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Prof. Jim Peterman

Nathan J. Jun is a senior at Loyola University Chicago where he majors in English and Philosophy and minors in Medieval Studies. His philosophical interests include Medieval philosophy (especially Aquinas), philosophy of religion, natural law theory, and aesthetics. He plans on entering graduate school to continue his studies in literature and philosophy. 

Introduction1

For most of its history, Christian philosophy has been marked by the interplay of two traditions which originate, respectively, in the thought of Christianity's two greatest thinkers: St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The difference between these two traditions is particularly evident in their approaches to the knowledge of God. For the Augustinian, such knowledge is a product of immediate, appreciable illumination. The nascent faith of the believer becomes understanding through a cultivation of vision. For the Thomist, in contrast, there is a sharp delineation between what is known through revelation and what is apprehended through natural reason. The emphasis as such is on what can be known independently of divine illumination. 

On the surface, it would seem that these two approaches are largely irreconcilable. After all, if the knowledge of God is somehow innate - or, at the least, predicated on immediate experience - there is no need for natural theology. On the other hand, how do we account for persistent atheism, and what are we to do about it? In this paper, my aim is to carefully explore both traditions in an effort to uncover where, if at all, they converge. Ultimately, I argue that a reconciliation between them is possible through a synthesis of natural theology and contemporary Augustinian epistemology. 

My approach will be fourfold. First, I discuss in detail the central tenets of the Augustinian tradition as reflected in the writings of Anselm, Alvin Plantinga, and St. Augustine himself. Second, I offer a contrasting analysis of Thomistic natural theology. Third, I enumerate ideas which are common to both approaches, and I seek to refute certain charges which have been leveled against natural theology by contemporary Augustinian thinkers. Fourth, drawing upon these observations, I propose that Thomistic natural theology completes the Augustinian approach by establishing a framework for the communication of immediate experience to nonbelievers.

Background of the Conflict

A. Augustine and Augustinianism

It is one thing to speak of an Augustinian tradition and quite another to discuss Augustine's own thought. For it is immediately obvious that not all Augustinian thought, properly speaking, accords with Augustine in every respect. For instance, many consider Anselm an Augustinian and a Platonist while others contend that his methodology in the Proslogion anticipates Aquinas and the Schoolmen. It seems clear, then, that although many thinkers may be identified with Augustine in some way, substantial differences between them may render an association tenuous. It is therefore prudent, I think, to outline certain central ideas from Augustine himself which are common throughout the so-called Augustinian tradition. 

Before I do so, it is important to place Augustine in the proper historical and intellectual context. From the outset, the Christian intellectual tradition has subsisted within a struggle between faith and reason. This is due, in large part, to the cultural circumstances which effected the development of primitive Christianity. On one hand, the Christian cult was inexorably tied to the Judaic formula of belief. On the other, it was heavily influenced by the burgeoning tide of Middle Platonism and other Hellenist philosophies. As J.N.D. Kelley has pointed out, these philosophies of the first and second centuries were "the deeper religion of most intelligent  people... [their] concepts provided thinkers, Christian and non-Christian alike, with an intellectual framework for expressing their ideas."2 Patristic Christianity, then, was essentially an exercise in synthesis between biblical trust and pagan reason. Tertullian's maxim notwithstanding 3 , Christian thinkers from the period made a convincing case for the inherent harmony of faith and philosophy.

It is in this context that we introduce St. Augustine of Hippo 4 , who was indisputably the greatest of the Fathers to engage Moses in conversation with Plato. As Dewey Hoitenga has put it, "St. Augustine was the first great Christian thinker to bring together in a definitive way the biblical concept of faith with the Greek concepts of knowledge and belief."5 The Augustinian admixture of biblical faith with Platonic rationality is commonly summarized in the formula "fides quaerens intellectum"- faith seeking understanding 6. For Augustine, one has faith in what [one] does not yet see (Sermon 43; cf. In Joann. ev., 40.8.9). Moreover, faith or belief is usually understood in terms of trust. One believes something on the trusted authority of another person or institution. Knowledge, in contrast, is defined as coming to know something, through reason, for oneself (De Utilitate Credendi, 11.25) 

In order to fully understand the meaning of the formula fides quaerens intellectum, we must first address what I call Augustine's epistemic hierarchy. In De Utilitate Credendi, Augustine distinguishes between three modes of awareness (11.25). First, there is opinion or hearsay, which is never true. Second, there is belief, which is sometimes true. Third, there is knowledge or understanding, which is always true. It is worth noting here that Augustine does not adopt the characteristically modern definition of knowledge in terms of justified true belief. In fact, knowledge and belief are sharply distinguished. Although Augustine grants that belief informed by authority precedes knowledge in time (cf. De Mor., 1.2.3; De Ord., 2.9.26), he emphasizes - with Plato - that knowing for oneself is superior to mere belief. Thus, whosoever has mere faith in something on the testimony of others ought to seek to know that something by witnessing it for oneself (De Ord., 2.9.26; Contra Acad., 3.20.43; Of True Religion, 24.45) 7. 

