The Extended Aquinas/Calvin Model: Revealed to Our Minds

Abstract

Abstract In Ch. 6, I presented a model (the Aquinas/Calvin, or A/C, model), which illustrates how belief in God could have the three varieties of positive epistemic status with which we have been concerned: justification, rationality, and warrant. My main aim in this chapter is to extend the A/C model to cover full‐blooded Christian belief (e.g., belief not just in God, but in trinity, incarnation, atonement, salvation, Christ's resurrection, etc.); this model (the extended A/C model) illustrates how Christian belief can be justified, rational, and warranted. The central elements of the extended A/C model are the Bible, the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, and faith; I begin the chapter with a quick overview of these three elements. I then look more carefully at faith, which is, in part, belief in the central teachings of the gospel that results from the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, and show how Christian belief can be justified, rational, and warranted, according to the model. In the final four sections of the chapter, I (1) explore and defend the claim that Christian belief is properly basic, (2) show why the supernaturally inspired writings (the Bible) and the individual action of the Holy Spirit, which are part of the model are so important (and here I scrutinize one popular approach to Christian apologetics), and (3) argue that if Christian belief is true, then very likely it does have warrant in the way suggested by the extended A/C model, or in some similar way.