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The Prospects for ‘Mediate’ Natural Theology in John Calvin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Michael L. Czapkay Sudduth
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Extract

In the present paper I consider the plausibility of a mediate natural theology in John Calvin. First, utilizing Robert Audi's distinction between ‘episodically’ and ’structurally’ inferential beliefs, I show that a plausible case can be made for the compatibility of a mediate theology corresponding to both these forms of inferential belief with salient features of Calvin's theology. Second, I apply Calvin's view on arguments for Scripture to theistic belief and suggest a way of construing natural theology as an intra-faith practice aimed at satisfying the cognitive desideratum of reflective nationality–a calvinistic project of fides quaerens intellectum.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 53 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Battles, Ford Lewis, in the Library of Christian Classics, vol. XX–XXI (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960).Google Scholar

2 See Platt, John, Reformed Thought and Scholasticism: The Arguments for the Existence of God in Dutch Theology, 1575–1650 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982)Google Scholar, especially chapters 3–6, and 8.

3 Dowey, Edward, The Knowledge of God in Calvin's Theology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), p. 77.Google Scholar

4 Parker, T. H. L., Calvin's Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), pp. 7–9.Google Scholar

5 Plantinga, Alvi, ‘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. 65–67.Google Scholar

6 Calvin, John, Calvin's Commentaries: The Acts of the Apostles 14–28, tr. Fraser, John W. and ed. Torrance, David W. and Torrance, Thomas F. (London: Oliver and Boyd, 1966), p. 13.Google Scholar

7 See John Platt, Reformed Thought and Scholasticism; John Patrick Donnelly, ‘Italian influences on the Development of Calvinistic Scholasticism,’ The Sixteenth Century Journal, VII:81–101 (April, 1976), ‘Calvinistic Thomism,’ Viator, 7:441–5 (1976); McGrath, Alister, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1987)Google Scholar, chapter 8.

8 It is this sort of knowledge which is often under consideration when Calvin draws attention to the limitations of man's natural knowledge of God.

9 Dowey, , The Knowledge of God in Calvin's Theology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), pp. 24–27.Google Scholar

10 This account is taken from Alston, William, ‘An Internalist Externalism’ in Epistemic Justification (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 228–231.Google Scholar

11 See Alston, William, ‘Concepts of Epistemic Justification’ and ‘An Internalist Externalism’ in Alston, , Epistemic Justification (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 99–101, 227–229.Google Scholar

12 See Audi, Robert, The Structure of Justification (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 237–239.Google Scholar

13 For a discussion on the early controversy over innate natural knowledge of God, see John Platt, Reformed Thought and Scholasticism.

14 I am indebted to Nicholas Wolterstorff for pointing out this possibility to me.

15 Acts of the Apostles 14–28, p. 13.

16 Ibid., p. 109.

17 Ibid., p. 112.

18 Ibid. pp. 118–119.

19 Calvin's discussion here could very well shed light on how we are to understand such terms as ‘evidence’ and ‘proofs’ in the earlier sections which treated the knowledge of God as creator. In relation to Scripture, the terms ‘evidence(s)’ and ‘proof(s)’ are clearly used to indicate ‘argument,’ especially since the latter term is used in close connection with (perhaps even as an equivalent to) the former terms.

20 In fact, it was the case very early on. The introduction of theistic arguments as apologetically-oriented among Reformed theologians is carefully brought out by John Platt in Reformed Thought and Scholasticism. The interest in employing theistic arguments for the purpose of Christian apologetics begins to emerge in Ursinus and appears explicitly in Daneau by 1583.

21 Anselm, , Cur Deus Homo? in St. Anselm: Basic Writings, 2nd ed., tr. Deane, S. N. (1962; reprint, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1964), p. 178.Google Scholar

22 But the apologetic here is in all probability directed towards non-Christians (Jews and Moslems) rather than non-theists, as it is, not the existence of God, but the doctrine of the incarnation that is at stake.

23 Cur Deus Homo? Book 1, Chapter 1 (p. 179).

24 Plantinga, , ‘The Prospects for Natural Theology,’ Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991), pp. 311–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar