Externalism, Warrant, And The Question Of Relativism

Pneuma 43 (2021) 94–114

Externalism, Warrant, and the Question of Relativism

A Plantingian Assist to Smith

Yoon Shin

Assistant Professor of Philosophical Theology, Southeastern University, Lakeland, Florida, USA

Abstract

According to James K.A. Smith, contemporary epistemology is overly focused on the noetic. Smith offers a counter-epistemology drawn from pentecostal spirituality that is narrative, affective, and embodied. Richard Davis and Paul Franks criticize this model and argue that it succumbs to story-relativism and arbitrariness. This article defends Smith against their critiques through three steps. First, it exposits Smith’s narrative, affective epistemology in order to identify areas that are relevant to their critiques. Sec- ond, it outlines and analyzes their critiques, reveals areas in which they fundamentally misunderstand Smith, and presents their commitment to epistemological objectivism. Finally, utilizing Alvin Plantinga’s externalist warrant model, it argues that Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology can assist Smith’s epistemology in consistent ways. If the fol- lowing argument is successful, then Smith’s postmodern pentecostal epistemology can be reimagined as an externalist epistemology that overcomes the charges of relativism and arbitrariness.

Keywords

postmodernism – pentecostal epistemology – James K.A. Smith – Alvin Plantinga – externalism – relativism – warrant – justification

externalism, warrant, and the question of relativism

1 Introduction

The development of a pentecostal epistemology has been long in the making. Early forays emphasized the hermeneutic, experiential, and affective dimen- sions of knowledge.1 Its most robust expression that takes seriously not only the philosophical but also the historical, traditional, and theological underpin- nings is found in Simo Frestadius’s Pentecostal Rationality, in which he utilizes a MacIntyrian method to mine the realist epistemology embedded in Elim Pen- tecostalism.2Prior to this work, the development of a pentecostal epistemology took a big leap forward with James K.A. Smith’s narrative, affective epistemol- ogy inThinking inTongues. According to Smith, the embedded epistemology of a pentecostal worldview is narrative and affective.3 Although Frestadius cri- tiques Smith for various reasons, he does not repudiate narrative, affective knowledge (nak).4 The strongest unsympathetic critique against Smith, how- ever, comes from Richard Davis and Paul Franks (henceforth DF).

In two articles in Philosophia Christi, DF provides a twofold critique of Smith’s postmodern pentecostal epistemology (ppe). First, it entails story- relativism. Second, it cannot provide a nonarbitrary mode of adjudication between differing narratives. In this article, I defend Smith’sppeby reimagining it along Alvin Plantinga’s externalist model of warrant and argue that it is nei- ther relativistic nor arbitrary. My defense will be presented in three steps. First, I will briefly describeppe, which will later show its compatibility with Reformed epistemology. Second, I will take extensive space to outline and analyze DF’s

1 Howard M. Ervin, “Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option,”Pneuma 3, no. 1 (1981): 11–25; Paul

W. Lewis, “Toward a Pentecostal Epistemology: The Role of Experience in Pentecostal Herme-

neutics,” Spirit & Church 2, no. 1 (2000): 95–125; and Kenneth Archer, The Gospel Revisited:

Towards a Pentecostal Theology of Worship and Witness(Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2011)

13.

2 Simo Frestadius, Pentecostal Rationality: Epistemology and Theological Hermeneutics in the

Foursquare Tradition(London: T&T Clark, 2020).

3 James K.A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 43–44.

4 Frestadius, Pentecostal Rationality, 29–30. Frestadius questions the pentecostal identity of

Smith’s epistemology partly due to his neglect of pentecostal theology, ahistoricism, and anti-

realism. Like Frestadius, I have critiqued Smith on his unidirectional view of the relationship

between pretheoretical and theoretical thought. Yoon Shin, “Pentecostal Epistemology, the

Problem of Incommensurability, and Creational Hermeneutic,” Pneuma 40, no. 1/2 (2018):

130–149. Plantinga’s views are similar regarding the nonjustificatory, bidirectional relation-

ship between pretheoretical/basic and theoretical/nonbasic beliefs. Alvin Plantinga, War-

ranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 83; and Alvin Plantinga,

“Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolter-

storff (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 50–51.

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critiques, reveal areas in which they fundamentally misunderstand Smith, and present their commitment to epistemological objectivism. A thorough treat- ment is critical so that DF’s strongest arguments are understood charitably and critiqued correctly. Finally, utilizing Alvin Plantinga’s externalist warrant model, I will argue that Smith’s epistemology can consistently adopt and be strengthened by Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology along three lines. First, Smith can be identified as an externalist and need not answer DF’s internal- ist critique for demonstration of the obtainment of pretheoretical knowledge.5 Second, nak can be warranted by meeting Plantinga’s conditions for affective warrant. Finally, if externalism terminates the explanatory chain of a belief in a foundational, properly basic belief andppecan be reimagined as externalist, then DF’s critique of narrative arbitrariness fails.

Before I begin, I will make two comments. First, why defend Smith’s ppe if a more developed model is offered by Frestadius? This defense is important because Frestadius accepts the epistemology of nak. A critique against nak can be an indirect critique of Frestadius. Of course, Frestadius offers a pragma- tist justification and demonstrates how it can answer rebutting and undercut- ting overriders or defeaters.6 However, justification and warrant are different concepts. Warrant is that “quality or quantity … enough of which distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief.”7Justification, on the other hand, is about the appropriateholdingof abelief.8Animportantpartof theinternalist-externalist debate revolves around whether justification is or is not a necessary compo- nent for knowledge. Even if justification is necessary for knowledge, false belief can be justified.9 In this article, I will make the stronger argument that nak can be warranted according to Plantinga’s proper functionalist model of war- rant.

Second, the purpose of this article is not mere defense. By bringing continen- tal and analytic philosophy together in conversation, I am partaking in what

5 ppe is also compatible with the internalist phenomenal conservatism. However, its details

are more consistent with Plantinga’s proper functionalism. For an introduction to phenom-

enal conservatism, see Logan Paul Gage and Blake McAllister, “Phenomenal Conservatism,”

in Debating Christian Religious Epistemology: An Introduction to Five Views on the Knowledge

of God, ed. John M. DePoe and Tyler Dalton McNabb (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020),

61–81.

6 Frestadius, Pentecostal Rationality, 201–214.

7 Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 153.

8 John M. DePoe and Tyler Dalton McNabb, “Introduction to Religious Epistemology,” inDebat-

ingChristianReligiousEpistemology:AnIntroductiontoFiveViewsontheKnowledgeof God, ed.

John M. DePoe and Tyler Dalton McNabb (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), 1–14 (3). 9 Gage and McAllister, “Phenomenal Conservatism,” 65–67.

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J. Aaron Simmons calls mashup philosophy, the attempt to bring together dif- ferent voices into a harmonious whole to create something new.10 The value of this article thus extends beyond defending Smith’s epistemology to bridg- ing the gap between continental and analytic philosophy by constructing a (monstrous?) hybrid between continental ppe and analytic Reformed episte- mology.11

2 Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology

2.1 Narrative, Affective Knowledge

What is nak as proposed by Smith’s ppe? First, even though it cannot be equated with noetic beliefs,nakis like basic beliefs; it is immediate and prethe- oretical and acts as the basis for inferential, theoretical, propositional beliefs. According to Smith, pretheoretical knowledge acts as the boundary for theo- retical reflection.12As the basis for theoretical belief, then,nakacts as an epis- temological foundation in behaving like basic beliefs: “That which is believed is not argued to but argued from.”13The generic foundationalist structure of ppe is clear.14 Pretheoretical knowledge and theoretical knowledge play the roles that basic and nonbasic beliefs play in standard foundationalisms.

Second, nak is hermeneutic knowledge rooted in humanity’s embodied, narrative identity. To be human is to be a “story-telling animal.”15One tells and participates in stories to make sense of the world. Narrative is not an option because every speech and act find their coherence and intelligibility in narra- tives.16 For example, one’s reception of a name or identification with a gender

See J. Aaron Simmons, “Introduction: The Dialogical Promise of Mashup Philosophy of Religion,”The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory14, no. 2 (2015): 204–206. This gap also exists between pentecostal and evangelical philosophy, which is often sep- arated between continental and analytic traditions respectively. I want to thank J. Aaron Simmons for pointing this out.

James K.A. Smith,IntroducingRadicalOrthodoxy:MappingaPost-SecularTheology(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 177.

James K.A. Smith, “The Art of Christian Atheism: Faith and Philosophy in Early Heidegger,” Faith and Philosophy14, no. 1 (1997): 77.

For Michael Bergmann’s clarification of common misunderstandings of foundationalism and presentation of generic foundationalism’s structure, see Michael Bergmann, “Foun- dationalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 253–273.

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 216.

MacIntyre, After Virtue, 210–212.

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or class already immerses oneself in a world of meanings and language games as a referent.17 Making sense of one’s life, identity, and meaning is inherently interpretive, and search for such meaning occurs through one’s participation in narratives and affections.

nak is hermeneutic because it “arranges human actions and events into organized wholes in a way that bestows meaning on the actions and events by specifying their interactive or cause-and-effect relations to the whole.”18Narra- tive and its affections determine what is important, sacred, and meaningful.19 nak is meaning-making activity.20 Smith describes this interpretive nature of nakas a construal—an epistemic, hermeneutical filter for understanding real- ity and meaning-making.21

Third, nak and propositional knowledge are two distinct modes of knowl- edge.22nakcannot be reduced to a propositional point without losing what it seeks to convey. The medium carries the “content.” The narrative is the point. Hence, Smith writes with rhetorical flourish, “The truth is the story; the nar- rative is the knowledge.”23 We must understand this statement clearly lest we make the same mistake as DF. That the medium is knowledge does not neces- sitate relativism. Smith does not indicate that every narrative is true; he does not state that story is truth, but that truth is story. This statement is contex- tualized within Smith’s discussion on pentecostal testimonies. The context is that pentecostals tell narratives about what God has done in their lives. The truth is contained in those narratives in a way that cannot be separated from them. Hence, this statement precedes Smith’s argument that translating the narratives into propositions changes the quality of the knowledge, thus los- ing the affective, existential element of truth. nak is, in this way, tacit and sui generis. It cannot be treated like propositional belief. DF fundamentally

19 20

21 22

See Jean-François Lyotard,The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge(Minneapo- lis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 15.

Christian Smith, Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 65.

Smith, Moral, Believing Animals, 63–76.

Smith’s ppe is postliberal. See Frestadius, Pentecostal Rationality, 29–31. As much as it is pragmatist in this regard, Smith’s statement that he is “primarily interested in pragma- tism as an account of meaning” must be taken seriously as applying to his epistemology. James K.A. Smith,Who’s Afraid of Relativism?: Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 151, n. 1.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 65–66.

Smith is clear that he is widening the modes of knowledge, thus differentiating between pretheoretical understanding (nak) from theoretical knowledge. See Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 64 n. 35.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 64.

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misunderstands Smith’s statement through the use of an elementary, literal- ist exegesis that seeks to prove their point by mere proof-texting rather than by taking context into account.

Fourth, Smith’s epistemology is primarily a descriptive account of knowl- edge. He considers his work as “ethnographic” in this regard.24 The lone epis- temic criterion for knowledge is right ordering of desire, which is an affective correspondence with reality.25 Ultimately, this correspondence terminates in God.26 This Augustinian criterion reveals that nak can be directed or misdi- rected. Direction corresponds to objective reality as reality is used as an icon or idol of God. Objective reality, which Smith calls “empirical transcendentals,” thus plays an important role in correspondence; it acts as an interpretive norm that limits the bounds of interpretation: “Bad interpretations will be precisely those construals that transgress those limits.”27 In this way, Smith accepts a particular form of correspondence. False nak occurs through affective misdi- rection and the transgression of empirical transcendentals.

