from “historical biblical criticism” and sets them in opposition to each other.[19]
In accordance with the view of the Christian church down the centuries, Scripture is for Plantinga not a library or collection of independent books but one book, which, although it has many subdivisions, has one central theme: the message of the gospel. Because of that unity, which has everything to do with its having a sole primary author, it is possible to compare Scripture with Scripture to come to a better understanding of its message. Plantinga strongly upholds the essential importance of the analogia Scripturae, the principle of comparing Scripture passages with Scripture passages to understand Scripture.
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VI. The Relationship between Plantinga’s Epistemology and His View of Scripture
Plantinga assumes that an objectively knowable divine reality exists beyond the human self and above the visible reality—that is, he is a realist in his view on knowledge. Because God exists, we can be convinced of God’s existence and know him. The same applies to the Bible as the inspired word of God.
Plantinga stresses that truth, not sense perception, must be the central notion we employ as regards knowledge.[20] Certainly, sense perception is important; however, it is not the only source of our knowledge. A large part of our knowledge is, at best, only (very) indirectly linked to sense perception. Must all knowledge be connected to visible reality? Plantinga says no; other faculties besides sense perception produce right and true beliefs.
Plantinga, in his theory of knowledge, expressly rejects Immanuel Kant and his followers, who argue that our knowledge can never extend beyond sensory experience or that all that we can come to know can only be known about the world as we experience it. Tackling the objection that he has not understood Kant, Plantinga states that we can read Kant and understand him without being convinced by his arguments. He is not convinced by arguments that he misunderstands Kant; rather, he consciously rejects Kant’s epistemology.[21]
If someone holds Kant’s theory of knowledge and still seeks to be an orthodox and traditional Christian, they will continue to confess the orthodox view of the Trinity and the person and work of Christ. However, even if orthodox with regard to the great Christian doctrines, their basic premise regarding Scripture will be that it is man speaking and thinking about God, not God speaking to man, and the great Christian articles of faith are first and foremost models of religious thinking, not divine revelation emerging directly from the Bible.
In contrast, for Plantinga, the Bible is essentially the word of God to man, the voice of the living God. This is how he can speak about the Bible as a source of knowledge, albeit a source of very special knowledge, namely, knowledge of God and of God’s relationship with the world and with man, who is himself, since the fall, a lost sinner.
To have faith is to know how God has made it possible for us human beings to escape the ravages of sin and be restored to a right relationship with him. Such a faith is impossible without knowledge; a real faith includes therefore knowledge of the essentials of the Christian gospel. The content of faith is precisely the central teachings of the gospel; it is contained in the intersection of the great Christian creeds.[22]
For Kant, and for all those who take the Kantian turn in epistemology, the Bible can never be a direct source of divine knowledge. For if human knowledge is always co-structured by transcendental categories, the Bible must, by definition, always be seen as people talking about God and not as God’s revelation to man. Following Kant’s epistemology, one will always remain within the bounds of human experience.
In John Calvin’s footsteps, Plantinga speaks about the sense of divinity (sensus divinitatis) in man—that is, the awareness of God’s existence that God himself has placed in man—an awareness related to God’s creation of man in his image.[23] Plantinga argues that this sensus divinitatis is essentially a knowledge-producing faculty, similar to our sense perception. It convinces us of the existence of God.
As regards Scripture as the word of God, he speaks of the inner prompting of the Holy Spirit as a knowledge-producing faculty. Here, too, Plantinga gravitates toward Calvin. Plantinga’s own emphasis, in distinction from Calvin’s, is that he speaks of the sensus divinitatis and the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit as knowledge-producing faculties.[24]
Plantinga himself characterizes his approach as the “Thomas Aquinas/Calvin model”.[25] In my opinion, with regard to epistemology, Calvin’s influence on him is greater than that of Aquinas. Given that for Plantinga, “faith seeks understanding,” it actually seems better for me to speak of the Augustine–Calvin model. Later in this article, I will return to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit and show how they function in Plantinga’s epistemology.
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VII. Two Types of Scripture Scholarship
I now come back to Plantinga’s distinction between “Historical Biblical Criticism” and “Traditional Biblical Commentary.” The latter seeks to discern the meaning of the voice of God in the past and its significance for the present. I note that Plantinga distinguishes interpretation from application in line with the premodern approach to Scripture, and he distinguishes between interpretation and explanation, but he never separates them.
In the premodern approach, the interpretation of Scripture is not complete without application.[26] Anyone who listens to Scripture as the voice of the living God can never stop at the stage of finding the meaning of the Scripture for its first hearers and readers, but they will also ask what it has to say to us now. In every age, from the first readers and hearers to the last, the biblical message must stamp readers and hearers’ lives. That is, from the outset, God’s intention in Scripture.
Historical-critical Scripture scholarship denies that Scripture is either a consistent unity or the voice of the living God, and it does not wish to derive any consequences either with regards to convictions or ethical behavior from the academic study of a purportedly unified Bible. With regard to historical-critical scholarship, Plantinga distinguishes between historical biblical criticism in the line of Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923) and that of Pierre Duhem (1861–1916). Troeltsch denies the unity of Scripture; Duhem accepts the unity of Scripture as a believer, but that unity has no place in his academic work as a biblical scholar.
