Book Review
by John M. Frame
Paul Helm: Belief Policies.
Paul Helm is Professor of the
History and Philosophy of Religion at King's College of the
Belief
Policies is a philosophy book of a very academic and technical sort.
Unlike
For all its philosophical
sophistication, however, this book is not only of interest to philosophers.
I shall focus my attention upon its implications, and the questions it
raises, for theology and for Christian thought in general.
In the book, Helm explores the role
of the will in the formation of human beliefs. This is an important matter
for Christian theology, which has always been concerned with
the epistemology of knowing God and his world.
Specifically, Scripture commands people to believe in Christ. Opponents of Christianity have often
ridiculed the idea that people can be under obligation to believe
something. Belief, they argue, is not under our control, so how can God
require us to believe something that we do not in fact believe? In one
sense, Reformed theology agrees with the objectors: what we believe is
ultimately under God's control rather than our own. But Scripture does
assume that we are responsible for beliefs as for actions. Therefore,
as secondary causes, we do have control to some extent over what
we believe as we have control over what we do. Certainly, Romans 1 presents
unbelief as the result of a voluntary decision, to "exchange the
truth for a lie." But how can that be?
At first glance it seems plausible
to argue that the will has no role to play in belief. Obviously, I cannot
simply will to believe anything at all. Being American, and believing that
I am American, I cannot by fiat will to believe that I am
Indonesian. So Bernard Williams argues that one cannot decide to
believe something "just like that" (p. 46). Helm, however, who
draws many parallels in this book between beliefs and actions, replies
that "Breaking the smoking habit may involve the will, even though
a person cannot break the habit 'just like that'" (p. 46).
Helm points out that in ways
somewhat more subtle than those Williams has in mind, the will does influence
belief. People do, after all, sometimes believe without
proper justification. In such cases, we are inclined to say that
their belief is "willful." There are, for example, such
phenomena as wishful thinking and projection. And often people willfully
fail to give proper attention to evidence, or to evaluate it
according to proper standards.
Since belief is subject to
"standards," to evaluation, there is something like an
"ethics of belief." Many writers have commented on the subject
of what we are obligated or permitted to believe. Helm says that Locke at one point even "makes epistemology a
branch of ethics" (p. 123). (Helm himself does not seem to go that
far: see pp. 26-28). Formulations of the ethics of belief have differed
greatly: from W. K. Clifford's view that nothing should be believed
without sufficient evidence (pp. 90-97) to O. K. Bouwsma's
view that at least in matters of Christian belief we must "resist any
attempt to ground... faith in evidence" (p. 207; discussion on pp.
202-207).
Helm gives to such principles the
name "belief-policies." He says, "As I shall use the
expression a belief-policy is a strategy or project or programme
for accepting, rejecting or suspending judgment as to the truth of
propositions in accordance with a set of evidential norms" (p. 58). A
belief-policy governs our use of
evidence in developing our beliefs. In Helm's view, belief-policies are
the most important area in which the will influences our beliefs. "We
choose to believe by choosing, or choosing to retain, belief-policies for
acquiring, retaining, or discarding our beliefs" (p. 58).
Not all beliefs are justified by
belief-policies, for "there are cases of instinctive and infantile
beliefs which are justified" (p. 7). Nor are belief-policies necessarily
conscious: they may be "dispositional and
tacit, or the result of an overt choice" (p. 58). Belief-policies are
of many kinds. In addition to the above examples, Helm discusses the
belief-policies of Locke, James, and Plantinga at length and others more
briefly. Belief-policies can address questions about the strength
of belief, verification, falsification, permission, obligation,
the importance or priority of some beliefs over against others,
the degree of conservatism in maintaining or revising past beliefs, burden
of proof. Some belief-policies seek to maximize the number of true
beliefs, others to minimize erroneous ones; others, presumably, seek to
balance these concerns in some way.
Helm uses the concept of a
belief-policy to illumine the ways in which "weakness of will"
and "self-deception" bear upon belief (pp. 142-163). As weakness
of will can inhibit our actions, so it can hinder the implementation of a
belief-policy. The belief-policy specifies the ends we seek to achieve
in believing; the will seeks to reach those ends. Failure to
carry through one's belief-policy can be seen in actions as well
as words.
Sometimes, through weakness of will,
we fail to believe as our belief-policy dictates, even though we know what
it requires. In Helm's view, this is not self-deception (p.