Belief, according to Augustine, has three objects. First, there are those objects which are believed but never understood. This category includes "history in every case, running through the course of temporal and human events" (Eighty-Three Different Questions, 48). Although we can believe that historical events took place on the basis of credible testimony, we nevertheless cannot know them (that is, become directly acquainted with them) because they occurred in the past. Second, there are objects which, as soon as they are believed, are understood. Included here are "all human uses of reason, in the field of numbers or in any of the academic studies"(48; cf. Confessiones 4.16; 10.9,10). Third, there are objects which are believed and later understood. God is included in this category, and as such, "cannot be understood... except by the clean of heart."

Plato's influence is readily apparent in this model. "Like Plato before him, Augustine regards human reason as fitted for seeing incorporeal objects, just as our senses are fitted for seeing physical objects." 8 Like Plato, however, Augustine does not believe that incorporeal universals are recollected, but rather that we come to mentally see them through divine illumination. 9  In the same way, the knowledge of God comes from an illuminating vision - direct acquaintance or experience - as opposed to proof. 10
 

Surely, when the human mind sees its own faith by which it believes what it does not see, it does not see anything everlasting. For this will not always be, which certainly will not be when that estrangement, by which we are estranged from the Lord and so must of necessity walk by faith, with which sight we shall see face to face (1 Co. 13:12), just as now, although we do not see, yet because we believe, we shall deserve to see and we shall rejoice to have been brought to sight through faith. For faith, by which things unseen are  believed, will no longer be; rather, there will be sight, by which things are believed and seen. (De Trinititate, 14.2.)

Knowledge, construed as direct vision, is divided into three levels. First, there is corporeal vision, by which we physically see. Second, there is spiritual vision, by which we formulate a mental image of something seen in the past but not presently perceived. Third, there is intellectual vision, by which we mentally apprehend incorporeal things such as numbers, virtues, etc. (Literal Commentary on Genesis, 12.6.15). 

Having outlined the fundamental elements of Augustine's epistemology, we turn now to his ideas on the knowledge of God. At first, he contends, one typically believes in God on the basis of testimony (e.g., the testimony of the Church, the Bible, etc.). Gradually, however, the sincere Christian - motivated by his profound love for God and bestowed with the gift of grace - will develop a direct intellectual vision of God through his reason. As Hoitenga explains, "The functions of faith, for Augustine, are to believe and to trust, that is, to believe the testimony of an authority that it trusts. By contrast, it is the function of reason to see, to know, to understand." 11. But how is this vision acquired? How does one move from faith to understanding? 

Again, for the Augustinian, the process of coming to know God through reason is not an exercise in deduction as it often is for the natural theologian. Rather, reason is informed by a trusting faith which exists independently of intellectual abstraction. So, too, does reason seek to to illuminate faith, because "reason is the soul's looking"(Solil., 1.6.12). But if the reason in question does not involve argumentation, in what does it consist? First of all, Augustinians suggest that reason involves the cultivation of a knowledge of God which is, in some way, natural or innate. Each human being is imbued with a natural awareness of God, but the actual drawing  out of this awareness takes place within the symbiosis of faith and understanding. As far as the evidence for this incipient understanding is concerned: 

First, just as human beings from time immemorial have handed down their languages, which contain names for rivers and trees, numbers and geometric shapes, the use of which names are the occasion for other human beings coming to know these objects, so have they done the same thing with the name God or its cognates. Second, this human testimony is the occasion, when it employs these names, for God to set before human minds not only those other realities that they come to know but also himself.12

Thus, the universal testimony of human religious experience not only provides the evidence of natural awareness, but it is - in fact - the core process by which God reveals himself. 

In the Augustinian tradition, the cultivation of the knowledge of God through reason is a deeply personal, experiential, and introspective endeavor. It is a seeking out of vision - the kind of vision which informs faith through a greater theological understanding. For Augustine, this is accomplished through an examination of revelation and creation: "Augustine would have each person, through reflection upon scripture and upon creation, as well as through introspection into one's own mind, seek the face of God." 13  He emphasizes the efficacy of the Bible precisely because "whatever is in [Scripture] is lofty and divine. Truth is wholly in them, and learning most suited to the remaking and renewal of souls..."(De Utilitate Credendi, 6:13).Through "wonderful contemplation" of the Word, the believer engages God in a kind of discussion (Conf., 13:18). "Speak to me," Augustine prays to God, "discuss with me. I have believed your books and their words are full of mystery" (Confessiones, 12.10). He also enjoins the believer to seek the truth through the message of Christ (Epist. 118.4.32). 