Troeltsch operates on the basis of four presuppositions:[27]
1. the principle of criticism or skepticism (historical testimony is suspicious and critically reviewed);
2. the principle of analogy (an event can only be accepted if there are analogies for it; for that reason, wonders that cannot be explained by the laws of science, including the salvific events of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, are rejected);
3. the principle of correlation (a natural explanation should be sought for an event);
4. and the principle of autonomy (no binding to authority; for example, Scripture itself, church, confession, or state).
Troeltsch was a liberal Protestant, while Duhem was consciously both an academic scholar and a professing Roman Catholic Christian. However, according to Duhem, science or academic scholarship and belief are two distinct domains, and only by acknowledging this can Christians meaningfully speak to non-Christians about academic issues.
Plantinga shows that when this is applied to biblical scholarship, it means one does not adduce religious, metaphysical, or theological convictions that are not accepted by everyone within the academic community. For example, miracles are not excluded by definition, but the reality of biblical miracles is not one of the presuppositions of this form of biblical scholarship. We can think here in particular of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The same applies to the assertion that the Bible is the inspired word of God.[28]
Historical-critical biblical scholarship in line with Duhem’s views is practiced by numerous biblical scholars who state that they want to be obedient to Scripture. Plantinga acknowledges that the advantage of this approach is that people with very different religious and theological views can participate in a debate on the content of the Bible.[29] However, his fundamental objection is that in this approach, the reality of the salvific events and the unity of the Bible have no place in the academic enterprise. Consequently, relevant evidence and considerations are disregarded.
Plantinga characterizes historical-critical biblical scholarship as a project of the Enlightenment in its attempt to understand the Bible solely from reason, and reason not enlightened by the Holy Spirit at that. Like Abraham Kuyper, he criticizes the Enlightenment.[30]
Plantinga is convinced that science, and certainly theology, can never be undertaken in a neutral manner. Neutrality, especially with regard to the status and content of Scripture, is a myth. If we approach Scripture in an academically neutral way, we can never obtain a full view of the biblical message.[31]
Plantinga sees great danger in a neutral attitude toward Scripture. In this view of academic research, the status of Scripture as the voice of God should have no academic relevance. However, if Scripture really is the voice of God, that fact must by definition have a place in our quest to understand its meaning. Although he never explicitly says so, he never denies that historical-critical biblical scholarship has revealed numerous things about the Bible from which we can profit. Rather, he implies that it has also developed methods that those who practice traditional Christian Bible commentary can use. However, biblical scholars must acknowledge both the content and authority of Scripture in their academic enterprise and distance themselves from the presuppositions of historical-critical biblical scholarship.
The goal of biblical scholarship must be to determine as accurately as possible what the Lord has to teach us in the Bible. Plantinga does not seek to claim that this is always simple.[32] There may and will be many questions and uncertainties about the correct explanation. However, that must not be used as an argument that the Bible is not the perfectly authoritative and reliable source and standard for faith and life. That is what the Bible is, without a doubt. The Bible is authoritative and reliable because it is a revelation of God. God speaks to us in and through the words of the Bible. Once it has become clear what a given Scripture is teaching us, then the accuracy and acceptability of that message can no longer be a question for us.[33]
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VIII. Scripture as the Word of God, Foundationalism and Hermeneutics
The compendium “Behind” the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation includes a slightly revised version of the chapter “Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship” found in Warranted Christian Belief and responses to it from Craig Bartholomew and Robert Gordon.[34] I shall consider Gordon’s response. His objection is that Plantinga pulls traditional Bible commentary too far away from the use of historical-critical methods. In line with Duhem, he advocates making room for historical biblical criticism.
Gordon gives several examples where, according to him, historical biblical criticism is appropriate and it is not sufficient to know in faith that the Bible is the word of God. One such example concerns the differences between the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint, the oldest translation of the Hebrew text: that translation is not infrequently based on Hebrew manuscripts other than those of the (proto-)Masoretic text. Another example is that the Septuagint regularly quoted in the New Testament contains not a strict translation but a rather free interpretation of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Still another is the differences between the two versions of the Ten Commandments, one in Exodus 20 and the other in Deuteronomy 5. He concludes that historical research helps find the right answers to these issues.[35]
Plantinga responds to both Bartholomew and Gordon. In his response to Gordon, he indicates that he sees no real differences between himself and Gordon. He does not ask any questions about the specific examples Gordon gives, stating instead that Gordon’s examples of the uses of historical biblical criticism nowhere endanger the framework of traditional Christian biblical commentary but instead show that it can be used within the framework.[36]
Gordon mentions in his response that unbiased historical biblical criticism shows that the resurrection of Jesus is found in all layers and traditions of the New Testament. One can defend this fact without needing to point to one’s own faith in the divinely inspired character of the New Testament writings. Yet Gordon does agree that it certainly remains a matter of faith to be convinced that Jesus really rose from the dead. Without a doubt, that is also true of recognizing that Jesus died for our sins.[37]
In his response, Plantinga does not comment on Gordon’s statement, but I think there is a difference between him and Gordon. Plantinga is deeply convinced that a Christian biblical scholar should not exclude from his academic work convictions of which he is assured in faith. He especially mentions in this regard that Jesus is God who became man and that he was born of the Virgin Mary, died vicariously on the cross, and rose from the dead.[38]
While for Gordon there is a point at which faith takes over, Plantinga argues that faith ought to guide our reasoning and inform our minds from the beginning of academic research on the Bible. This does not mean that Plantinga thinks a Christian scholar cannot participate in a secular project. For Plantinga, a proper attitude toward Scripture is always connected to a correct understanding of the content of Scripture: this content is the message of creation, sin, reconciliation, redemption, and final consummation.
