Natural Signs and Knowledge of God

This monograph examines whether human beings possess a natural, non-inferential knowledge of God through what Evans terms "natural signs." Drawing on Reformed epistemology and particularly the work of Thomas Reid, Evans develops an account of how certain features of human experience might function as divine signs that ground immediate, properly basic beliefs about God.

Evans begins by establishing a framework for understanding natural signs as distinct from both natural theology's inferential arguments and claims to special revelation. He argues that just as humans possess cognitive faculties that produce immediate beliefs about the external world, memory, and other minds, they may also possess what Calvin called a sensus divinitatis - a cognitive faculty that produces immediate awareness of God in response to certain experiential triggers. These triggers, or natural signs, include experiences of cosmic wonder, moral obligation, beneficial providence, and miraculous events.

The work engages critically with both evidentialist objections and naturalistic explanations of religious belief. Against evidentialists who demand propositional evidence for theistic belief, Evans contends that many properly held beliefs arise non-inferentially through reliable cognitive processes. Against naturalistic debunking arguments, particularly those emerging from cognitive science of religion, he maintains that genealogical accounts of religious belief's origins do not necessarily undermine its truth or justification. Even if evolution shaped religious cognition, this could be how God designed humans to know their creator.

Evans carefully distinguishes his position from both strong natural theology and fideism. Unlike natural theologians, he does not claim these signs provide demonstrative proofs compelling assent from all rational persons. Unlike fideists, he maintains that theistic belief can be reasonable and epistemically responsible. The signs function more like testimony - they can ground knowledge for those who experience them, though their force depends partly on the perceiver's cognitive and spiritual condition.

The monograph's significance lies in its sophisticated defense of a middle path between rationalism and irrationalism in religious epistemology. By developing Reid's epistemology in theological directions, Evans provides intellectual resources for those who claim immediate awareness of God while acknowledging that such awareness is neither universal nor coercive. His careful attention to epistemic defeaters and the conditions under which natural signs successfully produce knowledge advances discussions about whether theistic belief requires evidence and how religious experience relates to religious knowledge.