The Augustinian model, then, is essentially one of transformation. One begins with faith that trusts in the authority of Christian parents, friends, etc. as well as the Church and  the Scriptures. Subsequently, God is known through the cultivation of the innate knowledge of the divine - a knowledge which is separate from mere trust in authority. This process of cultivation, in turn, is rooted in introspection, reflection - in short, immediate awareness. It is not inferential - that is, based on the evidence provided for in deductive or inductive proofs. For Augustine, this way is inferior for at least two reasons. First, natural reason is finite - it cannot entirely grasp the complexity of the divine essence (cf. De. Mor., 1.7.11) Second, reason is corrupted by the effects of the fall, which "diminishes and distorts the natural knowledge of God, as well as any process of natural faith seeking such knowledge." 14  Immediate awareness, guided by the grace of God, is not subject to these flaws in the same way.

Having sketched Augustine's approach to the knowledge of God, I am now prepared to trace the development of Augustinian thought as it appears in the works of St. Anselm. Before I do so, however, it is fitting to recapitulate certain central ideas which will resurface in our subsequent analyses of other Augustinian thinkers. First, faith - which is predicated on trust - naturally seeks understanding - which is predicated on direct acquaintance or vision. Second, because the awareness of God is innate, the seeking of understanding is a cultivation of that awareness itself. Third, the knowledge of God through reason is not based on proof but rather on the immediate awareness of God in Scripture, creation, and in one's own life. 

B. Anselm and the Ontological Argument 

As I mentioned earlier, Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) is, in many ways, elusive of categorization. Some thinkers tend to view him as a sort of proto-scholastic.15 Others, however, emphasize the influence of Augustine and Christian Platonism in Anselm's writings. This is not the place to flesh out Anselm's allegiances. For our purposes, I believe it is fair to assert that Anselm's methodology in the Proslogion - despite its subtle nods to Aquinas - is first and foremost Augustinian. My reasons for holding as such are twofold. First, the tone of most, if not all, of the Proslogion is one of prayerful, introspective reflection Consider, for example, Anselm's opening invocation: 

Come then, Lord my God, teach my heart where and how to seek You, where and how to find You. Lord, if You are not present here, where, since You are absent, shall I look for you? On the other hand, if You are everywhere why then, since You are present, do I not see You? But surely you dwell in  'light inaccessible' [1 Tim. 6:16]. And where is this inaccessible light, or how can I approach the inaccessible light? Or who shall lead me and take me into it that I may see You in it? Again, by what signs, under what aspect, shall I seek You? Never have I seen You, Lord my God, I do not know Your face. What shall he do, most high Lord, what shall this exile do, far away from you as he is?16

We can immediately recognize a parallel with the opening of Augustine's Confessiones: "Allow me, Lord, to know and to understand whether I should praise you or pray to you first; whether I should pray to you or know your first" (1.1). As Matthew Cosgrove has pointed out, "The Proslogion, by virtue of its personal and confessional character and its search for truth through the inner man openly adheres to the Augustinian tradition's emphasis on certainty of what is interior, in contrast to the uncertain things of sense, as the basis of knowledge."17

My second reason for associating Anselm with Augustine is somewhat more relevant to the purposes of this essay. From the above passage, it is obvious that Anselm accepts the Augustinian model of "faith seeking understanding." Therein do we find Anselm, a believer, seeking to illuminate his faith with the light of vision. Although Anselm has never "seen" God, he nonetheless has faith in His existence. What he seeks in his reflections is a personal vision of God. 

Of course, the judicious student of Anselm's thought ought to recognize in the ontological  argument a divergence from proper Augustinianism. For in this approach, faith is illuminated by a careful consideration of the concept of God rather than reflection on God's revelation through Scriptures and miracles. The emphasis on immediate awareness is still evident, but this awareness is couched in the dialectic structure of the reductio ad absurdum. In one sense, Anselm seems to place God in Augustine's second category of objects of belief - those objects which, once believed, are immediately understood. For God is such that by merely considering him we can infer that he is. 

To be sure, this approach is not entirely foreign to Augustine. In the Civitas Dei, he refers to God as a being "than which there is nothing better or more sublime"(1.7.7) - a definition which obviously anticipates Anselm's idea of God.18  But again, the immediate awareness of God in Anselm is comparable to the immediate awareness of the truth of mathematical axioms. Thus, there is in the ontological argument a kind of depersonalization of God which seems to conflict with the Augustinian tone of the Proslogion and which even harkens back to Aristotle's Prime Mover. Furthermore, although Anselm's emphasis on the self-evidence of God is coincident with the Augustinian notion of innatism, Augustine himself never makes the point so explicitly. In fact, for Augustine knowledge of God is not completely and instantly self-evident - it grows over time. 

Much has been written about Anselm's argument over the course of the half-century. Although I do believe that successful versions have been formulated,19 the Augustinian tradition as it survives in the present day has typically associated it with natural theology and, as such, rejects it. 20  At any rate, Anselm's approach to the ontological argument is important because it exhibits an Augustinian view of fides quaerens intellectum. Indeed, although we do not find in Augustine any clear rendering of God as necessary - that is, incapable of not-existing, Anselm  clearly has Augustine's theory of divine illumination in mind throughout the Proslogion. Moreover, he expands upon it in a rather perceptive way. He asks, "What is this God whom I am to know?" and concludes that He is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. This leads him to believe that God is not only real - he is, in fact, undeniable. I will return to this quasi-synthesis of Augustinianism and natural theology later in this paper. For now, having briefly summarized certain of the Augustinian elements in Anselm's thought, I turn to the most prominent contemporary manifestation of Augustinianism - Reformed epistemology. 

