Kevin Diller. Theology’s Epistemological Dilemma: How Karl Barth and Alvin Plantinga Provide a Unified Response. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2014. See here for Intervarsity’s page about this book.
Karl Barth was a renowned twentieth century Christian theologian.
Alvin Plantinga is a Christian philosopher. According to scholar Kevin
Diller, their thoughts about how one knows God are compatible. This is a
remarkable thesis because Barth has been stereotyped as a theologian
who did not care for philosophy, which is Plantinga’s field.
Where Barth and Plantinga overlap, according to Diller, is that both
of them stress that people who know God do so because God reveals
Godself personally to them. For Barth and Plantinga, people do not come
to know God through their reasoning abilities—-reasoning that there
must be a God because the universe needed a cause, or because nature
looks fine-tuned for life and that demonstrates that it had to have a
creator. Rather, for Barth and Plantinga, knowing God is a response to
God’s personal revelation: God must take the initiative, and humans
cannot arrive at knowledge of God on their own.
Of course, this raises questions. Do Barth and Plantinga focus on
the individual receiving God’s revelation, or do they believe that
Christian community is significant? (They believe that Christian
community is very significant, as the setting in which God’s revelation
takes place.) Does rationality play any role in God’s revelation? What
is the significance of the Bible in God making Godself known to
people? Does Barth believe that divine revelation contains
propositions, or is it simply God’s personal revelation of Godself, in a
relational sense? Throughout the book, Diller corrects what he
considers to be misunderstandings of Barth and Plantinga. For example,
Diller states that Barth had no problem with philosophy, for Barth
believed that philosophy could help one articulate what is being
revealed. And, while Plantinga did not believe that arguments for the
existence of God were sufficient in giving people knowledge about God’s
existence and what God is like, he still maintained that such arguments
could be useful in helping believers who struggle with doubt, and that
God could use arguments for the existence of God in revealing Godself to
people.
An interesting discussion in Diller’s book concerned the interaction
between Barth and Emil Brunner, another theologian. Part of their
debate concerned whether human beings had faculties within themselves
that enabled them to know God. My understanding is that that Barth said
no, stressing God’s personal role in revelation, whereas Brunner said
yes, while stressing that God’s grace was still necessary. Diller often
seeks to demonstrate that Barth and Plantinga are similar, saying that,
when they appear to be different, one can see that they actually are
compatible by understanding their own concerns, what they were
addressing, and what each of them was trying to say. (Diller
acknowledges some differences, though.) Based on Diller’s discussion,
however, I would say that, on the issue of faculties, Plantinga appears
to overlap with Brunner rather than Barth, for Plantinga believed that
humans had faculties that made them aware of God, and yet that the Holy
Spirit needed to renew those faculties for them to know God more fully
because those faculties were undermined by human sin.
The greatest asset to this book is its clarity. This would be a
helpful book for people who want to understand Barth’s view of
revelation, or to explain Barth’s view to others. Diller’s explanation
of Plantinga is good, too, even though it has more technical
terminology. This book clarified to me the thoughts of Barth and
Plantinga, reinforcing where my understanding was correct and highlighting to me where it
may be off. Reading Diller’s book made me hope that he writes more
about Barth’s thought, especially as I read blog posts on the Internet
about Barth and end up scratching my head. (In one blog post that I
read, there was discussion about what Barth meant when he said that all
people are in Christ, and if that means that they are saved or rather
are in Christ ontologically, whatever that entails.)
There was also a down-to-earth quality to Diller’s book. The earlier
part of the book about epistemology is rather abstruse, but it becomes
down-to-earth when Diller talks about Barth. Diller asked the question
of how Barth could believe that God revealed himself, yet remained
hidden. Does not God’s revelation imply that God is no longer hidden?
Later, Diller questions those who say that Barth denied that divine
revelation was propositional, asking how God’s personal revelation would
lack propositions about who God is and what God is like. These are
practical, common-sense questions, and I was pleased with how Diller
addressed them and placed them within the context of Barth’s thought.
Barth ended up looking quite coherent and sensible after Diller’s
attempts to clarify Barth’s thought.
Personally, I have questions about divine revelation. If God indeed
causes human beings to know God, why are there such different ideas
about God, or doubts even among believers? Why does the Bible itself
seem to have a variety of ideas about God? Diller addresses human
subjectivity—-how one’s knowledge of God can be distorted by certain
factors. Diller also interacts with the Bible and argues that Barth’s
thought is compatible with seeing the Bible as inerrant, even if Barth
himself did not believe that it was. While I respect Diller for making
the effort to address the messiness of humanity and the Bible, I was not
satisfied with his conclusions about such issues. Moreover, I also
wonder how Diller, Barth, or Plantinga would address the factor of
Christians who believe there is a God, but do not actually know that for a fact.
My thanks for Intervarsity Press for sending me a complimentary review copy of this book.