In summary, then, there are four key elements tonak. First, it is foundation- alist. Second, it is hermeneutical knowledge. Third, nak cannot be reduced to propositions. Fourth,nakcontains the epistemic criterion of properly directed desire.

James K.A. Smith, “Pentecostalism,” inThe Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theol- ogy, ed. William J. Abraham and Frederick D. Aquino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 606–618 (606).

Although Frestadius argues that Smith provides a threefold criterion for justification/war- rant, Frestadius’s examples indicate that these criteria are really about justification of belief, not warrant. While it is important to test the justificatory status of one’s knowledge, Smith’s central point about nak is that narratives and affections themselves are knowl- edge whether they are justified or not. Justification is unnecessary. When a pentecostal states, “I know that I know that I know,” she is not first asking, “How do I know that I know that I know?” She may question and investigate her knowledge, but that investigation does not determine the initial status of thenakas knowledge. In this way, Smith’sppeindicates its externalist character.

James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 52. See Smith, Who’s Afraid of Relativism?, 168– 169.

James K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 181.

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3 Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology

3.1 The Main Objections: Story-Relativism and Story-ism

If all knowledge is hermeneutical, is nihilistic relativism inevitable? This main worry drives DF’s criticisms against Smith. They argue that Smith is mired in Kantianism: knowledge of reality is an impossible feat, and we are left with a myriad of differing and arbitrary interpretations of the phenomena claiming to be knowledge. The impetus for Smith’s alleged Kantianism is what they call Derrida’s Axiom (da), “the claim thateverything is an interpretation.”28danul- lifies the possibility of knowing “thefact of the matter,” including the gospel as an objective truth.29

DF levels two charges against Smith for his alleged Kantianism. First, if all knowledge is interpretation, then ppe results in self-refuting story-relativism. Second, it results in fideistic story-ism, an arbitrary favoring of one story over another.30 When knowledge is divorced from objective reality and reduced to narrative interpretations and communal discernment that only an appropriate affective fit can verify, judging competing truth claims of diverse narrative- affective traditions becomes impossible. In order to avoid devastating conse- quences to the truth of the gospel, objective rules with which to measure these competing claims are needed.31

3.2 Correspondence, Affective Fit, and Epistemological Objectivism In order to understand DF’s charge of story-relativism and story-ism more clearly, I will provide three points that pertain to their critique. First, respond- ing to Joshua Harris’s defense of Smith, DF argues that their objection does not depend on assuming a correspondence theory of truth.32 DF’s charge of Kan- tianism is primarily an epistemological critique.33 Even if empirical transcen- dentals limit interpretation, one can never know whether one’s interpretation has obtained the “fact of the matter.” One needs to meet some internalist aware- ness criterion.

Second, DF understands Smith as arguing that rightly interpreted narra- tives have right fit with their attendant affections. DF seems to be inputting a

29 30 31 32

Richard B. Davis and Paul Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” Philosophia Christi15, no. 2 (2013): 131.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 133.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 130.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 141–143. Richard B. Davis and Paul Franks, “On Jesus, Derrida, and Dawkins: Rejoinder to Joshua Harris,”Philosophia Christi16, no. 1 (2014): 188.

Davis and Franks, “On Jesus, Derrida, and Dawkins,” 186.

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prescriptive criterion to which Smith’s descriptivenakis not necessarily com- mitted. Smith’s position is merely that narratives contain affections. They also elicit affections, but they both combine to form a particular interpretive knowl- edge.

Third, DF is clearly committed to an epistemological objectivism that assumes the possibility of neutral reason’s ability to grasp a mind-independent state of affairs. Knowing objective truth and avoiding story-relativism and story-ism require obtaining the uninterpreted fact of the matter: “At some point, stories must come to an end. To stop the regress, we must arrive at a story that is grounded in a nonstory—something that isn’t itself an interpretation of reality.”34One obtains objective truth if one’s statementpcorresponds with this objective world, when the speech is “a blunt factual statement about the way the world really is.”35This is not mere appeal to ontological correspondence; it is an epistemological appeal for the unmediated grasp of reality. Admittance of mind-independent reality is inadequate. The noumena must be accessible through the pure-seeing of objective facts.36 Without the ability to appeal to uninterpreted facts, there cannot be objective adjudication between different narratives.37 For DF, then, there is no need for the noumena/phenomena dis- tinction; one can objectively know the thing-in-itself.38

Let us now examine these three points. First, DF claims that their critique is primarily epistemological. They charge Joshua Harris of simply assuming “that [their] critique depends upon the idea that truth is correspondence.”39 However, this is no simple assumption, for their argument is intricately tied to correspondence. Moreover, they charge Smith of rejecting correspondence. Let us review the importance of correspondence for DF.

First, DF views the “driving force behind” Smith’s commitment to da as motivated by his “rejection of truth as a correspondence with extramental, extralinguistic reality.”40 They represent Smith’s position thus: “We don’t say that the Christian story is true because it corresponds with something outside

34 35

37 38

39 40

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 136.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 136. They fail to real- ize that they also face the problem of knowing how their claims correspond to reality. For a sense of their acceptance of R. Scott Smith’s argument for the possibility of “simple seeing,” see Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 132 n. 23. Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 140.

On Smith’s schema, DF represents the present immediacy model that purports that inter- pretation is a postlapsarian condition that can be overcome in the present. See Smith,The Fall of Interpretation, 35–61.

Davis and Franks, “On Jesus, Derrida, and Dawkins,” 188.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 131.

