^[1] With this preciously published volume, Alan P.F. Sell completes his trilogy in apologetics. My congratulations with this extraordinary accomplishment, a full-blown prolegomena to Christian apologetics. The first two volumes are John Locke and the Eighteenth-Century Divines and Philosophical Idealism and Christian Belief (on British post-Hegelian Christian idealists). These two titles together indicate where the tradition-historical emphasis is placed in this last volume. The overall structure of this volume is: Confession and Confessors (I), Presuppositions of the Confession (II), Alternative Apologetic Starting Points (III) and Conclusion and Epilogue (IV). First, I will give an overall impression of the first three constituting parts.

^[2] Sell’s choice for ‘Confession and Confessors’ as a starting point indicates that to the authors mind, apologetics as ‘the intellectual commendation of the Christian faith, is but one aspect of that confession by word and deed of Christ as Lord and Saviour which is the task and privilege of the whole Church.’ (353) In this first part, Sell starts enquiring what it is that Christians wish to commend. According to the author, creeds and confessions are subordinate to the Gospel (29) and the gospel is about Jesus the Lord. ‘God has done something in Christ, and not merely shown something.’ (33) God was in Christ reconciling the world with himself (33, 35 end). Subsequently, Sell asks ‘who are the confessors?’ ‘Who are they who know, receive revelation, make commitments, confess the faith?’ (61) Thus, Sell shows his awareness of the significance of anthropology for any prolegomena to apologetics. Sell argues that these confessors, and those whom they address, are created in the imago dei. This provides a solid basis for apologetics, for it enlarges the opportunities for a common epistemological ground between believers and non-believers.

^[3] In ‘Presuppositions of the Confession’, Sell deals with some presuppositions of Christian confessing. The author faces the challenges posed by logical positivism, by faith seen as a Wittgensteinian ‘language game’ and by postmodernists views on language and human knowledge. I admire this part for its broad vision, its learned argument and its fine and honest judgement. He makes every effort to hear and take account of what intellectual opponents have had to say. The upshot of this part is that Sell argues for an independently existing God who is both transcendent and immanent and, moreover, who is active in human history.

^[4] For me personally, the sixth chapter that opens the third part was the most exciting one. It deals with the relation between reason and revelation. Again I side with the main line of his thought, presented with fine argument and an extensive knowledge of the literature. The author’s vision concerning reason and revelation could be captured in this comparison of mine: suppose that I can prove to someone that my friend Paul must have a girlfriend. Of course, this possibility does not imply that I am acquainted with her myself, that I know her intimately. Not knowing her personally, however, does not sweep away all the strength of my proof. Moreover, the two different kinds of knowledge concern the same person, although they differ in kind quite fundamentally. This could be applied to our knowledge of God as well. Here too, we are dealing with at least two different kinds of knowledge: the inferential knowledge provided by natural theology as opposed to the intimate acquaintance provided by faith in the triune God. Thus, Sell argues for the proper rights for natural theology and he rightly – to my mind – argues against Barth for not allowing a more inferential kind of human knowledge of God. [1] It is true, often this kind of knowledge does not exist in individuals who do not believe. Nonetheless, individual particularities like that do not affect reason or the project of natural theology in itself. Someone not accepting an argument is one thing, genuine prospects for natural religion an other. Nor do inferences of natural religion affect the quality or intensity of our personal experiential knowledge of God as bestowed upon us by grace.

^[5] Sell’s open attitude towards the epistemological status of theism entails that we are no longer bound to irrationalism and that we have common epistemic ground with non-believers, although we might not be able to convince them. Faith should not be locked up in an epistemological ghetto. This stance of the author is also reflected in his critical though sympathetic discussion of Reformed epistemologists like Plantinga (250–254). Similarly, Sell is of the opinion that Van Til and Kuyper drive the wedge between reason and revelation too deep, and he sides with Gordon Clark and Henry Stob, believing that ‘it is strange that anyone who thinks he is a Christian should deprecate logic…’ (222)

^[6] What attracted me very much in this chapter, was the deliberate linkage with Augustine, Anselm and the Victorines, i.e. Hugh of St Victor. What is characteristic of them, Sell tells us, is that ‘Augustine does not maintain a sharp dichotomy between reason and revelation.’ (255) To put it with the words of Nico den Bok: ‘if for Anselm, faith in God is not a blind commitment, but includes some notion of what is believed, then faith and understanding cannot be categorically distinct. Moreover, if faith not only includes a notion of God, but also some sense of his presence, and if understanding not only asks for rational, but also for some experiential proof, again faith and understanding cannot be radically distinct.’ [2] To my mind, these are very valuable insights; Sell is right in stressing the connection between his view and the broader tradition of Christian thought: credo ut intelligam. At the same time, the author weighs Karl Barth’s position very carefully, admitting that this huge statue of 20th century theology restarted his masterwork following his persual of Anselm. The third part concludes with a fine chapter on the importance of experiential knowledge of God for apologetics. I quote: ‘Insofar as I have succeeded in my project, I have shown that a reasoned eclecticism, which takes its starting point from the assurance that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, or, perhaps more informatively, from the Cross-resurrection event, and then, having regard to the witnessing context, draws in appropriate ways upon the deliverances of human reasoning and experience, offers a viable method of commending the faith in an intellectual environment.’ (354)