149). Self-deception enters when "the agent does not recognize
the wrongness of his failure to adopt or follow
a belief-policy" (p. 150). The "logical form" of
self-deception with respect to the belief that proposition p is true
"is a person's believing that p, while not believing that p is
believed; or more strongly while it is believed that p is not
believed" (p. 153). Helm therefore recognizes that a person is able
to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time.
Helm argues, therefore, that belief
is to a large extent governed by the will, so that people are responsible
for their beliefs. Does this view imply the legitimacy of
persecuting people for false beliefs? Helm addresses the question of toleration,
pointing out that some classical defenses of toleration are compatible
with his doctrine of responsibility for beliefs and belief-policies (pp.
164-188).
The last chapter, in which Helm
discusses fideism, is the most obviously
interesting from a theological point of view. He mentions Popkin's definition of fideism as
the claim that "truth in religion is ultimately based on faith rather
than on reasoning or evidence" (p. 189). But he also presents fideism as something which occurs outside religious
discourse narrowly defined: "a fideist is
someone who holds that one may justifiably form a belief supported by
insufficient evidence for the truth of what is believed or even
unsupported by the evidence, or even in the teeth of evidence against; or
that one may justifiably give a greater degree of strength to a belief
than is warranted by the evidence for the proposition that is
believed" (p. 189). Thus some forms of epistemological skepticism,
which recommend the formation of beliefs on non-evidential grounds, may be
called fideistic (pp. 195-200).
On Helm's view, fideism
is a belief-policy, but one which paradoxically sets itself against some
uses of evidence and reasoning. Nevertheless, some fideists
do argue for their positions, using various rational arguments. In
religious discussions, for example, the divine transcendence and
our obligation to accept revelation on divine authority are used
to warrant fideistic epistemologies. Thus,
although these thinkers disavow or de-emphasize the use of evidence in
forming beliefs about God, they nevertheless affirm the use of rational
argument in defending their belief-policies. That rational argument is
a "second-order" defense of a "first-order" fideism (p. 193).
Helm argues that there are many
differences within the family of positions called fideisms.
Some are "global," claiming that all knowledge is by faith;
others limit fideism to some area(s) of
knowledge, such as the knowledge of God. Some defend themselves by
"second-order" rational arguments, others do not. Some defend
their positions on epistemological grounds, others on moral or religious
grounds. Fideisms vary as to the specific
role of evidence: some seek to go beyond evidence, others to avoid
any evidential defense at all. Helm notes Arvin Vos's
suggestion that Aquinas, of all people, was in one sense a fideist, because "the transcendent subject-matter
of much theology necessarily goes beyond human understanding" (p.
194), although for Aquinas there is "some evidence for faith" (p. 195).
Alvin Plantinga
claims that belief in God does not require evidence or argument, but may
be placed among the "basic propositions" of one's epistemic system. Nevertheless, he denies that this
"Reformed epistemology" is fideistic,
because in his view these propositions are "grounded" (e.g.
through direct experience) and because, as epistemically
basic propositions, they are among the "deliverances
of reason." Helm nevertheless finds some parallels between Plantinga's view and some forms of fideism,
particularly his assertion that the grounds for believing that God exists
are person-relative or community-relative (p. 216; discussion on pp.
207-216).
At one point I do question Helm's
account of Plantinga. Helm thinks that when Plantinga says that "one who takes God
as properly basic can also know that God exists" he really
should have substituted "does" for "can," in order to
state his view clearly. Helm then points out that when one makes
that substitution a contradiction ensues: for an unbeliever who
made the non-existence of God properly basic would then "know"
that God does not exist. Then the believer would know that God
exists and the unbeliever would know that God does not exist. But
that is impossible. In my view, Helm's argument here raises questions about
the legitimacy of his initial substitution of "does"
for "can" in Plantinga's statement
(pp. 212-213).
The importance of this book for
theology is that Helm has shown some of the important ways in which human
belief is influenced by the will. The notion of a belief-policy is
an important one. When Scripture rebukes people for their unbelief in
the face of clear revelation (Rom. 1:18-32), it
implicitly rebukes their belief-policy, namely their attempt to avoid
proper consideration and evaluation of the evidence given by
revelation. When people are regenerated by God's Spirit, they receive a
new ability to see that revelation for what it truly is. Their
new openness to God's revelation may be described as a
new belief-policy. When Scripture commands repentance and faith,
it implicitly commands people to renounce their old belief-policy and
to adopt a new one, one which will generate new beliefs (or, on Van Til's account, formerly repressed beliefs) about God,
the world, and themselves.
