A Priori Argument in Theological Disciplines

Abstract

MPIRICAL theology flourished in the Deist movement of the Enlightenment period. One learned about God from nature, not from revelation or the authoritative deliverance of the Bible, church, or clergy. However, the weaknesses of empirical theology were apparent even then. Indeed, the most severe intellectual crises of the period were those in which the assumptions of empirical theology were thrown in question. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 troubled Voltaire deeply in that it seemed to cast doubt on God's beneficent providence, and Hume was apprehensive about the furor that would result from publishing his devastating attack on the argument from design. To be sure, impressive empirical theologies have been developed since that time, especially by J. S. Mill and F. R. Tennant, and occasionally one still finds attempts to revive the argument from design. Nevertheless, contemporary Western culture lacks the sense of necessary progress in history, the confidence in human nature, and the conviction of absolute orderliness in the physical world which buttressed empirical theology in its heyday. The cultural death of the God of empirical theology meant the end of rational theology as well, because the rational alternatives to the empirical approaches, notably the ontological argument, appeared to be even weaker. The result has been, of course, that rational theology has come to be radically questioned. The purpose of this essay is to show that rational theology depends not at all on the acceptability of empirical theism or on any of the traditional theistic proofs. I will argue that any adequate theology must be based on what is conceptually required by the ideal object of worship and indeed that a priori argument is preeminently appropriate to the God of religion. Furthermore, I will give a sample of what can be substantively achieved by a priori argument in theology, and I will relate my findings to some recent studies in the epistemology of religion. The question I will ask is: How must we talk, if we are to talk at all, about the God who is the adequate object of religious worship? In the Kantian spirit, I intend that this be an exercise in critical, rather than speculative, philosophy. In order to achieve perspective on the problem, let us examine the traditional place of argument in religion and the relation of argument to the religious life. We should note initially that the role of argument has not been limited to the theistic proofs. There are also arguments for the impossibility of God's existence, for the