Michael said:
<<a knowledge of God's goodness is . . . . not included in Calvin's natural
knowledge of God thesis,.Jeffreys sees Plantinga's =
discussion of the sensus divinitatis to be too optimistic and not =
focused enough on Calvin's negative assessment of the outputs of the =
sensus divinitatis.>>

Erik:
Everyone, to one degree or another, is blessed by God (it rains on the justand
the unjust) and experiences God's handiwork (a sunset, etc.) and fromthis at
least should recognize the true God, but this is a far cry fromactually
expereicing God himself. We do well to not confuse the
expereincing God's haniwork or his blessing with experiencing God. But
still, even unbelievers must, to some degree "know what they are missing",i
would think. I don't know how to exactly argue for this, but it wouldseem that
unbelievers experience at least some of the goodness and blessingsof God and
call him or worship him as someone else; hence the rampantidolatry and the
existence of so many religious traditions.

[Michael Sudduth] Erik, yes, this is an interesting point. In the article I
referred to Jeffreys says that Calvin never claims that the sensus divinitatis
generates the belief that God is benevolent. He takes this "benevolence" to mean
that God is "the fountain of every good, and that we seek nothing elsewhere than
in him" (Institutes1.2.1) as well as "the knowledge of his benefits" which
reverence for and love of God induces (Institutes1.2.1). Jeffreys then says:
"The pious mind trusts that God is the author of all goodness, and expresses
love, obedience, and gratitude towards God constantly" (p. 422). It certainly
seems that the SD does not produce knowledge of God in the sense that includes
this element of piety or the affecting awareness of God that moves us to obey
and love God (at least not for unregenerate folk). Jeffreys appears to connect
this with a specific propositional knowledge. I'm not quite persuaded of this
for the very reason that you introduce, namely that it really depends on what we
pump into "benevolence." Maybe the SD doesn't produce the conjunctive belief
that <God is the source of every good and we ought to seek all things in him>,
but this would be consistent with it producing the belief that God is the causal
source of various temporal blessings, even if the person remained ungrateful for
these.

I suppose this raises the question of common grace. Is there such a thing? If
so, can the unbeliever know it? Or can he only know a general proposition like
<God is benevolent>, but not similar propositions with an indexical element,
<God is benevolent towards me>? It may be that Calvin is also thinking of the
primacy of special grace and hence blessings which include gospel blessings.

Michael:
<<Calvin thinks that "power (omnipotence?)", "having no beginning" and
"being"self-existent" is conceptually tied to "there is a God (who is =
the Creator)" such that natural knowledge of God must include that. =
"When we have arrived at this point, divinity becomes known to us." But Calvin
denies that from this we can know who or of what sort of being God is.>>

Calvin accepts God's necesary existence. Yet, if we retain the
"metaphysical" implications of necessary existence, we can also derive (if
we accept such "Hegelesque" deductions) other attributes that this God be
absolute, ungenerabley/imperishable, eternality, etc ....It would seem that even
the most pagan ofnatural theologians can deduce the goodness of God from
experience. If thisis so, then unbelievers can form ideas about what sort of
being God is,without having any idea who he is. This is not enough for
"savingknowlege", but it is more than Calvin would seem to allow.

[Michael Sudduth] Yes, this seems right if we can deduce "goodness" from a
consideration of more fundamental attributes. For instance, Swinburne thinks
that one can deduce God's goodness from his omniscience and perfect freedom. But
how one gets from these sorts of propositions to one's including personal
indexicals is another issue.

Michael:
<<<<Interestingly, enough, in his *Commentary on Acts,* =
Calvin says that Paul gave natural arguments for "who" and "what" God is (in
Acts 17). Hmmm.>>>>

Also, given the nature of
Calvin's comment here, it would seem that Paul engages in Natural theologywhich
is enhanced by "The renewal of his mind" (God's work in hismind/heart/soul which
"fixes bent cognitive processese as well as
malfunctioning SDs). So, it would seem that natural theology is a good
thing and can produce true knowledge of God independant of "special
revelation." Especially if those with properly functioning SDs are doing
the natural theology! ... But, I would argue that any natural theology that
isreliable (produces true beliefs more than %50 of the time) would have to
rely on special revelation for its success.

[Michael Sudduth] Yes, Calvin's comment on Paul in Acts was the main reason why
I did not deny a knowledge God's goodness as part of man's natural knowledge of
God in my articles (in fact included it in one of them). Whether this is to be
attributed to the SD or involves some other faculties is an interesting
question. But prima facie, it does seem that Calvin thought (at some point) that
one could reason to propositions about God's goodness without an appeal to
Scriptural testimony or special revelation.

In the Acts passage, the conclusion that Paul reasons to according to Calvin is
the providence of God, his upholding and governing all things, e.g. bringing
rain upon the earth, heat from the sun giving growth, abundance of food, etc.
This seems connected to God's goodness, or common grace. Secondly, Calvin
*explicitly* states: "Wherever they turn their eyes, upwards or downwards, they
are bound to fall on living, and indeed countless, reminders of God's power,
wisdom, and goodness. For God has not given obscure hints of His glory in the
handiwork of the world, but has also engraved such plain marks everywhere, that
they can be known also by touch by the blind. From that we gather that men are
not only blind but stupid, when they are helped by such very clear proofs, but
derive no benefit from them." (Acts Commentary, pp.118-119)

It may be that Calvin is saying here that the evidences of God's goodness are
present in the created order and humans would have a natural knowledge of God's
goodness on this basis if it weren't for sin. In other words, they are "not
benefited" in the sense that they lack the knowledge. I rather doubt this
interpretation, even though some may lack this knowledge due to individual
cognitive malfunctions of the sort which I mentioned in the original post. After
all, Calvin also includes here a knowledge of God's power, which in the Romans
Commentary he includes in what even sinful human persons can know about God. It
doesn't follow that everyone in fact has this knowledge of God's goodness. The
account of hamartic cognitive malfunction that I have in the original post
provides an explanation of why that is this case.

BTW, Calvin's Commentary notes make it clear that Calvin did believe in
inferential natural knowledge of God. Plantinga now admits this (at any rate did
so in private conversation), but for his own model chooses to go with basic
knowledge of God (which could of course be helped in certain ways by evidences).

On your last point, Erik, I should think that the fact that Paul argued to God's
existence and (some aspects of his nature) by appealing to premises that
excluded special revelation counts against your last claim. The fact that Paul
assumed special revelation doesn't quite seem relevant for the reliability of
the argument he presented to the pagans, which certainly appears to be the basis
on which Paul is appealing to them to accept the conclusions (at least for the
moment). Plus, if one thinks that "reliability" of belief formation or cognitive
processes is necessary for knowledge, denying the reliability of natural
arguments entails (so it seems to me) that there is no natural knowledge of God
for unregenerate persons or persons who have not accepted biblical revelation.
But this seems to contradict Romans chapter 1 and what Calvin says elsewhere.
And in passing, a cognitive faculty that produced true beliefs only 51% of the
time wouldn't be reliable would it? Reliability requires a *high* (statistical)
probability of true beliefs, so "more than 50% of the time" is too weak.

Michael



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