Christian Psychology
83
Review of Smith (2012)
Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality:
Testing Religious Truth-claims
Christian Psychology: Book Reviews
Featured Review
Smith, R. Scott.
(2012).
Naturalism and Our
Knowledge of Reality: Testing Religious Truth-claims.
Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology,
and Biblical Studies. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 256 pp.
$99.95
Reviewed by
Jason McMartin
, Associate Professor of
Theology, Rosemead School of Psychology and Talbot
School of Theology, Biola University. He may be con-
tacted at:
In recent decades, Christians and other thinkers have
begun to chip away at the dominance of the naturalis-
tic worldview within the Western academy. Given the
prevalence of naturalism’s perfidious effects within the
social sciences, laying bare its problematic assumptions
is an important task for the development of Christian
psychology. (“Naturalism” is here being used broadly as
ontological physicalism: the affirmation that everything
that exists is composed of physical stuff.) Scott Smith’s
recent book,
Naturalism and our Knowledge of Reality:
Testing Religious Truth Claims
, contributes to the ongo-
ing assault against naturalism. Although other philoso-
phers have developed arguments against the plausibility
of naturalistic accounts of knowledge, Smith covers new
ground by thoroughly evaluating several naturalistic
models of knowledge acquisition. One way he illustrates
their deficiencies is by considering the process of healing
in therapeutic relationships.
As sometimes happens, Smith’s publisher has given
the book a subtitle and has placed it in a series that may
mislead potential readers concerning the content and
aims of the book. Although the arguments advanced by
Smith in the book are applicable to religious and moral
knowledge, which he explores in the final chapter, most
of the book shows the faults of various naturalist epis-
temologies. This means that the book is both broader
and narrower than its subtitle might imply. Smith’s
arguments concern the whole range of epistemological
issues, and thus have applicability to every discipline,
including religion and the social sciences. At the same
time, the issues he treats are technical to semi-technical
issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind. The
book is primarily concerned with the intersection
between epistemology and ontology of knowledge.
Although some philosophy of religion appears in the
final chapter, the book is not primarily oriented around
religious issues. One result of this misdirection is that
the broader philosophic audience who would benefit
from the book will likely be missed.
For those who possess the requisite background,
Smith’s discussion is very clear. The book would make
an excellent supplementary text for upper level un-
dergraduate or graduate courses in epistemology, for
instance. However, Smith takes for granted many terms,
concepts, and debates in the analytic epistemology lit-
erature. Those without the necessary background would
still benefit by touching on select aspects of Smith’s
work. In giving an overview of the content of the book,
I’ll suggest two complementary strategies to make good
use of the material by anyone approaching the book.
The first reading strategy covers the development
of the argument of the book from beginning to end.
Although the book appears to be arranged as discrete
chapter long engagements with distinct thinkers or
views, a dialectical thread runs throughout. For this
reason, readers who wish to bypass the technical
philosophical discussions may read the beginnings and
particularly the ends of each of the chapters to trace the
overall argument woven throughout the book.
The main argument of the book is that naturalism
does not have adequate ontological resources to explain
how we are able to have knowledge of the world as it
is. Since we do know many things about the world,
naturalism must be an inadequate worldview. Better
explanations for our ability to know should be sought
elsewhere; unsurprisingly, Smith suggests theism as a
more plausible candidate.
Among the facets of our knowledge of the world
that need explanation by naturalists is the regular and
reliable match between our conscious experiences and
the objects of the world. That match needs a causal con-
nection. Further, our mental states have intentionality;
that is, our beliefs and other kinds of mental states are
of or about their objects and are directed toward them.
We form concepts about the objects of experience and
we check those concepts with their objects to discern
their accuracy. Some of these components, such as a
causal story and reliability, are easier to accommodate
in a naturalist ontology. Intentionality, on the other
