Alvin Plantinga and natural theology

Abstract

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