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itself (the facts) which serves to ground its truth. The story isn’t made true at all—or at least we can’t know that it is; instead, the story just is the truth all on its own.”41 Second and related to this, DF criticizes Smith for understand- ing the fit between narrative and affect as interpretive fit, not the “matching relation between a story line and the extra-affective, mind-independent reality it might be about.”42 Commenting that the apostle Peter’s narrative explana- tion of pentecostal tongues corresponds to objective fact, DF argues that “the Apostle Peter can appeal to the facts; [but] Smith cannot.”43Ending the regress of interpretive stories requires grounding stories in objective fact. Third, DF charges Smith with inadequate understanding of objective truth as correspon- dence. Obtainment of objective truth occurs merely “by virtue of the way things are in the world.”44 Finally, to end the regress of interpretive stories, stories “must arrive at a story that is grounded in a nonstory—something that isn’t itself an interpretation of reality.”45

Clearly, correspondence is central to DF’s critique, which is baffling since they charge Smith of rejecting correspondence to mind-independent reality and yet acknowledge Smith’s acceptance of mind-independent empirical tran- scendentals. They are correct that empirical transcendentals cannot act as a sufficient condition for true interpretation.46However, since Smith affirms cor- respondence in the ways that DF suggests that he does not, they either need to explain why he is wrong about his own commitments or explain why they are willfully misreading his claims.47 While ontological realism as such does not relieve Smith of all forms of epistemological relativism, acknowledging Smith’s referentialism negates “anything goes” relativism. In fact, Smith’s own endorsement of relativism is a benign form, knowledge that is “relative to” con- text.48

41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 131.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 135.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 136.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 133.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology.”

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 137.

For examples of Smith’s realism, see Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 206–223; and Smith, Who’s Afraid of Relativism?, 101–109. Granted, Smith is frustratingly loose with his verbiage about correspondence in Who’s Afraid of Relativism in ways that would drive analytic philosophers away from continental philosophers forever. However, upon close scrutiny, it becomes clear that Smith accepts truth as a form of correspondence to ultimate reality. Moreover, Smith identifies as a postliberal, and George Lindbeck is committed to a correspondence theory of truth. See George A. Lindbeck, “George Lindbeck Replies to Avery Cardinal Dulles,”First Things, no. 139 (2004): 15.

See David Vander Laan, review of Who’s Afraid of Relativism?: Community, Contingency,

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Second, DF understands nak correctly as fitting appropriately between a narrative and its affection, and appropriateness is judged by either proportion or coherence. However, the “fact of the matter” is that fallen humanity would not find such affective fit with the gospel story.49 One would take the gospel as the right story with the right affective fit only if one already assumes that the gospel is the right story, eliciting the right fit with Spirit-inspired emotion. While much of this is true, this critique cannot be applied to Smith because ppedoes not assume such prescription of fit.50Right-ordering of desire must be aimed at the ontologically ultimate empirical transcendental: God. This epis- temic criterion ultimately grounds knowledge claims in objective reality, the personal God. While I find this criterion to be incomplete, its incompleteness necessitates neither relativism nor arbitrariness.

Third, DF’s epistemological objectivism presupposes a subject/object dual- ism that assigns relativism to subjectivity and truth to objectivity. Subjectivity guarantees that “everyone would already have the truth simply by having their opinions.”51 Obtainment of mind-independent truth requires the perspective- less truth of epistemological objectivism.52 DF finds story-relativism neces- sarily resulting from hermeneutic epistemology due to their epistemological objectivism. But why think that is true? Why must one reject the interpreted- ness of human being-in-the-world just because the difficulty of adjudication arises?

For Richard Bernstein, the specter of relativism haunts epistemological objectivism because objectivism is committed to the either/or dichotomy of Cartesian anxiety: “Either there is some support for our being, a fixed founda- tion for our knowledge,orwe cannot escape the forces of darkness that envelop us with madness, with intellectual and moral chaos.”53 Just because no neu- tral interpretive adjudication exists does not entail that rational adjudication

49 50

51 52

and Creaturehood, by James K.A. Smith, Christian Scholar’s Review 45, no. 4 (2016): 403; and Elmer Thiessen, review of Who’s Afraid of Relativism?: Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood, by James K.A. Smith, Evangelical Quarterly87, no. 2 (2015): 174. Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 142–143. For Smith, the fit between narrative and affection represents the integrative way narra- tive draws from the affective faculties even while affections themselves are interpretive construals. This fit is a descriptive account, not a prescriptive criterion for adjudicating correctnak. See Smith, “Pentecostalism,” 612.

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 133. Emphasis mine. Their allegiance to objectivism is exemplified in their literalistic and elementary proof- texting of 2Peter 1:20. See Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Episte- mology,” 134.

Richard J. Bernstein,Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 18.

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is impossible. Rational adjudication need not be merely noetic. For Bernstein, theory-choice is affective and pragmatic, a rational judgmental activity that requires “imagination, interpretation, the weighing of alternatives, and appli- cation of criteria that are essentially open.”54 Bernstein points to the “know- how” of phronesisas such rational adjudication.55

DF’s critiques miss the mark because they beg the question. Their epistemo- logical objectivism cannot but see relativism because their Cartesian anxiety can only accommodate the false dichotomy of either objectivism or relativism.

Smith rejects this dualism by following Heidegger’s idea of Dasein, which brings the subject and object together as a “unified phenomenon.”56 Smith states:

In factical experience [that is, one’s concrete context and concerns], we do not find the encounter between a subject and an object—which is a derivative experience found in theoretical consciousness. Rather, factical experience is characterized by a certain immediacy such that the sub- ject is not yet rigidly distinguished from the object, but rather finds itself imbedded in its world, its environment. “I” am imbedded in “life,” and any distillation of “I” or the “world” as distinct components is always already a derivative mode of being-in-the-world.57

Dasein fundamentally rejects the Cartesian priority of subjective reason and the priority of epistemology over ontology.58Facticity indicates the embedded- nessof existencethatcontextualizesunderstanding.Onealwaysalreadycarries pretheoretical understanding of the world in virtue of inhabiting it; presup-

54 55

Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 56.

Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 54. Lindbeck also endorses rational adjudi- cation by phronesis. See George A. Lindbeck,The Nature of Doctrine: Religion andTheology in a Postliberal Age(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1984), 130–131.