C. Plantinga and Reformed Epistemology

Alvin Plantinga is one of the most accomplished living philosophers of religion and, without a doubt, the most important to work within the Augustinian milieu. He is, along with William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and others, generally credited with the formulation of a theory of knowledge known as Reformed epistemology (so named for its distinctively Calvinistic roots). In addition to his Augustinian leanings, Plantinga is important because he is rather critical of natural theology. In the following pages, I seek to briefly explain Plantinga's approach to the knowledge of God as well as his objections to natural theology. 

Like Augustine and Calvin, Plantinga argues that "God has created us in such a way that we have a strong tendency or inclination toward belief in him. This tendency has been in part overlaid or suppressed by sin."21  He further contends that everyone would believe in God if not for the existence of sin in the world. The natural awareness of God, on Plantinga's view, may be prompted or activated by a response to natural wonders, etc. 22

Unlike Augustine, Plantinga does not generally employ the metaphor of vision in his discussion of belief. Nor does he restrict faith to reliance on authority. Nevertheless, his acceptance of the characteristically Augustinian notion of natural awareness forms the foundation of his most controversial contention - namely, that belief in God is properly basic. By this, Plantinga means that belief in God is non-inferential, not based on any other beliefs one may have. This is not the place to develop a complete explication of Plantinga's theory of proper basicality. However, a brief summary of its salient points is in order.

Plantinga's theory begins with a rather trenchant criticism of what he calls "classical foundationalism."  According to this view, all beliefs within a noetic structure are either based on other beliefs or else they are properly basic. Properly basic beliefs, in turn, include only those beliefs which are self-evident, evident to the senses, or incorrigible. Plantinga contends that this criterion for proper basicality is not only too restrictive but, in fact, self-referentially inconsistent. He demonstrates this in two ways: first, by proposing counterexamples of beliefs which appear to be properly basic but do not meet the criterion of classical foundationalism; second, by showing that the central propositions of classical foundationalism fail to meet their own criteria, for they are neither based on other properly basic propositions nor are they self-evident, evident to the senses, or incorrigible. 23

After demonstrating that the criterion of classical foundationalism is self-defeating, Plantinga argues that nothing remains in principle to impede the inclusion of belief in God in the class of properly basic beliefs. He then seeks to show exactly how belief in God resembles other properly basic beliefs which do not meet the criterion of classical foundationalism. Although he does not develop a complete alternative criterion for proper basicality, he emphasizes that  not just anything can be rational. Even though properly basic beliefs are not held on the basis of evidence, they are nonetheless not without grounds. "When the Reformers say that this belief in God is properly basic, they do not mean to say, of course, that there are no justifying circumstances for it, or that it is in that sense groundless or gratuitous."24  Grounds, unlike evidence, are circumstances or conditions which justify and ground belief in God. As Hoitenga points out: 

Belief in God for Plantinga, like Calvin's natural awareness of God and testimony of the Holy Spirit, is entirely rational and proper for human beings not only because it is, like some other important properly basic beliefs, immediate and based on no other beliefs that offer evidence for it, but also because, like them, it is not arbitrary and groundless. 25

Through this distinction, Plantinga evades the charge that the refutation of classical foundation opens the gate to irrationalism. 

On Plantinga's view, grounds or justifying circumstances for belief in God include "guilt, gratitude, danger, a sense of God's presence, a sense that he speaks [for example, on hearing the Bible read], perception of the various parts of the universe."26  These grounds are further qualified by the theory of justification (or, as he calls it, "positive epistemic status" which Plantinga articulates in his later work. According to this theory, positive epistemic status is conferred on a belief only if one's noetic faculties are working properly, and if these faculties are situated within an environment to which they are properly attuned, etc. 27

One of the immediate consequences of Plantinga's view is that natural theology is rendered moribund. He writes, "The Christian does not need natural theology, either as the source of his confidence or to justify his belief."28 Furthermore, it is not prudent for him to ground his belief in arguments, for if he does, "his faith is likely to be unstable and wavering, the subject of perpetual doubt." 29 This skeptical attitude toward the efficacy of reason clearly harkens back to Augustine. Moreover, as we have seen, although Plantinga dispenses with the Augustinian model of knowledge as acquaintance in favor of a justified true belief model, he nonetheless maintains -with Augustine and Anselm - that knowledge of God is acquired immediately, that is, non-inferentially. What begins as mere trust in authority blossoms into true awareness - and this awareness is not mediated by any other forms of evidence. Having thus outlined the Augustinian tradition in three important manifestations, I now turn to the tradition of natural theology. 

