Not Just ‘Ignorant Fundamentalists’

I have noticed that I am often strongly opposed to that which I do not fully understand. Still, as I keep reading “Knowledge and Christian Belief” by Alvin Platinga, I have the unsettled questions about his premise of natural belief. He refers to Aquinas and Calvin (A/C model), and the sensus divinitatis. He readily admits that this deals with the principle of knowing that there is a God. He wants to reach further, as he stated the fundamental teachings of Christian belief:

“it includes first, the ideas that human beings have fallen into sin and rebelled against God, and second, the incomparable divine response: God sent his Son into the world,  and through his life, sacrificial death, and resurrection we human beings can once more be in a right relationship with God. My aim is to extend the A/C model so that is applies to full-blooded Christian belief in sin, atonement, and salvation. I hope to show how it can be that Christians can be justified, rational, and warranted in holding a full-blooded Christian belief – and not just ‘ignorant fundamentalists’, but sophisticated, aware, educated, twenty-first century people who have read their Freud and Nietzsche, their Hume and Mackie (their Dennett and Dawkins). ( p.45)

I sure appreciate this statement about the content of the Christian faith, and his intention to show how our faith is justified. In turn, to argue that belief in God has warrant and this is sufficient warrant for building knowledge, is interesting and useful.

As I have expressed earlier, I wonder about the validity of a sensus divinitatis, but even if we admit it as a given, what are the effects of the fall of the human nature?

Platinga does come around to talk about sin, defining it more or less as a malfunction and defect. He admits ‘original sin’, as a state of being sinful, with options of doing what is un-godlike, of being selfish, of displaying disbelief. He comments on the affective aspect, which I interpret as moral. Despite his assent to this human flaw, I detect a strong sense of being created with the capacity for faith in God.

(To be fair, this book is not a complete volume of his teaching upon this subject, since the main focus is to argue that the opponents of Christian faith have no valid argument by stating that such faith is irrational or unjustified.)

I think, though, that I have a different fundamental basis in my theological outlook: there is sin – and redemption. There is creation – and redemption. I was once totally unaware of God, and in time I became a Christian. I have no need for an a priori human sense of the divine, not as a premise for my belief. God reached into our world, into my world. There is my a priori statement. God is; and because he acted, I am challenged to respond.

I am redeemed. I still struggle – but I am fundamentally changed: new life. Regenerated. Anyone – Christian or not – has the ability to do good, but only by the power of God can anyone be godly, pleasing to God. The connection between God and myself is based in God, not in me – not in my human faculties. It is based on God’s Spirit in me.  To see the change in thought, will, - the intellectual and affective, which Platinga refers to, will take me a lifetime; and it is not necessarily accumulative. This is another caveat I may have to consider.