MartinHeidegger,BeingandTime,trans.JoanStambaugh(Albany:StateUniversityof New York Press, 2010), 53.

James K.A. Smith,Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation(New York: Routledge, 2002), 76.

The dominant, traditional epistemology of Heidegger’s time was shaped by Cartesian foundationalism. Kant believed that the question “Is there such thing as an external world outside of our minds, and how could we know it?” that arose from Cartesian subject/object dualism must be answered. Heidegger turned this epistemological problem upside down. The problem was not that this question had not received its proof, but that it required such a proof in the first place. This Cartesian skepticism of the external world revealed the “unquestioned sovereignty of epistemology.” Charles B. Guignon, Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), 53.

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positionless knowledge is an impossibility.59 But in assuming epistemological objectivism, DF requires “objective reason” for justifying one’s subjective claim to knowledge. Without such reason, one is left to “mere reshuffling of … pre- suppositions, one for which there is no justification.”60 Must we give into this demand? Must we accept the (in)human demands of epistemological objec- tivism? Against this demand for rational justification, we now transition to Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology.

4 Externalism, Warrant, and PisticKnowledge

In this section, I will exposit three pertinent elements of Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology to answer DF’s main critiques: the internalist-externalist debate in order to situate Smith as an externalist; Plantinga’s warrant model to uti- lize it as a prescriptive criteria for nak; and Plantinga’s admission that meta- physical beliefs are ultimately unprovable in order to support the claim that rational adjudication and warrant can occur without perspectiveless beliefs. I will argue, based on these expositions, thatnakcan be externally warranted. If this argument is successful, then DF’s critiques face two related obstacles. They must successfully defeat externalism and Plantinga’s externalist contention that knowledge is ultimately rooted in faith.

4.1 Internalism and Externalism

The heart of Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology is that theistic belief can be warranted without justifying evidence or argument. Justification is an inter- nalist demand. For internalists, justification requires epistemic access to the justificatory elements that are internal to the person. Epistemic access, what Michael Bergmann calls the awareness requirement, defines internalism. The motivation behind the awareness requirement is what Bergmann calls the “Subject’s Perspective Objection” (spo). According to thespo, ignorance of the justificatory elements of a belief renders the belief unjustified because its truth could be accidental.61Such belief is no different from “a stray hunch or an arbi- trary conviction.”62However, internalism’s identification with the justified true

60 61

Heidegger, Being and Time, 146. While DF dismisses this idea as presuppositionalist, this idea is shared by Heidegger, Michael Polanyi, Jean-François Lyotard, and George Lindbeck. Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 140.

Michael Bergmann, Justification without Awareness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 7, 12.

Bergmann., Justification without Awareness, 12.

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belief (jtb) tradition is its fatal flaw. For jtb can be accidentally true or arise from cognitive malfunction.63

Externalism does not reject all instances of internal access but only its neces- sity. For Plantinga, externalism represents a turn away from justification to warrant.64Rejecting the access requirement, externalism ties warrant to prop- erties external to the mind’s reflective activity, such as reliable epistemic mech- anisms.65Warrant obtains if belief connects with relevant external conditions. Externalism thus represents a break with thejtbtradition.

This brief foray into internalism and externalism can illumine Smith as an externalist. Smith does not accept spo for justificatory purposes. He describes nak as non-inferential knowledge. It behaves like pretheoretical basic beliefs. As for warrant, right-ordering of desire can be understood externally: as proper function and alethic aiming.The problem with DF’s critique is that they impose an internalist requirement on Smith. Their appeal to “the facts” assumes that internal access to these brute facts or evidence is necessary for rising above narratives. Yet, if nak results from proper function and correspondence with reality, then it can be warranted without inferential justification. To explain how, the next section exposits Plantinga’s concept of warrant.

4.2 Narrative, Affective Knowledge and Warrant

I have indicated that Smith’s epistemic criterion is already compatible with two of Plantinga’s warrant criteria. According to Plantinga’s warrant criteria,

[a] belief has warrant for a person S only if that belief is produced in S by cognitive faculties functioning properly (subject to no dysfunction) in a cognitive environment that is appropriate for S’s kind of cognitive faculties, according to a design plan that is successfully aimed at truth. We must add, furthermore, that when a belief meets these conditions and does enjoy warrant, the degree of warrant it enjoys depends on the strength of the belief, the firmness with whichSholds it.66

Kenneth Boyce and Alvin Plantinga, “Proper Functionalism,” inThe Bloomsbury Compan- ion to Epistemology, ed. Andrew Cullison (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 144– 145.

However, some define internalism with respect to warrant. See Michael Bergmann, “Inter- nalism, Externalism and the No-Defeater Condition,”Synthese110, no. 3 (1997): 402. George Pappas, “Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic Justification,” inThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, 2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/fall2017/entries/justep‑intext/.

Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 156. Warranted belief is defeasible via defeaters. Defeater-defeaters can restore the warrant of the original belief. Plantinga’s warrant model

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Notice that access to justificatory elements are unnecessary as long as the external criteria are fulfilled. Although these criteria are intended for noetic beliefs, Plantinga’s congeniality with Smith becomes evident in Plantinga’s view that the warrant model can apply analogously to affections.

Even though Plantinga does not attribute epistemic content to the affec- tions, there is nothing inconsistent in doing so. Affections are important to Plantinga’sunderstanding of faith.First, sin is“primarily anaffectivedisorder.”67 Second, restoration of proper function requires faith, which Plantinga defines as “firm and certain knowledge” and an affective “deep-rooted assurance.”68He claims that faith involves the (affective function of the) will and intellect and concludes that faith is the healing of both.69Christian belief has cognitive and affective elements. Merely believing in orthodox truth is insufficient for Chris- tian belief; the demons believe, yet shudder.70 “These truths must be sealed to the heart, as well as revealed to the mind.”71 Third, there is a close, mutually informing relationship between belief and affection: “There are certain things you won’tknowunless you love, have the right affections; there are certain affec- tions you won’t have without perceiving some of God’s moral qualities; neither perceiving nor affection can be said to be prior to the other.”72 Plantinga indi- cates that some right cognitive knowledge requires right affections. To know love properly requires more than propositional understanding of love. A full understanding of love requires the affection of love as part of its epistemic con- tent. Fourth, “Regeneration consists in curing the will, so that we at least begin to love and hate the right things.”73Taken broadly, this statement can be under- stood as endorsing right-ordering of desire as a criterion for right affections.