D. Aquinas and Natural Theology 

Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), known as the Angelic Doctor, is arguably the most brilliant and accomplished Christian thinker of the post-patristic period.30  He single-handedly synthesized the tenets of the Christian faith with Aristotelian philosophy, and in so doing, instituted the long-standing tradition of natural theology - a tradition which has more or less been doctrinally adopted by the Catholic Church. Aquinas' preference for Aristotle, which is readily admitted in his own writings (for example, in De Ver. 11.1)31, lies at the heart of the conflict between the Augustinian and Thomistic systems. For in taking up the empirical mantle of "The Philosopher," Aquinas alienated himself from the Platonism which had reigned supreme in the Christian West since the time of Augustine. 

In chapter three  of the Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas makes a very clear distinction between "truths about God [which] exceed all the ability of human reason" and "truths which the natural reason also is able to reach". The former category includes, for example, the mystery of the Trinity. The latter includes God's existence, his oneness, etc. Aquinas further argues that, "according to its manner of knowing in the present life, the intellect depends on the senses for the origin of knowledge; and so things that do not fall under the senses cannot be grasped by the human intellect except in so far as the knowledge of them is gathered from sensible things"(3). Because sensible things are "effects that fall short of the power of their cause," we cannot completely gain from them a knowledge of the divine substance. 

Aquinas further explains that not all divine truth is knowable through the faculties of understanding for at least three reasons: first, few men have the time or mental disposition to seek God in this way; second, obtaining truth through abstraction takes so much time that few men would be able to achieve it in an unadulterated form (4); and third, natural reason always has some degree of falsity present within it. As a result, says Thomas, "it was necessary that the unshakable certitude and pure truth concerning divine things be presented to men by way of faith." So important is faith for Thomas that we must have faith even in those things which are known also by natural reason. 

Like Augustine, then, Aquinas distinguishes between opinion, belief (or faith), and knowledge (or reason). He writes,  "Faith has not that research of natural reason which demonstrates what is believed, but a research into those things whereby a man is induced to believe, for instance that such things have been uttered by God and confirmed by miracles"(ST II-II, 2, 1). Both faith and knowledge are gifts from God (II-II, 6,1; 9,1). Although faith is the greatest form of human knowledge, it is nonetheless intermediary (cf. Summa Contra Gentiles III, 50:40; Super De. Trin. 3.1) Science begets and nourishes faith, by way of external persuasion afforded by science (ST II-II,6,1). 

For Augustine, as we have seen, the growth of understanding from faith involves a deeply personal and immediate awareness of the reality of God which can be prompted through  meditation on the Scriptures, creation, etc. Reason informs faith by transmuting mere belief in authority to personal vision. There is not, however, a clear and explicit delineation in Augustine between what can be known about God through reason and what can be known only through faith. Reason is intellectual vision - the direct acquaintance of the mind with God or, more specifically, the realization of the God who was always there. Thus, reason is not comprehension, per se, but familiarity. For Aquinas, in contrast, understanding is sharply distinguished from revelation. As John E. Smith points out: 

The idea of natural theology... stems from Aquinas' precise demarcation of the spheres of faith and reason and the assigning of the latter the task of proving the existence and unity of God or the coherence of the divine attributes without recourse to any doctrine belonging to faith or the domain of revelation.32

This division between what is revealed and what is apprehended through reason is also evident in Thomas' distinction between philosophy and theology.33  In general, theology (and, in turn, faith) is always concerned with the mysterious and the revealed, whereas philosophy (and, in turn, knowledge) comes from "unaided reason."  Some of what is believed, however, can also be understood through the faculties of reason, and indeed, this forms the basis of the whole enterprise of natural theology. 

The Augustinian tradition, as we have mentioned, generally emphasizes the innate nature of divine knowledge. Moreover, as we have seen, this generally non-voluntarist position continues to thrive in the writings of many contemporary Reformed epistemologists.34  Aquinas, in contrast, assents only lukewarmly to the idea of divine infusion, and even then, he qualifies his conceptualization rather heavily:

To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature, inasmuch as God is man's beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is  naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man's perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else (Summa I:2,1).

For Aquinas, although faith and knowledge are gifts which are impossible without the grace of God, they are nonetheless freely accepted or rejected. Thomistic religious epistemology, then, is largely voluntarist. According to this view, just as sinful people can believe in God, so can virtuous people doubt. 

It is also worth mentioning that Aquinas does not believe that God's existence is self-evident in any literal sense. As Matthew Cosgrove has pointed out, "Thomas criticizes on five separate occasions the argument for God's existence given by Anselm in the Proslogion."35  The most famous, and arguably the most stringent, is to be found in the Summa: 

No one can mentally admit the opposite of what is self-evident; as the Philosopher (Metaph. iv, lect. vi) states concerning the first principles of demonstration. But the opposite of the proposition "God is" can be mentally admitted: "The fool said in his heart, There is no God" (Ps. 52:1). Therefore, that God exists is not self-evident. (I:2,1).

