Divine Methodology: A Lawful Deflection of Kantian and Kantian-esque Defeaters

Abstract

Abstract Immanuel Kant argues that though Divine revelation is ontologically possible, given phenomenal level constraints on our cognitive faculties, it isn’t epistemically possible for us to know or to recognize Divine revelation on the noumenal level of reality. We call this Kant’s Epistemological Objection Against Divine Revelation (EOADR). Contra Kant, in this paper, we argue that the EOADR doesn’t undermine the Reformed tradition’s view of Divine revelation because it has resources that make knowledge of Divine revelation intelligible. The primary way of establishing our argument is by articulating and furthering Alvin Plantinga’s religious epistemology. After doing this, we tackle two objections to our approach that are in the family of Kant‘s objection, namely Stephen Law‘s X-Argument Against Religious Belief and Erik Baldwin‘s Multiple Viable Extensions Objection. Similar to Kant‘s argument, these arguments attempt to show, that the Reformed epistemologist is in danger of acquiring an undercutting defeater for trusting her religious belief. We respond to each in turn.