1.) By contrast, externalist defeaters involve the obtaining of certain facts about the subject's environment or cognitive situation, where these are not mentally accessible upon reflection. For instance, defeasibility accounts of knowledge maintain that there can be true propositions that prevent over all justified true beliefs from counting as knowledge. For the distinction between internalist and externalist defeaters, see William Alston, "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology," in Alston, Epistemic Justification (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 191-192; Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 359-360; Michael Sudduth, "Proper Basicality and the Evidential Significance of Internalist Defeat: A Proposal for Revising Classical Evidentialsm" in The Rationality of Theism, ed. G. Bruntrup and R. Tacelli (Kluwer Academic Press, 1999).

2.) Thinking of defeaters as argument forms, John Pollock distinguished between reasons that attack a conclusion (rebutters) and reasons that attack the connection between the premises and the conclusion (undercutter). John Pollock, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge (1986), pp. 38-39. But there are also reasons that attack the premise of an argument. Here one gets a rebutter for one of the reasons R for some belief B, so B is defeated in such a way that it is not rational to continue holding at least one of the reasons R for B. We can call these reason-defeating defeaters. For this distinction I am indebted to Michael Bergmann's Internalism, Externalism, and Epistemic Defeat (University of Notre Dame, Ph.D dissertation, 1997), pp. 99-103. In this paper I am using "undercutting" defeater in such a way that it includes reason-defeating defeaters, as one might view the distinction as two ways in which a ground or reason could be inadequate.

3.) Plantinga, "Foundations of Theism: A Reply," Faith and Philosophy, 3:3 (July 1986), p. 313; George Mavrodes, "Jerusalem and Athens Revisted" in Faith and Rationality, ed. Plantinga, and Wolterstorff, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), especially, p. 197; Dewey Hoitenga, Faith and Reason from Plato to Plantinga (Albany: State University of New Press, 1991), p. 203; Gary Gutting, "The Catholic and the Calvinist: A Dialogue on Faith and Reason," Faith and Philosophy, 2:236-56 (1985), Paul Griffiths, "An Apology for Apologetics," Faith and Philosophy 5:399-420 (1988).

4.) George Mavrodes, "Jerusalem and Athens Revisited" in Faith and Rationality, ed. Plantinga, and Wolterstorff.

5.) Five Views on Christian Apologetics, ed. Stephen B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), pp. 296-97.

6.) See Plantinga's summary in Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 69-70. References will hereafter be given parenthetically in the text and designated by WCB.

7.) These positive epistemological arguments are also found in Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Can Religious Belief be Rational if it Has No Foundations" in Faith and Rationality (1983) and in William Alston, Perceiving God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).

8.) As Plantinga notes, epistemic possibility is both weaker and stronger than broadly logical possibility. It is stronger since there are many obviously false propositions that are logically possible. It is weaker in the sense that there are propositions that are epistemically possible but logically impossible. See WCB, pp. 168-169.

9.) Nicholas Wolterstoff defends the modest character of the claims of Reformed epistemology in "What Reformed Epistemology is Not" Perspectives (November 1992), pp.14-16.

10.) See Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God" in Faith and Rationality, ed. Plantinga and Wolterstorff , pp. 82-87; Warranted Christian Belief, chapter 11; Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Can Religious Belief be Rational if it Has No Foundations?" in Faith and Rationality, pp. 164-172, William Alston, Perceiving God, pp. 79, 159, 189-194; C. Stephen Evans, The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 267-268, 293-295, 306.

11.) Here I ignore the technical qualification that defeaters for theistic belief, like defeaters in general, are properly speaking defeaters for some particular person's theistic belief. The philosophical arguments for the rationality of belief in God require addressing the rationality question at a general level. Establishing or defending the rationality of theistic belief in a general way does not imply that everyone's belief in God is ipso facto rational. What it establishes is that belief in God can be rational and is rational given that a person satisfies the appropriate conditions. The apologist attempts to show that such conditions can be satisfied. So, for instance, defeaters against theistic belief can be defeated. It doesn't follow from what the Christian philosopher or apologist does by way of defeating defeaters that someone else's defeaters for theistic belief have in fact been defeated. Defeaters and epistemic defeat are relative to each person's noetic structure.

12.) This is not to say, of course, that one cannot make a simple de facto objection to theism. Surely one can. The point here is that such objections carry with them implications for what is rational or not to believe. Perhaps it isn't always clear whether an atheological objection is intended to be merely de facto or also de jure. See Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, p. 464.

13.) Actually, the idea is stronger than the "defeat" of defeater. It is showing by way of an argument that a defeater has been defeated. The defeat of a defeater, of course, is crucial for a person to remain rational in holding theistic belief. But a defeater can be defeated without showing that it has been defeated. We should not confuse the state of acquiring a defeater-defeater with the activity of showing that one has a defeater-defeater. The context of the discussion here has been the activity of presenting arguments.