Thomas is arguing here, I think, that the statement "God does not exist" is intelligible in a way that the statement 'A square-circle exists' is not. We can mentally imagine the former, but we cannot possibly envision the latter. As such, we cannot regard the statement 'God exists' as self-evidently true. 

To conclude our discussion of Thomas, then, a few points merit reiteration. First, the Thomistic tradition is predicated on a distinction between what can be known only through revelation and what can be known through natural reason. It differs from the Augustinian tradition insofar as it does not place a primary emphasis on an introspective, personal, immediate, and non-inferential vision of God which illuminates the mind and transmutes faith to understanding. Nor  does it emphasize the notion that knowledge of God is innate. Rather, it is chiefly concerned with what can be known about God independently of revelation. 

A Proposed Reconciliation

Now that we have surveyed the general features of both the Augustinian approach and the Thomistic approach, we are in a position to understand why they are so often at odds. For the Augustinian, the "reason" which illuminates faith is not "natural reason" as such. Rather, it is the mechanism through which we achieve an immediate awareness of God - a mechanism which may be prompted by pious, introspective reflection. Following this view, the enterprise of natural theology becomes, at best, superfluous and, at worse, blasphemous. As Hoitenga argues, "Natural theology, that is, an inferential approach to the existence and nature of God apart from revelation, is unnecessary... because God can be known, and originally is known, by the direct acquaintance of the mind."36  For the Thomist, in contrast, Augustinianism - particularly as reflected in contemporary Reformed epistemology - comes dangerously close to fideism.37  Furthermore, its emphasis on immediate awareness seems to undermine the capability of natural reason to acknowledge the mark of God on creation.

With these disparities between the two traditions clearly in mind, I want to conclude this paper by proposing a possible reconciliation. I aim to do so, first of all, by examining the shallowness of these disparities - that is, by demonstrating that there is nothing significant dividing these two traditions; and second of all, by clearing up some of the misconceptions of natural theology which have been advanced by certain contemporary Augustinians. Ultimately, I argue that these two traditions can complete each other and that, when synthesized, they make a  formidable cumulative case for religious belief. 

First of all, I do not believe that either of these traditions postulate a conflicting understanding of reason. Rather, I think their chief difference lies in what mode of reasoning they emphasize. The Augustinian approach emphasizes the immediate mode of reason - that which is responsible for the cultivation of vision (in Augustine's terminology) or properly basic beliefs (in Plantinga's). The Thomistic approach, in contrast, tends to emphasize the inferential mode of reasoning - that which is responsible for the construction of arguments. Inasmuch as these two modes are both part of the same mechanism, I do not see how they can be mutually exclusive. 

Bearing this in mind, it is worth noting that Aquinas never suggests that natural theology is the only way by which faith can attain understanding.38  If this were the case, Reformed epistemologists would certainly be right to argue that on the natural theologian's view, "Christian philosophers are the only Christians who can have knowledge of God in this life and the foretaste of the beatific vision it gives."39  But again, Aquinas himself claims that natural reason is not sufficient. Furthermore, I am in no way inclined to believe that Aquinas would disagree with Augustine's view that knowledge of God can be attained through vision, experience, introspection. His own conversion experiences suggest as much. 

Second of all, I contend that most of the contemporary Augustinian charges against natural theology are utterly unfounded. Neither Thomas Aquinas, nor any contemporary Thomist, has argued that belief in God is or ought to be grounded in rational argument. Aquinas, as we have seen, emphasizes that faith is the always the preeminent way of knowing. Moreover, like Augustine, he stresses that reason alone simply does not suffice for a holistic understanding of God. This is only attained through the coupling of revelation with natural reason. 

Third, I cannot discern any real difference between formulating an immediate belief based upon "perception of the various parts of the universe"40 and the formulation of a proof based upon this perception. It is inconsistent, on my view, for the Augustinian to allow for the former while disparaging the latter as "inappropriate" or blasphemous. Although it is true that theists do not usually form their beliefs on the basis of such proofs, I do not see why their articulation is inappropriate, provided that it avoids the kind of boorish pride alluded to in Augustine. 

But these points only suggest that there is no inherent disharmony between the two traditions. I want to go a step further by arguing that natural theology can complete or perfect the Augustinian approach in a very important way. Obviously, there are many Thomists who are not ready to grant that belief in God is properly basic.41  But I will assume for the purposes of this paper that Plantinga's hypothesis is correct. Contemporary Augustinian thinkers like Plantinga generally accept an epistemology which defines knowledge in terms of justified true belief. Indeed, Plantinga himself gives a very cogent defense of religious belief, arguing that it is, first of all, properly basic - that is, not held on the basis of other beliefs; and second of all, justified, inasmuch as it is based on grounds legitimated by positive epistemic status. The problem, here, is that Plantinga provides no criterion for knowing whether or not religious belief is true.

