From Calvin’s idea of the self-authenticating authority of Scripture firmly attached by the testimony of the Spirit, what implication can we draw out to discern his epistemological stance? When Calvin (Inst 1.8.1) says that ‘unless this foundation is laid, its authority will always remain in doubt,’ did he intend to imply that his position was “foundationalistic”? If we admit that Calvin is foundationalist, is there any difference between Calvin’s foundationalism and modern classical foundationalism? In the book on religious epistemology Warranted Christian Belief, the Reformed epistemologist Alvin Plantinga looks into Calvin’s thought on the authority of Scripture from the viewpoint of the rational justification of belief in God and in the Christian message — in Plantinga’s terms, “warrant,” which indicates the property to make the difference between knowledge and mere true belief (2000:xi). According to Plantinga (1983:72; 2000:175), Christian belief in God is “properly basic” in a sense that ‘it is rational to accept it without accepting it on the basis of any other propositions or beliefs
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at all.’ Warrant for this theistic belief is given in a much more immediate way, that is, the sensus divinitatis in Calvin’s thought. God has created us in such a way that we have a strong tendency towards belief in Him. ‘Were it not for the existence of sin in the world, human beings would believe in God to the same degree and with the same natural spontaneity that we believe in the existence of other persons, an external, or the past’ (Plantinga 1983:66). In the same breath, Plantinga (2000:259) asserts that belief in the authority of Scripture as the Word of God is formed in the basic way: it does not proceed by way of rational arguments. The difference is that whereas the basic belief in the existence of God obtains its warrant by way of the sensus divinitatis as a universal bestowal upon the human beings, the basic belief in Scripture as the Word of God is a
particular bestowal upon believers by the intrusion of the Spirit into their mind.
Plantinga continues to spell out what Calvin means by the concept of “self- authenticating.” In Plantinga’s estimation (2000:260), Calvin does not mean to say that ‘the Holy Spirit induces belief in the proposition the Bible…comes to us from the very
mouth of God.’ Rather, the Holy Spirit teaches us the internal cognitive content of
Scripture and convinces us to believe that the teaching of Scripture is both true and from God. In this sense, what Calvin claims with the idea of the self-authentication of Scripture is in no sense that the truths of the gospel are self-evident in terms of modern classical foundationalism. Calvin does not intend to say that ‘Scripture is self- authenticating in the sense that it offers evidence for itself or somehow proves itself to be accurate or reliable’ (Plantinga 2000:261). Rather, what Calvin actually means is that ‘Scripture is self-authenticating in the sense that for belief in the great things of the gospel to be justified, rational, and warranted, no historical evidence and argument for the teaching in question, or for the veracity or reliability or divine character of Scripture …are necessary’ (Plantinga 2000:262). To put it another way, Calvin’s idea of self- authentication should not be interpreted as “incorrigible,” “indubitable,” or “self- validating” in terms of classical foundationalism not least because the Reformed thinkers might be at odds with the idea of classical foundationalism, according to which in every rational noetic structure emerges a set of beliefs taken as basic and those basic beliefs must be self-evident or incorrigible to senses (Plantinga 1983:72; 2000:175). In this regard, Calvinist theologian Paul Helm (2004:255) also points out that ‘it would be
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anachronistic to suppose that Calvin was using “foundation” in a way that coincides with modern epistemological usage.’
It seems that Plantinga, as an epistemologist, interprets Calvin’s idea of self- authentication from the concern with the rational justification or warrant of Christian belief. In other words, Plantinga appeals to Calvin’s account of the testimony of the Spirit for an externalist epistemology. However, Plantinga’s focus on rationality is to some degree different from what Calvin has in mind. As noted before, Calvin’s main concern was piety and spirituality of God’s people rather than rationality or warrant. It may be that Calvin endorses the reasonableness of accepting the teachings of Scripture as the Word of God on the testimony of the Spirit, since God is the source of all truths and all rationality. Nevertheless, it seems more plausible to me that the centre of gravity in Calvin’s thinking about the self-authentication of Scripture lies in a religious and pietistic question rather than an epistemological question about rational justification. In this sense, Helm rightly says (2004:269):
Rather than have a characteristically modern interest in reason and rationality, Calvin has a pre-modern concern with religious authority, and with different and competing sources of such authority….Perhaps it is more rational to have the Bible grounded in itself rather than in something external to it, but that (for Calvin) is not the main point, and may not be the point at all.
Keeping in mind the fact that the main emphasis of epistemology is on exploring methods of analysing rational justification, approaching Calvin’s thought merely from an epistemological perspective fails to do justice to his concern for religious piety. Calvin’s main concern is not to find a correct epistemological method for providing us with reliable knowledge. Calvin does not express so much interest in knowledge in the classical sense of scientia, which is gained by discursive proofs, as the certainty or credibility of notitia. Thus, for Calvin, ‘credibility of doctrine is not established until we are persuaded beyond doubt that God is its Author’ (Inst 1.7.4).
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Given our discussion so far, Calvin’s idea of knowledge is to be described as a kind of what William Abraham calls “theological foundationalism” (1998:137). This descrip- tion needs some qualification. As is pointed out repeatedly, Calvin’s theological foundationalism should be distinguished from modern epistemological foundationalism. In the modern epistemological sense, Calvin’s position is certainly not a species of evidentialism since no reasoning from external evidence is involved. However, it is not saying that Calvin’s position is purely internalistic. The self-authentication of Scripture is evidence-relevant. At this point, it is worth quoting Helm at length on Calvin’s middle way (2004:275):
When assessed in terms of the externalism-internalism contrast Calvin can at best be only a half-way house externalist; externalist with respect to the mechanism of the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, but internalist with respect to the immediacy of the evidence on which the belief is grounded. When he refers to the divine side of self-authentication, to the faith-producing activity of the Holy Spirit, to his illumination of the mind, this has a distinctly externalist ring to it. The Spirit must ‘penetrate into our hearts to persuade us’, he seals the truth in our hearts, we must be ‘illumined by his power’. But where he refers to the human side of things, this penetrating and sealing activity of the Spirit is manifested in discerning the majesty of God upon reading or hearing Scripture. It is on account of the perception he has of this majesty and other connected matters that the believer forms the immediate conviction that this is the Word of God, but this conviction is formed and imbued in the mind by the illuminating work of the Spirit. So this looks not to be purely externalist…but an externalist-internalist hybrid [italics mine].
To conclude: Calvin’s thought on epistemology may be seen as a kind of foundational- ism, not in a sense of modern epistemological foundationalism which seeks for self- evident and incorrigible foundation for knowledge, but in a theological sense which concerns for soteriology and spirituality. Hence, Calvin’s theological foundationalism must be identified with neither classical epistemological foundationalism nor scriptural foundationalism. Unlike a modern tendency to collapse into the object-subject dichotomy, Calvin’s thought on the knowledge of God and ourselves, due to its great
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interest in spirituality and piety, kept chartering a middle way between objectivity and subjectivity, between externalist and internalist.