Because Plantinga assumes the unity of Scripture, revelation from a further stage can provide insight into a text written in an earlier stage. The meaning of a text is never contrary to what the author wrote, but it can go beyond what he saw. This means that, in addition to the historical context, Plantinga also deems the canonical context decisive for the character of the biblical text.
This approach is completely in line with the Reformers’ view of the Bible and biblical commentaries. Behind the many human authors is the one divine author. If a biblical scholar does not recognize this latter fact, he deprives himself of the possibility of penetrating the Bible’s message to the deepest core.[39]
Plantinga’s equating of the Bible with the word of God has consequences for one’s view of the character of both theology and hermeneutics. Theology is reflection not on the way in which we speak about God but, as I mentioned earlier, on the way in which we think God’s thoughts after him. In the first view of theology, the believer or the believing community is the reference point, and in the second, God himself is. Whoever, with Plantinga, equates the Bible with God’s word assumes that objective knowledge of God is possible and that biblical revelation has objective content.
Therefore, Plantinga also rejects the idea that Scripture only informs us about the status, origin, value and purpose of the cosmos, and everything it contains, but says nothing about how the cosmos, and everything it contains, came into being. Thus, he has critical questions about Howard J. van Till’s book The Fourth Day.[40] In it, Van Till argued that the Biblical testimony and the theory of evolution were fully compatible.[41] Van Till, for his part, blamed Plantinga for sidestepping difficult and relevant questions both in the field of epistemology and of the exegesis of Scripture.[42]
In honesty, we must state that in the most recent period, Plantinga developed and actually changed his view. In his book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion & Naturalism (2011), Plantinga argued that the theory of evolution is completely compatible with the Christian faith. Now, he argues that theism better suits evolution than a naturalistic view of the origin of life.[43]
Nevertheless, Plantinga continues to draw attention to a number of matters that are difficult to place within the framework of the theory of evolution. There are, for example, traces of design that we are already encountering in reality. Admittedly, he no longer sees them as incompatible with evolution.
For him, they are not irrefutable arguments for theism, nor for the view that there is indeed a design. Nevertheless, they confront us with epistemic situations in which the most reasonable answer is the belief that there is design.[44] The human ability to know was a reason for Plantinga for many years to reject the theory of evolution as such. Now, it is a reason for him not to go along with the naturalistic version of evolution; but he can accept a theistic version.[45]
I regret this development of Plantinga’s. Anyone who accepts evolutionary theory without any reservation, even if he sees God’s guidance in the process of evolution, cannot do justice to what the Bible says about Adam and Eve as the first human couple expelled from paradise because of their sin. That has major theological consequences. Among them, I would identify the original rectitude of man as a historical reality and original sin as a consequence of the fall of man.
For Plantinga, it remains essential that the whole of Scripture is reliable and authoritative. Because Plantinga as a Christian of the Reformation professes the principle of sola scriptura, that essential means that he is convinced that we hear in the Bible the voice of the living God clearly and unequivocally and can in principle also understand what God means. Plantinga has a realistic view of revelation. That is, he equates the Bible with the Word of God without any reservation.
God reveals His thoughts, although adapted to our comprehension, to us in Scripture. That Plantinga has a realistic view of revelation automatically means that he assumes a realistic view of hermeneutics. That is to say that he holds we can in principle find out both what the text of the Bible meant for its first hearers and readers and its final canonical form. The text of the Bible has a firm and stable meaning.[46]
The Bible is a written communication from God to us people, in which is proclaimed the good news that God, through his Son Jesus Christ, who remained God and became man and died vicariously on the cross, reconciles with himself people who are badly alienated from him by the fall. This biblical message can be grasped by anyone of sound mind. Plantinga is advocating “mere Christianity” here.[47] We must understand Plantinga as saying, “If you fail to discover the aforementioned message as a key theme of the Bible, you are not reading and studying the Bible rightly.”
Plantinga’s approach can be characterized as a form of foundationalism because for him the Bible is the foundation and source of the knowledge of God, and this conviction is a properly basic one. One of the criticisms repeatedly leveled against any form of foundationalism is that it leads to an equating of one’s own understanding of reality with reality itself, and—applied to the Bible—that one’s understanding of the Bible is identified with the content of the Bible itself. Cognizant of this danger, Plantinga is keen to guard against stepping into that trap.[48]
Plantinga insists that our knowledge-producing faculties might not function properly. Therefore, it is possible that the conviction that we have might be—and not just partly but even completely—incorrect, depending on the extent to which the knowledge-producing faculties are malfunctioning. That the inward promptings of God’s Spirit confront us with the Bible as the word of God does not mean that we always understand the Bible correctly. When we speak of Plantinga’s foundationalism, we must acknowledge that it is a moderate form of foundationalism. Plantinga assumes that we can truly know God, but also that in this dispensation we always know him only in part (cf. 1 Cor 14:12). Our knowledge of God can always be sharpened, and time and again it stands in need of adjustment.
