Natural Signs and Knowledge of God is a little book by C. Stephen Evans that deserves more attention than it has received. A contribution to contemporary debates in religious epistemology, this volume begins by considering a certain historical puzzle surrounding the traditional theistic proofs of natural theology: On the one hand, they have continued to capture the imagination of thinkers throughout the ages, having some intuitive pull even for their most insightful critics. On the other hand, they have failed to be widely convincing even for many of those who consider them carefully and honestly. Taking this curiosity as a launching point for his own model, Evans sets off in a new direction—a sort of
via media between reformed epistemology and evidentialism—by introducing the concept of a “natural sign” to religious epistemology.
Before presenting his model, Evans lays out some desiderata for a plausible epistemology of religious belief. “When a hypothesis is posed,” he explains, “one must begin by thinking about what one would expect to find if that hypothesis were true.”[1] What might we expect with regard to knowledge of God if in fact God exists? Though I lack the space to reproduce his case here, Evans argues that two principles would likely hold: the
Wide Accessibility Principle, according to which knowledge of God is widely accessible to people around the world and throughout time, and the
Easy Resistibility Principle, which states that knowledge of God, whether widely accessible or not, is easily resistible. Those who wish not to believe are not coerced. But besides meeting these conditions, we noted above that Evans also wants his epistemology to shed light on what he calls the
problem of natural theology: that the arguments of natural theology have persistently held wide appeal, yet nevertheless fail to convince many careful thinkers. This is where natural signs enter the picture.
Imply/Implication: There is an everyday sense of these words which means roughly, 'suggests' or 'leads me to believe', as when the detective says, 'the evidence implies that Smith was present at the murder'. However, the word 'imply' is often used more strictly to mean 'if ... then ...' For example, if someone says, 'the presence of fire implies that there must be oxygen present', they could equally well say, 'if there is fire then oxygen must be present'. In general, to say that 'A implies B' is to say something like 'if A then B', either strictly as in the oxygen example or more loosely as in the detective example. To say that 'A entails B' is usually to say 'A implies B' in this strict usage of 'implies'.1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 239-240.