Given the importance of affections and their contribution to knowledge, it seems natural to augment Plantinga’s prescriptive analogue warrant for affec- tions with Smith’s descriptive epistemology. According to Plantinga’s analogue warrant for affections, first, right affections rely on properly functioning facul-

67 68 69 70 71 72 73

contains one negative internalist condition called the no-defeater condition, which stip- ulates thatS’s belief is not defeated if “Sdoes not believe (and would not upon reflection) that her belief thatpis defeated.” There remains an important role for arguments and evi- dence in Plantinga’s system. Bergmann, “Internalism, Externalism and the No-Defeater Condition,” 407.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 208.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 206, 247.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 206.

See James 2:19.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 269.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 303–304. Emphasis mine.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 304.

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ties. Feeling happy at witnessing grave disaster likely indicates affective mal- function. Rightly-ordered desires indicate the proper functioning of the affec- tive faculties. Second, affections require congenial environments as part of the human design plan. If one is situated in an environment full of liars, then the narratives and their affections can, descriptively, produce pretheoretical knowledge (in Smith’s terms), but not, prescriptively, warranted “belief” (in Plantinga’s terms).74 Third, the design plan must be aimed at affections that are appropriate to their objects, and, fourth, this design plan must be a good one, with high objective probability that the affections will be appropriate for their objects.75 Right-ordering of desire requires aiming toward the appropri- ate object. Ultimately, it must aim toward God and truth. Misdirectednakdoes not correspond with empirical transcendentals. Importantly, demonstration of nak’s correspondence is not required. Finally, if Christianity is true, then there is high objective probability that our affective faculties are designed in such a way that it would most likely produce the right affections despite the affective effects of sin due to common grace and the Spirit’s global work.

These robust warrant criteria are needed given the power of sin. Not any affection can be warranted since sin has distorted the human heart. For Plantinga, sin is “perhaps primarily anaffectivedisorder or malfunction.”76Mis- directed affection cannot produce warrant for nak due to malfunction of the affective faculties. This malfunction is primarily due to the “affective effects of sin upon aesthetic ‘perception.’”77Correspondingly, since affections accom- pany narratives and narratives depend on congenial environments and alethic aiming, the truth of narratives is also dependent on the warrant criteria. Narra- tives and their attendant affections can be warranted by satisfying these criteria

75 76 77

Herein lies the linguistic difference between Smith and analytic epistemology that can create misunderstanding because we are pushing up against the limits of the established language of epistemology. Noetic knowledge cannot be false. Knowledge itself presup- poses its true status. Smith’s lack of robust prescriptive criteria for positive epistemic sta- tus for nak leads to lumping together truth-oriented knowledge and non-truth-oriented “knowledge.” From my analysis, all nak are meaning-makers, but not all nak are knowl- edge. Given ppe’s ontological realism, only truth-oriented nak should be considered knowledge. But as meaning-makers,nakis still epistemological. In order to maintain this epistemology of narrative and affect, I propose that we distinguish between construal (nac) and knowledge (nak). Similarly, Smith differentiates between narrative, affective understanding and noetic knowledge. Smith,Thinking inTongues, 64 n. 35. I am proposing that we further divide understanding betweennacandnak.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 310–311.

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 208.

James K.A. Smith, “Questions about the Perception of ‘Christian Truth’: On the Affective Effects of Sin,”New Blackfriars88, no. 1017 (2007): 592.

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without the need for internal justification. Thus, nak is not relativistic. If this integration between Smith and Plantinga is successful, then DF’s critique must defeat not only Smith’sppebut externalism as well.

4.3 Pistic Knowledge

We are still left with the problem of arbitrariness (story-ism). According to DF, interpretive knowledge cannot transcend one’s narratives, thereby making rational adjudication impossible. DF finds Smith’s presuppositionalist answer, that God provides a correct set of presuppositions to construe the world rightly, inadequate along internalist requirements. They write:

You get a new and different story, but in point of fact you’re still as far away as ever from knowing that what this new storysaysis the casereally isthe case. For what objective reason could there be for you to think these new presuppositions are actually the right ones, while all the others wrong …? What we have here, at best, is a mere reshuffling of our presuppositions, one for which there is no justification. All you can say is that, according to your set of presuppositions, the world is God’s creation. But of course the atheist will counter by insisting that on his presuppositions, the world is not created.78

This is mere internalist question-begging. The view that one begins from one’s presuppositions is not merely a presuppositionalist view, but an externalist one. Commenting on the impossibility of demonstrating the truth of Christian- ity or his Aquinas/Calvin model as required by the de facto question, Plantinga writes:

And here we see the ontological or metaphysical or ultimately religious roots of the question as to the rationality or warrant or lack thereof for belief in God. What you properly take to be rational, at least in the sense of warranted, depends on what sort of metaphysical and religious stance you adopt. It depends on what kind of beings you think human beings are, what sorts of beliefs you think their noetic faculties will produce when they are functioning properly, and which of their faculties or cognitive mechanisms are aimed at the truth. Your view as to what sort of crea- ture a human being is will determine or at any rate heavily influence your

Davis and Franks, “Against a Postmodern Pentecostal Epistemology,” 140. One emphasis mine.