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IX. Faith, the Foundation of Understanding
One’s conviction can be undermined or defeated by information that is incompatible, or at least seems incompatible, with what one has been convinced of before. What constitutes a defeater of a conviction depends on what one knows and believes. Whether conviction A is a defeater of conviction B depends not only on one’s current experience but also what other beliefs one has and how firmly they are held.
Plantinga rejects the notion that we can approach Scripture in a methodologically naturalistic manner.[49] In reading and studying Scripture, we may not disregard that the Bible is the inspired word of God. It cannot be studied in an arbitrary fashion, as any other book can. Such an approach does not do justice to the character of Scripture.
It should not be an open issue for me as a Christian—and as a biblical scholar—whether the Lord Jesus Christ really rose from the dead or whether he was really born of the Virgin Mary. The same applies to the conviction that the books of Scripture form an inherently consistent unity. If one does not accept that, one can no longer really and consistently employ the principle of comparing Scripture with Scripture (analogia scripturae).
Highly fundamental for Plantinga is that we do not bind ourselves by what he calls “natural, empirical reason” in the academic research of Scripture. He rejects the idea that we may only use knowledge-producing faculties and sources of conviction that are used in the case of ordinary historiography: sense perception, testimonies (which are then tested for their truthfulness), and reason. On that basis, we would arrive at probability statements at best, whereas the Christian faith is both certain knowledge and conviction; it is trust and deep-rooted assurance. A Christian is entirely sure that everything God has revealed in his word is true.[50]
Plantinga insists that faith explicitly has a cognitive element. While faith is more than knowledge, it is not less than knowledge, either. We are not warranted to deprive faith of the element of knowledge. Fundamentally, we can completely trust the reliability of the biblical testimony, although that does not mean that we always understand that testimony aright.
Although Plantinga is not a biblical scholar himself, he does recommend to us an attitude with which to deal with the questions that confront us when we study Scripture academically. What he recommends is not religion within the confines of reason, as Kant adumbrated, but reason within the confines of religion. Following Augustine, as seen earlier, Plantinga is convinced that faith is the foundation of understanding. We should look for understanding, not from disbelief but from faith. Not unbelief and distrust but faith seeks understanding.[51] Personally, I would add that our lack of satisfying answers to all the questions there are does not have to worry us. No one has them all, whatever their personal convictions.
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X. Conviction that Scripture Is the Voice of God and Abiding in That Conviction
How are we convinced that the Bible is the inspired word of God—the book that has above its many human authors the one divine author—and how do we abide by that conviction? Sense perception brings us into contact with reality outside ourselves. Testimonies connect us to either the recent or the more distant past. Our memories connect us to our own past. Similarly, the sensus divinitatis is the faculty that brings us into contact with God. So, to answer the question of how we are convinced that the Bible is the word of God, we must first refer to this sensus divinitatis. It is by that knowledge-producing faculty that we are completely sure of God’s existence.[52]
The Christian faith claims that we can know God as he really is. Even though God surpasses all our thoughts, he has revealed himself to us in such a way that we can really know who he is. Knowledge of God based on his revelation is reliable knowledge of him. The knowledge that the Christian has of God is based on the Bible. How does one know that the contents of the Bible are true and that our knowledge of God is true knowledge? In addition to the sensus divinitatis, Plantinga adopts, as we have seen already, a second cognitive faculty in respect to faith in God, and that is the inward promptings of the Holy Spirit.[53]
Plantinga rightly points out that the term “cognitive faculty” may not be entirely appropriate here. After all, the Holy Spirit does more than produce in us the faith that propositions—even the momentous propositions of the gospel—are true. Quoting Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards, he makes clear that true faith involves trust, love, and affection.[54]
Nevertheless, it remains true that we are convinced of the divine authority of Scripture by means of the inner voice of the Holy Spirit. Just as I do not need to give any further justification for my observations (as long as my sense perception is functioning properly), I do not, according to Plantinga, need to do so for the beliefs produced by the sensus divinitatis and the inward promptings of the Holy Spirit.
But why, then, is everyone not convinced of the existence of God and certainly not of the triune God who gave us the Bible as his word? Plantinga explains that this is the result of sin. Sin has had a deleterious effect on the sensus divinitatis, which will put us in touch with the living God only if it is functioning correctly.[55]
Since the fall, we need the special revelation that has finally been recorded in writing in the Bible to come to know the living God. Only through the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit, will we hear the Bible as God’s voice and the sensus divinitatis start functioning as God intended at creation.
If cognitive faculties aimed at obtaining truth are to lead to real knowledge and true beliefs, then they must function properly. A suitable environment is a sine qua non for this. For example, an environment in which the existence of God is constantly ridiculed is not a suitable epistemic environment for the proper functioning of the sensus divinitatis.
