"Evidentialism, Reformed Epistemology and the Holy Spirit"

Some reflections on the above titled paper by John M. DePoe, Western Michigan University:

A non-philosopher tries to make sense of a philosophical discussion:

1. DePoe notes that Evidentialism is criticized "for allegedly eliminating the possibility for justified belief in God among the unlettered faithful" who fail to acquire sufficient rational reasons for belief (P1):

By this understanding of justified belief no mathematician would have a justified belief in the theorems of mathematics who had not reproven all of those theorems for himself. This would leave most of us with no more than a handful, at best, of justified beliefs about anything. Is this definition of justified belief worth anything to anyone? In our normal daily living what we are usually working with are not "justified" beliefs but "justifiable" beliefs. This discussion about justification seems to take too personal a view of belief. What if we look at justified beliefs as community property rather than the property of an individual. Does the community have a justified belief, x, which is supported by the collective thinking of the community? If so, why can the theoretical fourteen year old in question not be seen to share a "justified" belief with his community? Justified beliefs are not necessarily true but the youth can have sound reasons for standing with the community. The question for Evidentialism is not whether some individual has acquired sufficient reasons for a justified belief but whether empirical evidence is at all capable of justifying belief in God.

2. DePoe finds two key epistemic roles for the Holy Spirit from his review of Scripture: "providing testimony to the truth of Christianity and conferring confidence to believers."

DePoe presents these roles as a way forward in strengthening the Evidentialist's case by using it to shore up the evidence and to act as evidence themselves. I agree that the Holy Spirit acts to reinforce the impact of the evidence but not that this action of the Holy Spirit is itself evidence. How would it be possible to assess or count as evidence the fact that I feel convinced or I feel certain about my beliefs?

"No matter what a believer’s educational background and philosophical expertise are, all believers’ evidential support for belief in God will include at least one piece of evidence—the testimony of the Holy Spirit." (P6)

How can this testimony be counted or evaluated as evidence? Is it the fact that a person believes without evidence, or believes with weak evidence, or believes in the face of evidence to the contrary? It would seem that it would be only under such conditions that this "testimony" would show itself. In which case it would raise the question of either a slide into irrationality or into fideism, both of which DePoe is concerned to avoid.

3. I find the following statement theologically disconcerting:

"At first blush, it seems that taking this second work of the Holy Spirit seriously
commits one to fideism. If the Holy Spirit’s testimony is construed in such a way that it
always swamps the opposing evidence for belief in God, the rest of the evidence seems
irrelevant. Moreover, assigning an indefinitely large evidential value to the testimony of
the Holy Spirit would make Christians “undefeatable”—a position non-believers find
frustrating (at best) or intellectually dishonest (at worst). Finally, this evidence may seem
unfair since it is “private.” Unbelievers will hardly be impressed by alleged evidence to
which they have no access." (P6)

DePoe does not want to find himself in a position where the Holy Spirit's testimony can "swamp the opposing evidence" or "make Christians 'undefeatable'" or "frustrate non-believers" or appear "intellectually dishonest" etc. I don't know how this position is avoidable for the Christian. The Christian position on divine testimony cannot be that "the heavens declare the possibility of the glory of God and the firmament might, under some readings, show his handiwork" (Psalm 19). There can be no way around saying to the non-believer that "what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them" (Romans 1:19 - see Paul's whole discussion in this chapter). I don't think we have any choice but to root belief in Revelation. The task of the apologist is to show that the position this puts us in is reasonable and makes sense on the empirical evidence that we have. In turn we attempt to show that their own position, based on their own premises, is not justifiable.

With respect to the charge that we are appealing to "private" evidence my response is that the Scriptures declare this to be public evidence to the whole earth. I can be confident that this message has been sent to everyone, even to those who deny receiving it. We cannot ignore the fact that the Bible deals with unbelief as a moral problem rather than as an intellectual one.