Tayloring Reformed Epistemology: Charles Taylor, Alvin Plantinga and the de jure Challenge to Christian Belief. By DEANE-PETER BAKER.

Abstract

In Part I of this book, Baker assesses the Reformed epistemologies of Wolterstorff, Alston, and Plantinga; though Plantinga fares best, all are considered to fail to answer the de jure challenge to Christian belief: they give no adequate reason why, even if it is conceded that Christians are justified or warranted in holding their beliefs, an outsider should consider these sufficiently more plausible than their alternatives to merit serious enquiry. In Part II, Charles Taylor's moral phenomenology, found principally in his Sources of the Self, is invoked to make good this lack. Taylor's argument for a morality based on goods incomparably higher than ordinary moral goods, the best account of which is supplied by Christian theism, shows that Christianity offers an alternative to secular naturalism which is at least plausible enough to require critics of Christian theism to consider whether it might be true. I could not always see how Baker's proposal differs from arguing that Christian theism is in fact true (the de facto, rather than de jure, question); nor does he explain why Taylor's thought should be considered any more supportive of Plantinga's sensus divinitatis than any other plausible natural theology. Nonetheless, this in an interesting book which can safely be recommended as introductory reading in its field.