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ABSTRACT
In this paper, James K.A. Smith offers a program for the development of a
distinctly Pentecostal/Charismatic philosophy, following the lead of Alvin
Plantinga’s seminal manifesto, ’Advice for Christian Philosophers’. The
paper explains why philosophy is a vital area of inquiry for Pentecostal
scholars, defends a robust notion of a distinctly Pentecostal philosophy
rooted in a Pentecostal/Charismatic worldview, and lays out a program for
further research in the field.
junior year in college: sitting in chapel, I excitedly opened a letter from the
University of Notre Dame. Several weeks earlier, I had the audacity to
write a personal letter to one of the leading figures in philosophy of
religion: Alvin Plantinga, then newly appointed as John A. O’Brien Pro-
fessor of Philosophy at Notre Dame and key figure in a Christian renewal
* This paper was first delivered at the inaugural session of the Philosophy Interest
Group of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, of which Smith was the first chair.
&dag er; James K.A. Smith (PhD, Villanova University) is Associate Professor of Philoso-
phy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
1. I use ’Pentecostal’ here in its weak sense to refer not to a classical or denomi-
national definition, but rather an understanding of Christian faith which is radically
open to the continued operations of the Spirit. Thus I use ’Pentecostal’ in an older
sense, which would now include ’charismatic’ traditions.
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in philosophy both at Notre Dame and across the profession. Just before
that, I had come across Plantinga’s 1983 inaugural address given on the
occasion of this appointment and later published as ’Advice to Christian
Philosophers’.2 Having heard what I believed was God’s call to become a
Christian philosopher-through yet another Calvinist, W.G.T. Shedd’s
Dogmatic Theology-I began to contemplate graduate study in philosophy
and turned to the obvious place: Plantinga and Notre Dame. The letter I
opened was Professor Plantinga’s gracious reply that encouraged me in
my pursuits. And while my training would take place at another Catho lic
university-and in quite a different philosophical tradition-I am happy
in this paper, which sketches a vision for a Pentecostal philosophy, to
repay something of a debt to Plantinga’s influential vision for an integrally
Christian philosophy and his personal encouragement to an aspiring
Christian philosopher.
Plantinga’s ’Advice’ quickly became something of a manifesto for a
movement of Christian, and largely evangelical,’ philosophers-a call to
them to exercise ’Christian courage’ and ’display more faith, more trust in
the Lord’ in their development of an ’integral’ Christian philosophy. ’We
must’, he urges, ’put on the whole armor of God’ (p. 254). I want to issue
a similar call to the community of Pentecostal scholars to have the same
12. Of course, since we are all Christian philosophers, we will share much in
the philosophical table. 14 Will there now be altar calls at meetings of the
Society of Christian Philosophers? Would papers be delivered in tongues?
These, of course, are caricatures; but they are intended to indicate that the
broader Christian philosophical community is only acquainted, second-
hand, with caricatures of Pentecostal worship and lacks an understanding
of Pentecostal distinctives that would make a difference in the philo-
sophical community. One of the goals of this paper will be to indicate
Pentecostal commitments that in fact should impact epistemological and
ontological reflection.
14. Of course, there would also be the even more skeptical response of the broader
philosophical community, who are generally skeptical about Christian philosophy and
whose criticisms would be intensified when faced with the proposal for a Pentecostal
philosophy. Our response to the broader philosophical community would follow the
same lines as Plantinga’s apologia and need not be taken up here.
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15. This is related to Plantinga’s later work on the concept of ’warrant’. See his
trilogy from Oxford University Press, Warrant: The Current Debate (1993), Warrant
and Proper Function (1993), and Warranted Christian Belief
(2000).
16. Plantinga’s ’Advice’ was originally delivered at Notre Dame.
17. In this light, I was impressed by John Christopher Thomas’ testimony, in the
Preface to his The Devil, Disease, and Deliverance, where he shared that he determines
his research projects by prayer.
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(p. 256).
This iswhy Plantinga also argues that the development of an autono-
mous, integral Christian philosophy will demand Christian boldness or
’Christian self-confidence’ (p. 254). The integrity and autonomy of a
Christian philosophy will require Christian philosophers to display ’less
readiness to trim their sails to the prevailing philosophical winds of doc-
trine and more Christian self-confidence’ (p. 258). Why, he asks, ’should
we be intimidated by what the rest of the philosophical world thinks
20. See James K.A. Smith, ’What Hath Cambridge To Do With Azusa Street?:
Radical Orthodoxy and Pentecostal Theology in Conversation’, Pneuma: Journal of
the Society for Pentecostal Studies (forthcoming).
21. I take the central point of the narrative of Acts 2 to be Peter’s courage and
willingness to recognize in these ’strange’ phenomena the operation of the Spirit and
declare it to be a work of God. To declare ’this is that’ (Acts 2.16) was to be open to
God working in unexpected ways.
22. In Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology, to be open to the Other is
precisely to be open to novelty, to something new.
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Pentecostal beliefs in the holistic nature of the gospel, healing both soul
and body, should contribute to a unique philosophical anthropology and
theory about the nature of the human person. Further, Pentecostals would
also approach the history of philosophy with a different set of com-
mitments and questions which could open up historical figures and texts in
new ways. (I am thinking, for instance, of the unique readings and new
23. I think a Pentecostal history of philosophy would have some sympathy with
Michel Foucault’s method of historical investigation which participates in an
’insurrection of subjugated knowledges’. See Foucault, ’Two Lectures’, in Michael
Kelly (ed.), Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate (Cam-
bridge : MIT Press, 1994), pp. 17-46.
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For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for
the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for
the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty
thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every
thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10.3-5).
So let us undertake the task of developing a Pentecostal philosophy as our
calling and vocation, as our mission and part of the Great Commission.
24. As seen, for instance, in Norman Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992).