Plantinga states that the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit is also a cognitive faculty. It is a knowledge-producing faculty bestowed by God that exists in, among other places, the Christian church. Unlike the sensus divinitatis, the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit is not one of the faculties with which man was originally created. It is a merciful gift from God to lost sinners.[56]
The attention Plantinga pays, in regard to cognitive faculties, to the role of the environment or context connects him to postmodernism,[57] though the difference between him and postmodernists is great. For Plantinga, the basic premise is not our experience of reality but reality itself, including the existence of God and the reality of the Bible as the inspired word of God. Further, for Plantinga, the truth that the living God exists and that the Bible is the inspired word of God are the starting points for all ultimate knowledge of reality. Hence, context is never a neutral detail for him, and it is not a reason to abandon the notion of universal rationality, even though not everyone has the same view of what rationality means.
Although Plantinga does not say so in as many words, the testimony of the church over the centuries that the Bible is the word of God forms part of the suitable epistemic environment for the functioning of the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit. Despite his not being categorical about it, this aspect is certainly fundamental for him.[58]
The rationality of faith is, for Plantinga, a rationality guaranteed by the sensus divinitatis and the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit. From that vantage point, one can say that the most profound rationality is the rationality of the heart that believes in the triune and loving God. This does not mean that Christians are more intelligent than non-Christians, but they do possess all the necessary knowledge-producing faculties and abilities, which in principle function in them properly according to the divine design.
What Plantinga brings to the fore in this context is in line with Herman Bavinck’s view that accepting the authority of Scripture is first and foremost a religious and ethical matter.[59] Objections to the Christian faith are never primarily intellectual. Plantinga points to Augustine and Blaise Pascal, both of whom noted that all of the complex and confusing categories of attitudes, affections, and beliefs that constitute the state of sin constitute a fertile field for ambiguity and self-deception.[60] In this respect, his insights could be further developed. Plantinga himself does not much more than note it, but he has certainly given valuable insights to enable others to elaborate on it.
The strength of Plantinga’s approach is that it provides an intellectual substantiation of faith in God and in his Word just as simple, ordinary Christians over the centuries have professed and experienced these realities. For them, these realities are properly basic and are consistently confirmed in their experience of faith.
Therefore, Plantinga also rejects the idea that Scripture only informs us about the status, origin, value and purpose of the cosmos, and everything it contains, but says nothing about how the cosmos, and everything it contains, came into being. Thus, he has critical questions about Howard J. van Till’s book The Fourth Day.[61] In it, Van Till argued that the Biblical testimony and the theory of evolution were fully compatible.[62] Van Till, for his part, blamed Plantinga for sidestepping difficult and relevant questions both in the field of epistemology and of the exegesis of Scripture.[63]
In honesty, we must state that in the most recent period, Plantinga developed and actually changed his view. In his book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion & Naturalism (2011), Plantinga argued that the theory of evolution is completely compatible with the Christian faith. Now, he argues that theism better suits evolution than a naturalistic view of the origin of life.[64]
Nevertheless, Plantinga continues to draw attention to a number of matters that are difficult to place within the framework of the theory of evolution. There are, for example, traces of design that we are already encountering in reality. Admittedly, he no longer sees them as incompatible with evolution.
For him, they are not irrefutable arguments for theism, nor for the view that there is indeed a design. Nevertheless, they confront us with epistemic situations in which the most reasonable answer is the belief that there is design.[65] The human ability to know was a reason for Plantinga for many years to reject the theory of evolution as such. Now, it is a reason for him not to go along with the naturalistic version of evolution; but he can accept a theistic version.[66]
I regret this development of Plantinga’s. Anyone who accepts evolutionary theory without any reservation, even if he sees God’s guidance in the process of evolution, cannot do justice to what the Bible says about Adam and Eve as the first human couple expelled from paradise because of their sin. That has major theological consequences. Among them, I would identify the original rectitude of man as a historical reality and original sin as a consequence of the fall of man.
*
XI The will and the affections
Is the way in which Plantinga speaks about the inward promptings of the Holy Spirit, with so much emphasis on its cognitive side, not rationalistic? Plantinga has not expressly answered this question, but he would, I assume, say that the inward prompting of the Holy Spirit has a rational side but that does not make it rationalistic. What is certain is that, since the publication of Warranted Christian Belief, he hasbegun to pay more attention to the meaning of the will and the affections than previously. By the working of the Holy Spirit, the believer not only understands and accepts what the Bible says, but above all he loves God as the center of Biblical revelation.
Plantinga knows that there can be knowledge of God without love for God. Therefore, following in the footsteps of Calvin, he states that faith ‘reveals a firm and firm knowledge of God’s benevolence towards us, which finds its ground in the truth of the merciful promise in Christ, and by the Holy Spirit is revealed to our minds and sealed in our hearts.’ [67] Just as for Calvin, the sealing of God’s promises to the heart is for Plantinga essential to true faith.
