With a title like
The Philosophy of History: Naturalism and Religion, it is not surprising to find that the theses James Stroud defends in this book pertain to historiography and the impact of historical method on the assessment of religious claims. But what is surprising about a book with this title and focus is its similarity to the myriad introductory works of apologetics available today, which present an accessible treatment of common apologetic issues, ranging from the origins of the universe and the grounding of morality to the historical Jesus.
Stroud has two central theses in
The Philosophy of History, one of which gets more attention than the other. His primary thesis is the claim that naturalism should not be assumed
a priori in historical and scientific studies; an “open” methodology which allows for both natural and supernatural explanations should be employed instead of the currently popular “closed” methodology wherein only naturalistic explanations are tolerated. Stroud also defends a secondary thesis, which claims that there is a greater overlap or unity between science and history than is often recognized. In particular, he argues that certain “past singularities” (one-time historical events) such as the origin of the universe, of life, and of humanity, are, though often classified as matters of ‘origins science’, equally at home under the umbrella of history. Stroud repeatedly makes statements like “Origins science is really ‘history’ (or history as a weak science[1]…)”[2] and “…the historian is more capable of addressing questions of origin science with philosophy as an aid than the operation scientist.”[3] “Moreover,” he says, “weaker sciences such as anthropology and sociology as well as linguistics all fall under the much larger umbrella of ‘history.’”[4] This second thesis receives the most attention in the fourth chapter, “What about History?” Though interesting, this point apparently lacks methodological import, for as Stroud ventures into historical and scientific issues later in the book, they are treated in pretty much exactly the same way that they have typically been treated in recent discussion, even to the point of employing unaltered or mostly unaltered versions of arguments used by William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Stephen C. Meyer, Gary Habermas, and others.
Here is a list of some of the presuppositions of science: (1) the existence of a theory-independent, external world; (2) the orderly nature of the external world; (3) the knowability of the external world; (4) the existence of truth; (5) the laws of logic; (6) the reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified true beliefs in our intellectual environment; (7) the adequacy of language to describe the world; (8) the existence of values used in science (e.g., "test theories fairly and report test results honestly"); (9) the uniformity of nature and induction; (10) the existence of numbers.1
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), pp. 348.