^[7] With such a mature work, it is difficult to sort out some critical remarks. What I do have to say is largely bound up with the primary tradition-historical backdrop of this study, i.e., Modernity. I take ‘Modernity’ to refer rather loosely to the Eighteenth-Century Divines, British post-Hegelian Christian idealists, those who converted from idealism to logical positivism (Russell and his logical positivists) and everything of philosophical and theological importance afterwards. The Early Church is often only superficially treated (65–66), the Middle Ages are accidental to the main argument of the book. Admittedly, diving up all these riches would have asked for a totally different intellectual enterprise; this book is perfect as it stands, a modern prolegomena to modern Christian apologetics. However, I cannot resist asking what some Medieval philosophers would have had to say to Modernity, exactly on this issue of commending the faith. Certainly, the main line of thought concurs to a great extent with some important aspects of medieval thought, as I already pointed out. Even so, modern apologetics could still benefit from the thought of the Augustinian tradition, as represented by, e.g., Duns Scotus or the Victorines.

^[8] To mention a first point, issues concerning logic, ontology, contingency and necessity are not scrutinised. For example: Sell left me wondering whether he himself would endorse the thought that ‘the system of numbers is God-ordered’, like the ‘Christian presuppositionalist’ does (223). Certainly, Sell argues that we should not conclude, on the basis of them being God-ordered, that we do not share arithmetical ratiocination with non-believers. But what about the subject itself? When they are not God-ordered, does this inevitably ushers in idealism? But what if they are God-ordered? This would mean that the semantics of necessity change into a totally different, Cartesian makeup, an approach certainly unaccepted in both Scotism and Thomism. This would surely lead us back to a ‘sharp dichotomy between reason and revelation’. Here some crucial Scotistic (and partly ‘Alvinian’ too) conceptual tools could have been applied, like the concept of heacceitas and the distinction between necessitas de dicto and de re. All this is bound up with the author’s critical reaction to the idealism of post-Hegelian Christian philosophers. It is true, the ‘absolute’ of their philosophy is not the God of Christianity (also 277). Nonetheless, such a dichotomy is absent in most medieval philosophy and the God of the philosopher Duns Scotus is the same as the God of Duns as a believer. The obvious distinction between the two kinds of knowledge does not lead to a ‘sharp dichotomy’ between them. This is of great importance, not only for apologetics but for systematic theology and philosophy as well. On the one hand, Sell rightly does not feel at home with the more sceptic line of thought which accepts a fundamental lack of common epistemological ground: ‘we cannot gather apologetic figs from sceptical thistles’ (199). On the other hand, the only real alternative seems to be idealism which ‘blurs the Creator-creature distinction’ (Ch 5). To my mind, this dilemma, reflecting the renowned gulf between nominalism and realism, could have been elucidated more clearly with the help of Scotistic ontology and the Scotistic concept of haecceitas. This medieval revolution in the theory of properties and individuality is not present in modern thought but it could have been of great help to the philosophical doctrine of God. In conclusion, I wonder whether these modern prolegomena to apologetics could still have benefited from a careful analysis of the issues of ontology, necessity, contingency and univocity as harboured in medieval philosophy. [3]

^[9] Secondly, the related topic of imago dei. Because we are made in the image of God, we have the sensus divinitatis. The author rightly signals the epistemological significance of this, for although the imago dei is defaced, it is not obliterated. Yet the discussion could have gained from the medieval concept of desiderium naturale. [4] Let me enlarge on this. Speaking about the sensus divinitatis, one could ask: is it bestowed on us, or is it part of our nature? Is our very nature directed to God, or is human nature essentially a self-inverted realm which, accidentally, is infused with this gracious sensus divinitatis? This runs parallel to reason: is reason in itself incapable of reaching out for God? Is it true that ‘Kantian epistemology then (outside the boundary of the influence of the Holy Spirit) reigns supreme and we cannot know God’? (247) The concept of desiderium naturale makes it clear from the outset that the human directedness towards God is part of our very nature. Thus, it harbours a fundamental critique on the Renaissance supernatural-natural distinction, for this scheme of thought suggests that the supernatural fulfilment of our life is merely additional and not essential to human beings. The goal of human nature, however, lies in God, and by not reaching out for God, our nature is corrupted. I am not suggesting that all this is absent in Sell’s view, I just intend to say that the concept of desiderium naturale would have been helpful to elucidate this point even more clearly.

^[10] Thirdly, Sell addresses the theme of the reason of the incarnation only in passing: ‘Duns Scotus added the consideration that so great a work as the Incarnation could not be merely contingent, but must have been willed by God prior to his foreknowledge of sin.’ (69) This issue is quite relevant to a prolegomena of apologetics and could have been addressed more fully. [5]

^[11] Finally, I think Sell does have a point when he sides with some critics of contemporary Reformed epistemology: does not its view of faith as being ‘properly basic’ leads to a plurality of properly basic beliefs? (253). However, this critical observation could have stimulated a shift of the underlying epistemological metaphor. In exactly the same context, Benno van den Toren, drawing on Barth and T.F. Torrance, argues for such a shift, suggesting to turn away from the key epistemological metaphor of a building in need of a foundation to that of the reading of a book. [6]

^[12] Apart from these comments, I think that this last volume of Sell’s impressive trilogy is both learned and profoundly embedded in the community of the faithful. It’s for sure an encouraging and valuable asset to those engaged with apologetics.