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views as to whether theistic belief is warranted or not warranted, rational or irrational for human beings. And so the dispute as to whether theistic belief is rational (warranted) can’t be settled just by attending to episte- mological considerations; it is at bottom not merely an epistemological dispute, but an ontological or theological dispute.79

Plantinga is clear about the impossibility of or even the necessity for demon- strating the truth of Christianity.80 On Plantinga’s logic, neither the narratives of Christianity nor atheism can be irrefutably defeated. Rational adjudication can occur, but not necessarily along epistemologically objectivist lines.

Ultimately, many pretheoretical beliefs are pistic; its warrant is not de- monstrable without circularity. Smith and Plantinga are committed to the Reformed-Augustinian dictum of faith seeking understanding. One begins from faith and does not argue to it, just as one begins from perception instead of arguing to perception, which is impossible without question-begging.81Use of one’s cognitive faculties always involve trusting those very faculties to func- tion reliably and properly.82This is why Plantinga is comfortable admitting that belief in God is unprovable. “Very little of what we believe can be ‘demon- strated’ or ‘shown.’”83 Kevin Diller agrees with this ontological commitment, stating, “Theological epistemology begins with the givenness of the reality of

79 80

Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 190.

See the Reformed objection to natural theology. Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” 63–73.

Kelly James Clark agrees, stating that one’s starting point determines one’s conclusion. Highlighting this perspectivity of reason, Clark presents Reformed epistemology as post- modern apologetics. See Kelly James Clark, “Reformed Epistemology Apologetics,” in Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 283. See Mar- tin Smith, “The Epistemology of Religion,”Analysis Reviews74, no. 1 (2014): 141. Alvin Plantinga, “Reliabilism, Analyses and Defeaters,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research55, no. 2 (1995): 444. Even God cannot demonstrate the reliability of God’s belief- forming processes without relying on those belief-forming processes. Alvin Plantinga, “Internalism, Externalism, Defeaters, and Arguments for Christian Belief,” Philosophia Christi3,no.2(2001):390.KevinDillerarguesthatthemereactof knowingwithoutnoncir- cular argument or independent verification is not a liability, but “the strongest demonstra- tion that knowledge is possible.” Kevin Diller, Theology’s Epistemological Dilemma: How Karl Barth and Alvin Plantinga Provide a Unified Response (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 31.

Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 170. This view is implicit in his charge to Chris- tian philosophers. Since they have a right to their pre-philosophical views, they should display more autonomy, integrality, and boldness. See Alvin Plantinga, “Advice to Chris- tian Philosophers,” inThe Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. James F. Sennett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 296–315.

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the revelation of God … It begins with ontological commitment and then turns to the epistemological account.”84Lest one is uncomfortable with this commit- ment to epistemic circularity, Michael Bergmann states that most epistemolo- gists accept epistemic circularity at the most basic level because some beliefs are non-inferentially justified.85Seeking inferential justification for all levels of belief leads to an infinite regress of justification since every justification will require further inferential justification. Even if DF arrives at the fact of the matter, one can ask how they can justify that claim. Externalists like Plantinga do not have this awareness requirement for justification and so do not face the infinite regress problem. Bergmann notes that epistemic circularity only becomes a problem if one already doubts one’s sources of belief or the reliabil- ity of one’s cognitive faculties. Those who do not harbor such doubts are not infected with a problematic circularity.86Even if DF retorts that inferential jus- tification ends at properly basic beliefs,nakis none the worse for wear since it, too, is pretheoretical. The debate is then moved to the proper basicality of nak. However, determination of the criteria for proper basicality is notoriously dif- ficult. Following Plantinga, such an investigation must be inductive.87 But the

84 85

86 87

Diller,Theology’s Epistemological Dilemma, 171.

Bergmann, Justification without Awareness, 184. William Alston illustrates that such cir- cularity involves no epistemic dependence on the part of the warrant and truth of the metaphysical theses. If the epistemic status of the metaphysical theses is brought into question, then mutual epistemic dependence occurs between the epistemological and metaphysical theses which rightfully becomes viciously circular. Alston charges Plantinga with this vicious circularity because Christian metaphysical commitment is supported by warranted Christian belief, illustrating that a mutual dependence between metaphysical belief and epistemological belief exists. However, Alston misinterprets Plantinga. While Christian metaphysical belief can be warranted, it does not demonstrate the truth of itself. Alston seems to identify wrongly an implicit internalist awareness move on Plantinga’s part. My retort is supported by Richard Swinburne’s objection to Plantinga that Plantinga has not demonstrated the actual warrant of Christian belief. Additionally, Oliver Wiertz answers negatively against the charges of circularity leveled at Plantinga. See William P. Alston, “Epistemology and Metaphysics,” in Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga, ed. Thomas M. Crisp, Matthew Davidson, and David Vander Laan (Dor- drecht: Springer, 2006), 91–99; Richard Swinburne, “Plantinga on Warrant,”Religious Stud- ies 37, no. 2 (2001): 206–207; and Oliver Wiertz, “Is Plantinga’s A/C Model an Example of Ideologically Tainted Philosophy?,” in Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief: Critical EssayswithaReplybyAlvinPlantinga,ed. DieterSchönecker(Dordrecht:De Gruyter,2015), 87–93; and Plantinga,Warranted Christian Belief, 351–352.

Bergmann, Justification without Awareness, 198–203.

Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” 76.

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more important concern revolves around warrant, not proper basicality, and I have argued thatnakcan be warranted.

If DF is unsatisfied with the lack of independent reasons for justification, Reformed epistemology cannot provide an answer. However, this is a problem besetting not only Reformed epistemology but externalism in general. Exter- nalism does not require inferential justification for basic beliefs. Bergmann acknowledges that this view seems intellectually unsatisfying since people want good reasons for the holding of beliefs. But non-inferential warrant or justification does not need explaining. Bergmann writes:

For if there is noninferential justification, then the sensible thing to say— when someone ask for a reason to think that some allegedly noinferen- tially justified belief satisfies the condition C on which noninferential justification is supposed to supervene—is that you don’t need to give such a reason in order for the belief to be justified; it’s enough for justification that the belief does in fact satisfy C. This will, of course, be a conditional claim saying that a belief is justified if it satisfies C. But the reason this claim is given is to make it clear that the justification is noninferential in nature—that satisfying C is enough.88

Bergmann points out that this externalist explanation is a permissible philo- sophical move because externalism is a philosophically robust position, one that escapes internalism’s infinite regress. Given such options, externalism is the more plausible position, one that better accounts for the epistemic circu- larity of certain belief-forming mechanisms.

