326 - What Is Faith? Essays in the Philosophy of Religion

What Is Faith? Essays in the Philosophy of Religion
By Anthony Kenny
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992. 125 pp. $8.95.

Anthony Kenny, Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford, and accomplished philosopher of religion, has long been known for his clarity, understandability, and logical prowess. This volume only adds to that

328 - What Is Faith? Essays in the Philosophy of Religion

reputation. It is a most accessible book. Those with vital research interests in the philosophy of religion will find it quite useful, while those unacquainted with the intricacies of the discipline will none-the-less feel quite at home in its pages. Kenny does not presuppose that his audience is philosophically sophisticated, only that they are educated and religiously literate. Anyone within the standard reader profile of this journal will find his book readable and informative.

The book has two parts. Part one is a reprinting of four essays previously published under the title Faith and Reason (Columbia University Press, 1983). These essays present Kenny's contribution to the current debate over the relationship between religious belief and evidence. Kenny investigates Alvin Plantinga's provocative thesis that religious belief need not be based on evidence in order to be rational. After surveying the background and current status of this debate, Kenny proposes a test for rational belief without evidence, then argues that religious belief may indeed pass this test, but only if there is good evidence for God's existence. While this evidence need not play a direct role in forming and sustaining the belief, it must nonetheless be available. In short, Kenny argues that religious belief is rational without evidence only if natural theology is a successful enterprise. In the final essay of the first section, he explores the question of the success of natural theology and arrives at an ambivalent conclusion.

This ambivalence is the motivation for the second part of the book, comprised of four essays addressing different dimensions of the natural theology enterprise. Throughout these four essays, Kenny clarifies many critical issues important to a final pronouncement on the success of natural theology but stops short of offering any such verdict. He does not end up in agnosticism, though-at least not the traditional, strong version that holds that there cannot be justification for religious affirmation or denial. Kenny states only that his study to date has not produced justification for either stance. He is quite open to the possibility of future research tipping the scales toward either theism or atheism. Kenny does conclude, however, that the scales are more likely to be tipped by continued work in natural theology than by the kind of epistemological musings represented by Plantinga and his followers.

Kenny's work is lucid and helpful. I have read widely in the relation of faith to reason, but I found myself delighting often in the new perspectives and insights his book offers. His conclusions concerning the relation between faith and evidence are similar to those I have advocated in my own work, so I find little difficulty accepting them.

There is one critical point, however, at which I believe he simply adds to the confusion rather than helping to clear it up. He claims to present a criterion for so-called "properly basic" beliefs-those beliefs that can be rational without evidence. But he offers a listing of three categories of beliefs, all of which typically contain properly basic beliefs. This is not a criterion at all, only a taxonomy. In this regard, Kenny has added no more to the debate than Plantinga or William

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Alston or any of the other important voices. What is needed is not simply another list of the kinds of beliefs that are properly basic, but rather a genuine criterion-an elucidation of those qualities in virtue of which a belief is properly basic. Kenny has offered no such help, but has only given one more alternative list, over which the epistemologists and theologians might argue.

This is not a minor point. The entire development of the first part of the book hinges on the credibility of Kenny's list. Without a criterial justification for that list, the effectiveness of the exercise is compromised. The second section, as I have mentioned, is motivated by the ambivalence with which the first section ends. If this ambivalence is generated in part by Kenny's failure to move beyond taxonomy to criterion, which it undoubtedly is, then the entire tenor of the book is affected by this shortcoming.

Nonetheless, the book is well worth careful and thoughtful reading. It affords many lessons, concerning both the content of contemporary philosophy of religion and the form of exemplary philosophical dialectic.

James F. Sennet
Palm Beach Atlantic College
West Palm Beach, FL