14.) Plantinga, God and Other Minds (1990, reprint; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 111.

15.) Ibid., ix-x.; Cf. Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 69-70.

16.) Plantinga makes this point in "Belief in God", "Christian Philosophy at the end of the Twentieth Century," and "The Prospects for Natural Theology." More recently Bill Craig has pointed this out in "Classical Apologetics," in Five Views on Christian Apologetics, ed. Cowan, pp. 45-48. It is interesting to note that prior to the rise of Reformed epistemology, Reformed objections to natural theology were often simply opposition to the idea that theistic arguments could constitute proofs or logical demonstrations of God. These very Reformed thinkers left open a role for theistic arguments as confirmatory or probabilistic in nature. For instance, see Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 21; William Masselink, General Revelation and Common Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), pp. 117-120; Augustus Strong, Systematic Theology (1979, reprint; Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1907), p. 71.

17.) Although not accepted by Reformed epistemologists, there is the idea that a criteria for proper basicality is the availability of evidence in support of the truth of the belief, even if it is not required that a person actually have this evidence himself. If one were to take this view, then arguments for God's existence would go to showing that it is rationally accepted as properly basic.

18.) The strong formulation discussed in this paragraph has been recognized by Hoitenga, Faith and Reason from Plato to Plantinga (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 183, 209, 220-222; John Zeis, "Natural Theology: Reformed?" in Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology, ed. Linda Zagzebski (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), p. 49; Patrick Lee, "Evidentiaslism, Plantinga, and Faith and Reason," in Rational Faith, p. 142; and Feinberg, "A Cumulative Case Apologist's Response," in Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Cowan, pp.302, 304.

19.) "Reason and Belief in God," p. 71; cf. pp. 72-73.

20.) "Prospects," Philosophical Perspectives (1991), pp. See Also Warranted Christian Belief, p. 179, no. 16.

21.) For a development of such an argument, see Michael Sudduth, "Alstonian Foundationalism and Higher-Level Theistic Evidentialism" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (June 1994).

22.) Plantinga, "The Foundations of Theism: A Reply," Faith and Philosophy 3 (July 1986), pp. 309-310.

23.) Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Is Reason Enough?" in Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Brandan Sweetman (New York: Oxford, 1992). Originally published in The Reformed Journal 31 (April 1981).

24.) In Religious Epistemology and the Reformed Objection to Natural Theology (in progress) I develop a detailed case against natural theology on the grounds of the noetic effects of sin.

25.) Kelly Clark, "A Reformed Epistemologist's Closing Remarks" in Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Cowan, pp. 365-366.

26.) Ibid., p. 372; cf. p. 364.

27.) Dewey Hoitenga develops this concern in Faith and Reason from Plato to Plantinga: An Introduction to Reformed Epistemology, pp. 209-211.

28.) For this distinction, see Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God" in Faith and Rationality, pp.71-73; Wolterstorff, p. 157; Alston, Perceiving God, p. 71; C.S. Evans, Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith p. 220.

29.) Kelly Clark, though critical of positive apologetics, also makes this point repeatedly in his contributions in Five Views on Christian Apologetics, ed. Cowan. See pages 200, 273, 282, 365-66, 372.

30.) "Reason and Belief in God," p. 71.

31.) Ibid., p. 73.

32.) "Prospects," pp. 311-312.

33.) Ibid., p. 312. See also Plantinga, "Two Dozen (or So) Theistic Arguments" (unpublished lecture notes) and "Belief in God" in Introduction to Philosophy, ed. R. Boylan. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1992), pp. 390-396.

34.) Plantinga, "Christian Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century," in Alvin Plantinga: The Analytic Theist, ed. James Sennett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 339.

35.) See Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, chapter 10 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974).

36.) Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 227-240. Of course, as Plantinga points out, the strength of this argument admittedly depends on the probabilities assigned to theism and naturalism given our entire background knowledge, not just the reliability of our cognitive faculties. Of course the same sort of restriction applies to atheological arguments from evil. Even if it were more probable than not that God does not exist, given the existence of evil, it would not follow that his non existence is more probable than not given evil and our entire background knowledge. But there is an argument here nonetheless. By bringing additional evidence into consideration, we could strengthen this epistemological argument.

37.) These epistemological arguments (and others) are sketched by Plantinga in his "Two Dozen (or So) Theistic Arguments."

38.) Plantinga writes: "And here we see the ontological or metaphysical or ultimately religious roots of the question as to the rationality or warrant or lack thereof for belief in God. What you take to be rational, at least in the sense of warranted, depends on what sort of metaphysical and religious stance you adopt. . . .the dispute as to whether theistic belief is rational (warranted) can't be settled just by attending to epistemological considerations; it is at bottom not merely an epistemological dispute, but an ontological or theological dispute." (Warranted Christian Belief, p. 190)