Besides Calvin, Plantinga here mentions Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. For Edwards, true religion is primarily a matter of holy affections. Conversion is therefore fundamentally a turning of the will and a healing of the disorderly affections that afflict us. [68] For Wesley, it was essential that faith be a a felt faith; one must perceive God. In Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga sees it as a part of a fully-fledged, well-grounded Christian life.[69] He seems to be giving it more prominence in Knowledge and Christian Believe.
*
XII Conclusion
We are reaching a conclusion. Essential to the way Plantinga approaches Scripture is that he accepts the Scripture as the voice of the living God. The message of Scripture is a unity that is clear in itself. Thus, Plantinga unreservedly shares the premodern view of the Bible and indeed the premodern view of hermeneutics and the way in which Scripture must be explained. Worldwide, many Christians still read the Bible in this way. This is especially true of the global South, where the Christian church is growing.
However, many theologians and Biblical scholars believe that we cannot read the Scripture in quite the way that the church fathers and reformers did. That, then, is the question that needs to be discussed. Only then can be determined whether or not Plantinga’s insights on TBC and HBC are relevant and can be followed.[70] Plantinga himself is convinced that neither in philosophical currents nor in Scripture scholarship is neutrality possible. Plantinga expressed to strong effect his views of how Christians should use philosophy in his inaugural address at the University of Notre Dame:
But then the Christian philosophical community has its own agenda; it need not and should not automatically take its projects from the list of those currently in favor at the leading contemporary centers of philosophy. Furthermore, Christian philosophers must be wary about assimilating or accepting presently popular philosophical ideas and procedures; for many of these have roots that are deeply anti-Christian. And finally the Christian philosophical community has a right to its perspectives; it is under no obligation first to show that this perspective is plausible with respect to what is taken for granted by all philosophers, or most philosophers, or the leading philosophers of our day.[71]
We can apply these same words to the way in which we approach Scripture and to how we do Scripture scholarship. More than Plantinga does, I would like to argue this for how we deal with data and/or insights from Scripture scholarship and whose voices we can acknowledge without giving up our belief that the Bible is the voice of God. In this regard, the attitude of the New Testament scholar and apologist J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) is exemplary. He conducted thorough research on facts and data, and endeavored to show that the classical-Christian view did really justice to all the data. As an example of his approach I would cite his work on the virgin birth of Christ. In this project, he was convinced that interpreting data is an objective but not a neutral matter.[72]
In more recent times and in our own day, I would mention as exemplars of this attitude the New Testament scholar Donald A. Carson (1946–present) and J.I. Packer (1926–2020), who are both primarily systematic theologians but also well versed in the field of the New Testament.[73] I would also mention Gerhard Maier (1937–present), whose expertise is mainly in the field of the Old Testament. He has argued that whoever accept the principles of historical-critical Scripture scholarship will sooner or later curtail the authority of Scripture. Those who unreservedly recognize the Scripture as the Word of God will not be able to agree with the principles of historical-critical Scripture scholarship.[74]
Congruently with Plantinga, John Piper has argued that he is convinced of the divine authority of Scripture because Scripture is a window affording us a view of God and His glory.[75] Even more powerfully than Plantinga does, Piper makes the case that the authority of Scripture can never be separated from the glory of the triune God. Together with Plantinga, I affirm that our fundamental conviction that the Bible is the Word of God is anterior and superior to evidence.
However, having stated that, I would (more than Plantinga does) draw attention to how this fundamental conviction is confirmed by our experience. In this connection, I would mention that the experience of Christians down the ages have as their common center, Christ. That we are convinced that the Bible is the inspired Word of God does not mean there are no open and unanswered questions for us; but these open and unanswered questions are, for us, not a reason to revise our fundamental conviction regarding Scripture.
John M. Frame (1939–present), who is both a systematic theologian and apologist, offers insights here that add to thought unfolded by Plantinga. Frame argues that all true human knowledge has three dimensions or perspectives: it knowledge of God’s standards, knowledge of our situation, and knowledge of ourselves. Knowledge is the application of God’s revealed standards to our thinking (the normative perspective) on the facts of God’s creation (the situational perspective) by a person who is qualified or enabled to make those applications (the existential perspective).[76]
What does this mean for the conception and confirmation of the belief that the Bible is the Word of God? It means, in the first place, that we accept the self-testimony of Scripture (the normative perspective). Second, it means that we can interpret facts and evidence correctly, and give them their due place (the situational perspective). Finally, the Holy Spirit allows us to evaluate properly the claim of Scripture and the evidence for it (the existential perspective).[77]
To return to Plantinga, the strength of his approach is that it provides an intellectual substantiation of faith in God and in His Word just as simple, ordinary Christians over the centuries have professed and experienced these realities. For them, these realities are properly basic ones and are are consistently confirmed in their experience of faith.
[1] K. Scott Oliphint acknowledges the strength of Plantinga’s epistemology but rejects his defense of free will, claiming that it does not take account of the difference in man’s constitution before and after the fall and so does not take the scope of original sin seriously enough. Oliphint also distances himself from Plantinga in his rejection of divine simplicity. K. Scott Oliphint, Reasons {for Faith}: Philosophy in the Service of Theology (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2006), 94–95, 108, 123–25, 206, 336. I agree with both his appreciation and critique of Plantinga.