Allow me to illustrate the point with an example. Suppose there is a fellow, call him Ted, whose belief in God is based on his experience of God in the Scriptures. Following Plantinga, we can automatically discern at least two ideas about Ted's belief. First, it is properly basic - that is, it is not based on other beliefs. Rather, it is based on Ted's experience of God in the Scriptures.  Second, it is justified (that is, it has positive epistemic status), because it has grounds - viz., the experience of God in the Scriptures (assuming that Ted's noetic faculties are working properly, etc.). The problem here, it seems to me, is that although Ted is justified in believing that God exists, there is no way for other people to know whether Ted's belief is true in the absence of any appreciable evidence. 

The problem becomes more explicit when we introduce the nonbeliever, call him Tom. Suppose Tom's non-belief is grounded in an intense feeling - provoked, perhaps, by the experience of evil in the world. Like Ted, Tom's belief that God does not exist seems to be both properly basic and justified. The question, then, becomes: which belief is the true belief? Obviously, they cannot both be true, for they are diametrically opposed. Suppose, further, that Tom advances actual evidence which seems to mitigate the probability that Ted's experience of God is real. Plantinga himself admits that evidence to the contrary can falsify a belief which is properly basic.42  What is the believer to do at this point? 

Although Plantinga seems to believe that negative apologetics is a worthwhile pursuit43, the neo-Augustinian tradition continually denies the necessity of natural theology. In so doing, I contend, it fails to offer any feasible solution to the aforementioned problem. I propose that natural theology, properly speaking, is capable of appending truth to justified, properly basic belief and communicating it meaningfully. To put it another way, well-reasoned arguments from the natural order of things, in the Thomistic tradition, may be able to externally corroborate the truth of beliefs which, in the mind of an individual believer, are formed in an immediate, non-inferential manner. Notice, here, that the point of the enterprise is merely to communicate immediate knowledge of God in a way that is intelligible to a person not experiencing God in an  immediate way.

It may be objected that such an enterprise undermines the faith of the individual believer; for if he or she trusts in God, there is no need to prove the truth of one's belief to someone else - indeed, to do so may even be blasphemous. But the point is not to internally confirm what is already acknowledged as true by means of faith or immediate religious experience. Rather, the point is to externally communicate one's justified belief by showing that it also corresponds to the way things are - that is, to prove that it is true. As far as I can see, there is no way to prove that a properly basic belief formed by immediate religious experience is true unless recourse is made to something outside the believer - e.g., the natural world. And though natural theology may be unnecessary for faith, it seems necessary to communicating the truth of faith to people who are without the immediate awareness of God.

At this point the Reformed thinker may be wont to ask: what about the natural disposition toward belief? I respond that I do not know what to make of this view given the profusion of nonbelievers in the world. If, as Augustinian Calvinists suggest, non-belief is a deliberate suppression of innate knowledge engendered by sin, it would seem that the situation is quite hopeless. Of necessity, there can be no way of communicating the truth of Christianity to nonbelievers; in one fell swoop, the whole evangelical enterprise is destroyed. Those who believe just do; they are lucky enough to have experienced God in their lives. Those who do not believe similarly just do not believe. They are deluded by their own sinfulness, and there is simply no hope for them unless, somehow, the "light of faith" penetrates their hardened hearts. Theists, in the meantime, must merely hide behind the construct of proper basicality, confident that they are the sole inheritors of the truth. 

Such a view is extremely crass, and it detracts from the possibility of fruitful, open-minded dialogue between believers and nonbelievers I do not know that there is any way of confirming the innatist hypothesis so beloved of the Calvinist tradition. If there is a natural awareness of God, it must be extremely vague - as Aquinas suggests - for so many people to ignore it. And indeed, if the Calvinist attributes this ignorance is the result of sin, does not his argument ultimately presuppose the existence of God and therefore beg the question? 

These concerns are, for the most part, ancillary. The main point, to summarize, is simply this: although immediate experiences may create in certain people properly basic religious beliefs, there is no way of communicating the truth of these beliefs to people who do not believe them. If anyone intends to suggest to a nonbeliever the possibility of his error, he must first establish that it is possible for the non-believer's beliefs to not corroborate with the way things are. Such a demonstration will not (nor should it) make the nonbeliever have faith in God; it will - at the very least - open his mind to the possible tenability of other sorts of experiences which do create legitimate faith in God.

Conclusion

In the first part of this essay, I developed a wide survey of the two most prominent traditions within Christian philosophy. My hope in so doing was to show, first of all, that these traditions are really speaking the same language; and second of all, that natural theology can complete or perfect the deeply personal approach found in Augustine and Reformed Epistemology. This brings me back, curiously enough, to Anselm. We notice in his writings, if somewhat tangentially, an odd admixture of Augustinian introspection and scholastic deduction. Bearing this in mind, perhaps we can look to Anselm for a model of true Christian philosophy. After all, like the typical Christian believer, Anselm's knowledge of God is not grounded in rational argument. It was, as is evident from his writings, the cultivation of awareness - the inner light so frequently alluded to in the writings of Augustine. Moreover, his belief in God seems to be, as far as we can tell, properly basic. But what Anselm is most remembered for, perhaps ironically, is the creation of one of the most ingenious rational theistic arguments in the history of philosophy.

