The New Permissiveness in Philosophy: Does it Provide a Warrant for a New Kind of Religious Apologetic?

Abstract

Doubtless, the very title of my paper is likely to strike readers, if such there be, as puzzling, not to say even downright perplexing. For will not many be inclined to ask what I could possibly mean by my talk of “a new permissiveness” in philosophy? Is not the regnant philosophy today none other than so-called analytic philosophy, or linguistic philosophy, if you will? And what could be more noted for its rigor and precision, not to say its very impermissiveness, than just such a philosophy? Besides, even if we grant that the newly prevailing fashions in present-day philosophy would appear to encourage a new-found permissiveness, how could anyone ever imagine that the Goodmans, the Quines, the Davidsons, or the Rortys of this world--to mention only a few from the present-day philosophic establishment--are any of them the least bit interested in exploiting such a new-found permissiveness in the interests of a supposed new-found Christian religious apologetic?

Footnotes

1/This paper was originally delivered as an address before the Society for Christian Philosophers, at a meeting that was hosted by Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in October 1985.

2/The argument of this paper is restricted to a consideration of but two articles of Plantinga’s. The one entitled “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology,” originally appeared in Vol. LIV of the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1980, pp. 49-62, and was later reissued in the Christian Scholar’s Review Vol. XI, No. 3, 1982, pp. 187-199. (In this present paper reference will made to the article as it appeared in the Proceedings of the A.C.P.A.) The other, entitled “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” appeared in Faith and Philosophy_, Vol. I, No. 3, July, 1984, pp. 253-271.Perhaps it should be mentioned also that in the same issue of the Christian Scholar’s Reivew, in which Al Plantinga’s paper appeared, there was published also a very interesting rejoinder to the paper, entitled “The Reformed objection to natural theology: A Catholic perspective,” by Joseph Boyle, Jr., J. Hubbard, and Thomas G. Sullivan. This latter piece, interesting and telling as it is, nevertheless raises rather different issues in regard to Plantinga’s paper than those which I have chosen to consider in this present paper. For that reason, I felt there was no need to take it into account in the present discussion.I might add that after I had written the paper and delivered it before the Society of Christian Philosophers, there came to my attention for the first time the quite remarkable book, entitled Faith and Philosophy: Reason and Belief in God, edited by Plantinga and Wolterstorff (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983). The leading essay in this volume is by Plantinga himself, and represents an expansion of his earlier discussions in the two articles mentioned above. Had I read this essay before I wrote my own paper, there are certain things I probably would have said somewhat differently. Yet such differences, I feel sure, would have not been of such moment as to involve any revision of my own basic line of argument against Plantinga. That’s why I’m allowing my own paper to be published in pretty much the same form as that in which it was originally delivered.

3/“The Reformed Objection,” p. 53.

4/Hebrews 11:1.

5/“The Reformed Objection,” pp. 53 ff.

6/Ibid., p. 56.

7/Ibid., p. 57.

8/Ibid., p. 58.

9/Ibid., p. 58. It should be noted perhaps that in what follows I am afraid that I do not speak very directly to Plantinga’s response to “the Great Pumpkin objection.” One reason for this is that it is difficult to see how his response amounts to much more than a repudiation of the objection, on the ground that the objection is just too far-fetched, and that therefore it is hard to see how anyone could be serious in pressing such an objection in the first place.

10/Ibid., p. 58.

11/It might be noted that when I read this paper before the Society of Christian Philosophers, I was subjected to especially spirited challenges on this very point from any number of the then Plantinga partisans in the audience. “Nowhere,” they insisted, “does Plantinga ever fall back on any such mere pragmatic criterion. Such a point of objection to my argument, however, rests upon a misunderstanding, I believe. For nowhere in my paper do I assert that Plantinga actually does embrace such a criterion in so many words. No, my only contention is that whether Plantina himself concedes or does not concede, that he must finally resort to such a pragmatism, he unfortunately has nowhere else to go! For his notion of ”epistemic rights“ would seem to reduce him to such epistemic straits as to leave him no exit save into the arms of pragmatism.

12/Willard Van Orman Quine, From a Logical Point of View 1953 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press), p. 44.