[2] Cf. Daniel C. Dennett and Alvin Plantinga, Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). This short book is an elaboration of an exchange that took place at the American Philosophical Association in 2009 between Alvin Plantinga and atheistic thinker Daniel Dennett, professor of philosophy at Tufts University. Herman Philipse, “The Real Conflict between Science and Religion: Alvin Plantinga’s Ignoratio Elenchi,” in European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5.2 (Summer 2013): 87–110. Herman Philipse is a professor of philosophy at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and is one of the foremost Dutch atheistic thinkers stating again and again that religion is unreasonable.
[3] Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), ix–x; 190–91; Knowledge and Christian Belief (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 7–9, 30, 40–41.
[4] See Craig G. Bartholomew, Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive Framework for Hearing God in Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 249, 326, 361, 467.
[5] Ronald Hendel, “Biblical Views: Critical Biblical Scholarship—What’s the Use?,” Biblical Archaeology Review 38.4 (2012): 14.
[6] René van Woudenberg, Toeval en ontwerp in de wereld: Apologetische analyses (Budel: Damon, 2003), 121–24, 126.
[7] “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), 59–61.
[8] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 167ff., 374ff.; Knowledge and Christian Belief , 30ff., 89ff. Cf. Paul De Vries, “The ‘Hermeneutics’ of Alvin Plantinga,” Christian Scholar’s Review 18.4 (June 1989): 363–70. De Vries values Plantinga’s stance and rightly characterizes him on account of his epistemology as a neo-Augustinian: we believe in order to know. However, according to De Vries, we ought to be more humble than Plantinga in stressing the limitations of our prior understandings and potential to learn.
[9] SeeAlvin Plantinga, Warrant: The Current Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 6, 45; Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 77.
[10] Plantinga, Warrant: The Current Debate, 7–8, 110–11.
[11] Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” 87, 90–91.
[12] Cf. René van Woudenberg, “Plantinga’s externalisme: waarborg door het naar behoren functioneren van kenvermogens,” in De kentheorie van Alvin Plantinga, ed. René van Woudenbeg and Bart Cusveller (Zoeterneer: Boekencentrum, 1998), 75–76; Bas Hengstmengel, Denken met het hart: Christelijke filosofie in de traditie van Augustinus en Calvijn (Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn Motief, 2015), 262–63; see also note 9.
[13] For more on premodern theology, see Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725,vol. 2, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003).
[14] See Alvin Plantinga, “Augustinian Christian Philosophy,” in The Augustinian Tradition, ed. George B. Matthews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 1–26.
[15] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 374–421.
[16] Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, 89-106.
[17] Ibid., 89–106.
[18] See Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 290–93; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 70–79.
[19] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 374-421; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 92-106.
[20] Plantinga, Warrant: The Current Debate, 213; Warrant and Proper Function, 21; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 27.
[21] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 30; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 1–3.
[22] Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, 59; Warranted Christian Belief, 248–49, 270–89.
[23] Calvin first used the term sensus divinitatis. “That there exists in the human mind and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity [sensus divinitatis], we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (1845; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 43 (1.3.1).
[24] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 244–46.
[25] Ibid., 167–75, 241–89.
[26] Cf. Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018).
[27] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 390–95; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 99–101.
[28] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 387–88; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 98–99.
[29] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 398; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 101.
[30] Cf. Abraham Kuyper, De Hedendaagsche Schriftcritiek in hare bedenkelijke strekking voor de gemeente des levenden Gods (Amsterdam: Kruyt, 1881).
[31] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 390, 397, 418; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 100–101.
[32] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 381.
[33] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 383–84; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 95; Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 154.
[34] Craig Bartholomew, C. Stephen Evans, Mary Healy, and Murray Rae, eds., “Behind” the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation, Scripture and Hermeneutics 4 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 19–55.
[35] Robert P. Gordon, “A Warranted Version of Historical Biblical Criticism? A Response to Alvin Plantinga,” in “Behind” the Text, ed. Bartholomew, Evans, Healy, and Rae, 84–90.
[36] Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Scripture Scholarship: A Response to Robert Gordon and Craig Bartholomew,” in “Behind” the Text, ed. Bartholomew, Evans, Healy, and Rae, 92–95.
[37] Gordon, “A Warranted Version,” 80, 85.
[38] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 397; “On Heresy, Mind and Truth,” Faith and Philosophy 16.2 (1999): 186.
[39] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 383–85; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 95–96.
[40] Alvin Plantinga, ‘When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible’, Christian Scholar’s Review, XXI/1 (September 1991), 8-33.
[41] Howard J. van Till, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). Van Till was professor of physics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, Plantinga was his colleague from 1968 to 1982. Plantinga argued that evolution cannot explain the origin of human consciousness and does not do justice to the testimony of the Bible that man, being created in the image of God, is substantially different from all other forms of life, the highest animals included. He was deeply convinced that the naturalism underlying the theory of evolution is incapable of giving a sufficient explanation of the entire perceptible reality. Not only from a Christian perspective, but also on the basis of empirical data, he for many years could not accept the common descent of man and animals. See ‘Evolution, Neutrality, and Antecedent Probability: A Reply to Van Till and McMullen’, Christian Scholar’s Review, XX/1 (September 1991), 8–109.