For these reasons, I believe we find in Anselm a charter for the future of Christian philosophy. According to this charter, the aim of natural theology is, first and foremost, the communication or mediation of the truth of justified properly basic beliefs. For it seems to me that while the actual process of Christian belief is ultimately a kind of immediate, internal awareness (following Augustine), the truth of belief is situated externally (following Aquinas). Again, perhaps the actual phenomenology of belief is never concerned with truth as it subsists in external, inferential exercises. But for the person who does not experience the internal awareness of God, the first step toward being open to this awareness is to see the truth of belief corroborated by the external. Whether or not natural theology can accomplish this ultimately depends on the strength and cogency of its arguments. In the meantime, however, our two traditions can rest assured knowing that they are geared toward a common end. 

1. I am grateful to Emily Frank, Dr. Paul Moser, and Fr. Leo Sweeney for their insights and/or contributions in the creation of this paper. 

2. J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1978), 14.

3 . Tertullian (d. c. 220) famously asked, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic?" [cf. De Praescriptione in Early Latin Theology, ed. S.L. Greenslade. (Louisville: Westminster Press, 1969), 36). Though this quote is often construed as a nod to irrationalism, its author was - ironically - an ingenious philosopher and rhetorician.

4. For my discussion of Augustine, I will use standard abbreviations for his principal works.

5. Dewey Hoitenga, Faith and Reason From Plato to Plantinga (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 57.

6. Augustine himself never used these exact words. They first appear in Saint Anselm's Proslogion over six centuries later. See Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans ( New York: Oxford, 1998), 83.

7. Hoitenga, 65-66.

8. Ibid., 75.

9. cf. Ronald Nash, The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine's Theory of Knowledge (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1969), 83-84.

10. Although Augustine does develop a proof for God's existence, it is not basic to his religious epistemology. See Hoitenga, 85-97. 

11. Ibid., 98.

12. Ibid., 124.

13. Robert Meagher, An Introduction to Augustine (New York: New York University Press, 1978), 262.

14. Ibid., 127.

15. cf. H. Liebeschutz, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A.H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 611-23; For a discussion of Karl BarthÕs and Charles HartsthorneÕs differing conceptions of the Anselmian approach, see Robert D. Shofner, Anselm Revisited (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974). 25 .

16. In Davies and Evans, 85.

17. Matthew Cosgrove, "Thomas Aquinas on Anselm's Argument." Review of Metaphysics 27 (1974): 515.

18. Hoitenga, 103; cf. J.F. Callahan, St. Augustine and the Augustinian Tradition (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1967), 1-47.

19. See, for example, Norman Malcolm, "Anselm's Ontological Arguments, "The Philosophical Review 69 (1960): 41-62; Charles Hartshorne, Anselm's Discovery (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1965).

20. One notable exception within the tradition is, of course, Alvin Plantinga. See "The Argument Restated and Vindicated" in Readings in the Philosophy of Religion ed. Baruch Brody (Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992), 117-120.

21. Alvin Plantinga, "The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology," in Brody, 76. 

22. Ibid., 77. 

23. Alvin Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God," in Faith and Rationality ed. A. Plantinga and N. Wolterstorff (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 60-61.

24. Ibid., 80.

25. Hoitenga, 186.

26. Plantinga, "Reason," 81.

27. Alvin Plantinga, "Justification and Theism," Faith and Philosophy 4, no. 4 (October 1987): 404-9.

28. Plantinga, "Reason.," 78.

29. Ibid.; cf. Hoitenga, 220-222. 

30. In my discussion of Aquinas, I use standard abbreviations for principal texts.

31. Although Philip Quinn has shown that there are many distinctly Platonic elements in Aquinas' writings. See Aquinas, Platonism, and the Knowledge of God (Aldershot: Avebury, 1996).

32. John E. Smith, "Prospects for Natural Theology," The Monist 75, no. 3 (1980): 406.

33. A view with which Plantinga takes issue. See "Augustinian Christian Philosophy," The Monist 75, no. 3 (July 1992): 291-320. 26 .

34. Linda Zagzebski, "Religious Knowledge and the Virtues of the Mind" in Rational Faith ed. L. Zagzebski (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 200-5. 

35. Cosgrove, 513.

36. Hoitenga, 219.

37. See, for example, Ralph McInerny, "Reflections on Christian Philosophy," in Zagezebski, 257-275. 

38. Although some Thomists do seem to believe that natural theology is necessary to a thoroughgoing knowledge of God. See, for example, John Greco, "Is Natural Theology Necessary for Theistic Knowledge?" in Zagzebski, 168-198.

39. Hoitenga, 119. 

40. Plantinga, "Reason," 81.

41. See, for example, many of the essays in Zagzebski.

42. Plantinga, "Reason," 83.

43 . See Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper and Row, 1974). 27

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