Helm's account also brings out some
of the complexities of human psychology and epistemology which make
self-deception possible. That also illuminates the biblical teaching
that unbelief is self-deceptive, a repression of what one knows to
be true.
When non-Christians object to the
biblical commands to believe on the ground that belief is involuntary,
Helm's book provides us with many useful replies. The consideration
of belief-policies is especially useful. For to discuss with
Some questions do remain, of course.
Helm's account of the justification of belief-policies is somewhat
unsatisfying. He lists various factors that should play a role in an
individual's determination of what belief-policy to follow (summarized on
pp. 140-141). Nevertheless, he insists that there "can be
no rationally compelling second-order argument for the superiority of
one policy over all others, though there can be fairly compelling
arguments for the superiority of one belief-policy over some others" (p. 59; cf. pp.
140-141). A belief-policy governs the use of evidence, and so it cannot
itself be wholly based upon evidence (pp. 59, 67). Helm connects the lack
of rational compulsion in this matter to the essential role of
the will. Since belief-policies are partly voluntary, they cannot
be wholly based on rational considerations.
I do not think it is necessary to
oppose "will" and "reason" as sharply as Helm seems to
suggest. My own inclination would be to say that "will" and
"reason" are simply aspects of, perhaps perspectives upon, the
integrated human personality. On this basis, the will is always rational
and reason always acts voluntarily. To be sure, reason is sometimes
constrained, and that might seem to separate it from the will; but recall
Helm's earlier illustration of breaking the smoking habit: the will
may be involved even when it operates under relative
constraints. And, on the other hand, the "rationality" of the
will is sometimes a defective rationality, because human reason
itself sometimes functions defectively; but the will does not
operate apart from reason.
Helm himself does not define
"will" or "reason," so I am not sure why he finds it
necessary to say that the role of the will in belief-policies necessarily
excludes a rationally compelling argument for a belief-policy. But I must
ask why we cannot say that there are rationally compelling grounds for,
say, a Christian belief-policy, and still maintain that
people willfully reject that policy? That seems to be the implication
of the biblical doctrine of the clarity of revelation in Rom. 1:18-21.
As we have seen, Helm also argues
that a belief-policy
Seriously: at this point, we need to
define what is meant by "evidence," as in the above discussion
we needed a precise definition of "will." If
"evidence" is limited to what is "self-evident" and
"evident to the senses," then I would say that Helm is right. The
grounds for adopting a belief-policy are broader than "evidence"
in this narrow sense, and the belief-policy governs the use of such
evidence without thereby completely controlling its own justification.
But if "evidence" includes
everything that legitimately justifies the adoption of a belief, then
there is no escape from the circularity in view. The grounds for adopting
belief-policies are necessarily evaluated by the belief-policy in effect.
Now, why should we assume, as Helm
does, that belief-policies govern evidence in the narrow sense, but not
in the broad sense? Is it not the case that human beings
adopt policies for dealing with all sorts of rational
considerations, not only with "evidence" narrowly defined? And
must not those broad belief-policies be, in the nature of the
case, self-reflective and, indeed, self-justifying?
Van Til's
point, of course, was that a Christian belief-policy, taken as a datum of
revelation, is self-attesting, self-justifying. It is self-attesting
because it is itself supremely authoritative, not dependent on any other
authority for its verification. It does not, therefore, depend for
its justification on any other belief-policy. In that sense, its justification is "circular."
Taken as a datum of the believer's consciousness, however, rather than as
a datum of revelation, the Christian belief-policy does have an external
justification-- in divine revelation itself.
I have defended Van Tillian "circularity" in my Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987),
pp. 130-133, and in Apologetics to
the Glory of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1994),
pp. 9-14, and in Chapter 22 of Cornelius Van Til (Phillipsburg:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995). I shall not, therefore, repeat those
arguments here. I do think that circularity of a sort is unavoidable when
one is seeking to justify what we might call, in terms of the current
discussion, an ultimate
belief-policy, a policy governing all beliefs.
Nevertheless, Helm's book has an excellent grasp of the fact that voluntary factors enter into human knowledge, and that they enter precisely at the point where people seek to justify their beliefs. The book is therefore a powerful weapon against claims to "neutrality," against claims that knowledge is religiously unproblematic. In my view it takes some large steps in the right direction, even if it has not reached its proper destination.