[42] Howard Van Till, ‘When Faith and Reason Cooperate’, Christian Scholar’s Review, XXI/1 (September 1991), 35.
[43] Conflict, 3–63, 307–350.
[44] Conflict, 264.
[45] Conflict, 312ff.
[46] It is possible to take a realistic view of hermeneutics without equating the Bible with the Word of God. This is characteristic of the modern, in contrast to the postmodern, view of hermeneutics.
[47] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, vii, 205–6; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 18, 78.
[48] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 381.
[49] Ibid., 397; 416–20; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 105–6.
[50] Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, 58; cf. Heidelberg Catechism 21.
[51] Cf. section VI above.
[52] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 249–52; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 31–35.
[53] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 258–66; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 61–62.
[54] Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, 72–79.
[55] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 184–86; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 37.
[56] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 290–94; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 70–79.
[57] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 427–37.
[58] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 428; Knowledge and Christian Belief, 61.
[59] Herman Bavinck, “De zekerheid van het geloof [1918],” in Geloofszekerheid, Teksten ingeleid en geannoteerd door Henk van de Belt (Soest: Aspekt, 2016), 64; Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, 3rd printing (Kampen: Kok, 1918), 1:383; Reformed Dogmatics,vol. 1, Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003),366.
[60] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 210.
[61] Alvin Plantinga, ‘When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible’, Christian Scholar’s Review, XXI/1 (September 1991), 8-33.
[62] Howard J. van Till, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). Van Till was professor of physics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, Plantinga was his colleague from 1968 to 1982. Plantinga argued that evolution cannot explain the origin of human consciousness and does not do justice to the testimony of the Bible that man, being created in the image of God, is substantially different from all other forms of life, the highest animals included. He was deeply convinced that the naturalism underlying the theory of evolution is incapable of giving a sufficient explanation of the entire perceptible reality. Not only from a Christian perspective, but also on the basis of empirical data, he for many years could not accept the common descent of man and animals. See ‘Evolution, Neutrality, and Antecedent Probability: A Reply to Van Till and McMullen’, Christian Scholar’s Review, XX/1 (September 1991), 8–109.
[63] Howard Van Till, ‘When Faith and Reason Cooperate’, Christian Scholar’s Review, XXI/1 (September 1991), 35.
[64] Conflict, 3–63, 307–350.
[65] Conflict, 264.
[66] Conflict, 312ff.
[67] J. Calvin, Institution,III, ii, 7. See Warranted Christian Belief, 244.
[68]Knowledge and Christian Belief, 73–74.
[69]Warranted Christian Belief, 288–289.
[70] See **pp. 9 note 16, 11 note 21, 13 note 25. Stanley Hauerwas (Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America [Nashville Abingdon, 1993], 9, 17) expresses the convictions of many when he states that the idea that it is possible to read Scripture on its own terms is pure nonsense. According to him, there is no such thing as any real meaning. Historical meaning is always determined by culture, by the individual, and is time-bound. Scripture only derives its meaning from the framework of its reading by the church. For Hauerwas, this is the only remedy for a subjective reading and explanation of Scripture. However, he does not make clear which readings of the church are acceptable and which are not. If Scripture only derives its meaning from the framework of the church, the Reformation was a huge mistake.
[71] ‘Advice to Christian Philosophers’, Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, 1/3 (1984), 271. See also Groen van Prinsterer, Handboek der geschiedenis van het vaderland, third edition [Amsterdam: Höveker en Zn, 1872], Volume I, 11) regarding his historiography: ‘I do not consider that denial or suppression of one’s own principles are a condition[,] or a warrant a praiseworthy and desired impartiality.’
[72] John Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, second edition (New York: Harper, 1932); See. Terry A. Chrisope, Toward a Sure Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Dilemma of Biblical Criticism, 1881-1915, (Fearn, Ross-shire: Mentor, 2000).
[73] See. Donald A. Carson, Collected Writings on Scripture (Nottingham: Apollos, 2010); ‘The Many Facets of the Current Discussion’, in Enduring Authority, 3–42; J.I. Packer, ‘Infallible Scripture and the Role of Hermeneutics’, in Donald A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Scripture and Truth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 325–358.
[74] Gerhard Maier, Biblische Hermeneutik (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1990). I remark that Maier did not refer to Plantinga. In the early 1990s, Plantinga was not well-known in Europe. Kevin Vanhoozer, in Is There a Meaning in This Text?, 183, 199–200, 206, 288–290, 292, 298–299, 376, explicitly point to the value of the epistemology of Plantinga for hermeneutics. So does Craig G. Bartholomew. See Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics, 57, 249, 291, 326, 348, 361, 445, 466–467. For Bartholomew, the unity of Scripture precedes evidence (it is properly basic), knowledge is never neutral, and we can also have real knowledge of the invisible world of God. Like Plantinga, Bartholomew rejects Kantian epistemology.
[75] John Piper, A Peculiar Glory. How the Christian Scriptures reveal their complete trustworthiness, Wheaton 2016.
[76] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co., 1987), 62–75.
[77] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co., 2010), 311–314.
Dr. P. de Vries - artikelen en opinie 