Sensible disagreement can also occur apart from epistemological objec- tivism. One way to disagree is to show how a nak does not meet the neces- sary and sufficient conditions for warrant. Smith also advocates for the use of immanent critique that utilizes the concepts within a particular position to cri- tique itself.89 We can also utilize Frestadius’s threefold justificatory methods of coherentist pragmatism, evidentialist pragmatism, and sign-based pragma- tism that investigates justification from within the materials of the specific knowledge-claiming tradition.90 If disagreement continues, it may be a sign that the interlocutors have arrived at the limits of philosophy. Yet, the exter-

88 89

Bergmann, Justification without Awareness, 229.

James K.A. Smith, “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament: A Response to Amos Yong’s Pneumatological Assist,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 15, no. 2 (2007): 251–261 (258–259).

Frestadius, Pentecostal Rationality, 201–214.

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nalist position is a permissible one, one that does not commit externalism to accepting all views as equal.91

In terms very similar to Smith, Bergmann argues that such disputes may “‘bottom out.’”92 Philosophy may not “resolve radical disagreements.”93 In the end, is only faith left? Is everyone a believer? Is everyone religious? If so, what is the externalist to do once she arrives at this terminus? Even if one has reached the limits of philosophy, one need not terminate the dialogue. Perhaps new arguments may arise, or one may engage in other forms of communication out- side propositions. Smith has shown that knowledge is wider than propositions. Even if propositional claims end, rational embodied communication and per- suasion can continue. Therefore, if my argument that Smith is an externalist along Reformed epistemology lines is successful, then nak can be warranted without the need to justify itself, answering the charges of story-relativism and story-ism.

5 Conclusion

I have argued that DF’s critiques of story-relativism and arbitrariness fail. I pro- vided an extensive exposition, analysis, and critique of DF’s positions in order to fully and clearly understand them, which led to several points. First, corre- spondence is central to their critique despite their denial. Second, they wrongly apply a prescription of fit toppe.Third, they are committed to an epistemologi- calobjectivism.Itisespeciallythiscommitmenttoepistemologicalobjectivism that leads DF to view nak as entailing relativism. There is no perspective- less standard with which we can adjudicate between true nak and false nak.

92 93

Bergmann, Justification without Awareness, 231–233. Besides the employment of natural theology, one way to navigate through epistemic disagreement in an externalist manner is through epistemic demotion. See Michael Bergmann, “Religious Disagreement and Ratio- nal Demotion,” in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, ed. Jonathan L. Kvanvig, vol. 6 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 21–57. Andrew Moon also argues that Chris- tian belief can be justified using benignly circular arguments that self-promote the belief while demoting the contrary belief, demonstrating that epistemic adjudication can occur without resorting to epistemic objectivism. See Andrew Moon, “Circular and Question- Begging Responses to Religious Disagreement and Debunking Arguments,”Philosophical Studies, April 25, 2020.

Bergmann, Justification without Awareness, 231.

Bergmann, Justification without Awareness. This is evidence that one’s commitment to a position is often more than rational.

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Moreover, I later identified DF’s demand for objective reasons to overcome rel- ativism and arbitrariness as an internalist demand.

Outlining ppe and Reformed epistemology revealed compatibilities. nak is generically foundationalist, andnakacts like basic beliefs. It is a hermeneutical meaning-making activity, sharing Plantinga’s commitment that some knowl- edge is pistic. Its affectivity can easily adapt Plantinga’s affective analogue cri- teria for warrant. Its prescriptive criterion of rightly-ordered desire is compati- ble with the criteria of proper function and alethic-aiming. Moreover, because there are no inherently incompatible features ofppewith Reformed epistemol- ogy, I argued that Plantinga’s affective analogous model for warrant can be fully adopted by ppe. Because this warrant model is realist, warranted nak cannot be relativistic. But what about the charge of arbitrariness? Again, I turned to externalism’s commitment topisticknowledge. If the epistemic conditions are satisfied, justification is unneeded. If adjudication is needed, however, nonob- jectivist methods such as Smith’s immanent critique and Frestadius’s prag- matic justification can be utilized. Nevertheless, even if disagreement bottoms out, giving into internalist demand is not required, especially one that is moti- vated by epistemological objectivism.

Smith’s nak is an underdeveloped but essential part of pentecostal episte- mology. If nak is part of a pentecostal worldview—and I have not seen any reasons to doubt this—then it should be part of any developed pentecostal epistemology. Therefore, even though Frestadius has developed a more robust pentecostal epistemology, defense of nakis important.

Let me now end with a final comment. I mentioned above that we should distinguish between nac and nak.94 This is an important distinction. Narra- tive, affective understanding is sui generis. It is a mode of “knowing” otherwise. As a construal, it is a wider epistemic activity than the standard alethically aimed propositional knowledge. Therefore, even construals defeated by DF’s critiques should be considered “knowledge” of a particular kind. But calling this knowledge raises linguistic confusion since standard epistemological language differentiates between mere belief or opinion and knowledge. So that we can also differentiate between warranted nak and unwarranted “nak,” I propose distinguishing narrative, affectiveconstrualand narrative, affectiveknowledge. This way, we can affirm narrative and affect as meaning-making activity apart from narrative and affect that have achieved the vaunted status of warrant, that is, knowledge.95

94 95

See note 73.

I want to thank J. Aaron Simmons and Frederick Aquino for their comments on the draft.

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Externalism, Warrant, And The Question Of Relativism

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