Abstract
A proof is offered that aims to show that there can be no knowledge of God, excluding knowledge based on natural theology, without divine self-testimony. Both special and general revelation, if they occur, would be forms of divine self-testimony. It is argued that this indicates that the best way to model such knowledge of God is on the basis of an analogy with knowledge gained through testimony, rather than perceptual models of knowledge, such as the prominent model defended by Plantinga. Appropriate causal chains and reliable cognitive processes only seem at best to ensure that a belief proposed for acceptance is the belief the testifier wants accepted; they do not ensure that it is rational to accept the belief. This particularly applies where there is much at stake, where it seems rational to seek some form of evidence, if available. Some brief comments are made on Trinitarian self-testimony. Another model of the ‘inner witness’ is briefly sketched out, based on the analogy with conscience. This model may capture some of the features of Plantinga’s approach, but leaves room for a free rejection of divine self-testimony, in a way that the perceptual analogy does not. A point connected to Plantinga’s aims is then made about the link between evidence, value and divine self-testimony, in relation to religious experience. Finally, it is suggested that the earlier proof may apply in a particular sense to all knowledge of God, including that based on natural theology.
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Notes
For the sake of convenience the assumption will be made here that God exists and that there is knowledge of God. The argument can, however, be put in conditional form: if God exists and if knowledge of God is possible, then such knowledge, aside from any knowledge based on natural theology, must be based on divine self-testimony.
I do not include here what might be called ‘conditional natural theology’; conditional truths about God, if there is a God. Many of these can be naturally known, that is, known by natural powers of reasoning: e.g. if there is a God, then God created this world, God currently upholds this world, and so on.
It is also worth comparing Mavrodes (1988) account to Blauuw’s. Mavrodes (1988, p. 88) sees the core of what happens in revelation as: \(m\) reveals \(a\) to \(n\) by way of \(k\). \(m\) is the agent of revelation, \(a\) the content of the revelation, \(n\) the person to whom the revelation is given, and \(k\) the form or means which God uses. Under the account in this article, \(a\) would be divine self-testimony, and the form, \(k, \)could only be forms of either verbal or non-verbal signs. I have not commented here on whether non-verbal signs can be intelligible without a propositional background, or whether they are only intelligible if they can be propositionally expressed. Note that if God gives a sense of conviction that itself is a non-verbal sign.
I do not have space here to deal with Wynn’s (2011) recent interesting article on the phenomenology of conversion. Wynn draws in part on Scruton’s (1979) work on aesthetics, noting how our experience of places (Scruton’s focus is on architecture) can be altered by our interpretative concepts about those places. Wynn notes the ‘the capacity of religious concepts to shape the perceptual field, where the resulting structure can then be further shaped according to the nature of our emotional engagement with its parts’ (2011, p. 6). If the argument of this article is correct this entire ‘resulting structure’ cannot be formed without some form of divine self-testimony being relied on.
I have not engaged here with the vast literature on Plantinga’s model. I am not aware of the points made in this article being made in that literature. For a very helpful book summarising many responses to Plantinga, see Beilby (2005).
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for raising this point.
This question was also raised by the previously mentioned referee.
This approach draws on Palamas. A very helpful summary of this approach can be found in Lossky (1976, pp. 67–90). See also Lossky (1963). For a helpful discussion of differences between Aquinas and Palamas, see Williams (1999). For a historical account of metaphysical differences between East and West, particularly relating to the Aristotelian background of the notion of the divine energies, see Bradshaw (2004). See also the discussion in King (2008, pp. 91–97).
I am particularly grateful to William Wainwright for some very helpful correspondence. I also owe thanks to John Webster, Adam Green and Mark Wynn for helpful background input. I am also grateful for the comments of an anonymous referee for this journal.
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King, R. Divine self-testimony and the knowledge of God. Int J Philos Relig 74, 279–295 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-012-9389-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-012-9389-7