Introduction

Arthur Petersen’s (2023) book Climate, God and Uncertainty offers a unique contribution to the academic field of science and religion—and a very timely one at that. It breaks new ground by arguing for a type of naturalism that attempts to overcome the limitations of existing forms, may help us be realistic about uncertainties (both in science and religion), and conveys an attitude of wonder and openness to “intimations of transcendence” elicited by the natural world (Petersen 2023, 25, 37, 46–55). The author intentionally and effectively has an open mind, which enables him to incorporate widely divergent sources—e.g., theistic, spiritual, agnostic, and atheistic—in his argument. The way he goes beyond traditional fault lines in debates about naturalism and religion is refreshing, and his wish to be inclusive instead of divisive seems sincere. On top of that, the focus on climate change—drawing on the author’s long-standing experience as an official Dutch government representative to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—makes the book very topical.

There is actually only one stream of thought with which Petersen apparently has great difficulties, namely, scientism—or scientistic naturalism, as he calls it. He defines this as the view “which assumes that only science can lead to knowledge” (Petersen 2023, 13), thus focusing on its epistemological dimension. He does not deny, however, that apart from this, scientism also has an ontological dimension, according to which the natural world is all that exists. Arguably, Petersen’s criticism of scientism is prompted by the fact that it has strengthened a disenchanted worldview that has enabled us to instrumentalize nature, exploiting it for our own purposes and thus eventually leading to the contemporary climate crisis. Petersen is in line with his main interlocutors here: William James, Heinrich Rickert, and Bruno Latour are all critical of a scientistic worldview (although in the case of Rickert and James that term did not yet exist, scientific materialism or scientific naturalism was of course well in place in their time).

Petersen (2023, 52; cf. 107) even goes beyond Latour, as the subtitle of his book expresses, in arguing for a “mode of mystics” next to the modes of existence Latour distinguishes. And he approvingly quotes James as saying “that we have a right to believe the physical order to be only a partial order; that we have a right to supplement it by an unseen spiritual order which we assume on trust, if only thereby life may seem to us better worth living again.” James shields this pragmatist approach to religion from accusations that it would be unscientific (i.e., ruled out by science), countering that “our science is a drop, our ignorance is a sea” (Petersen 2023, 151). In this way, along with James, Petersen (2023, 152) keeps scientism at bay, rejecting “dogmatic thinking, both in science and in religion.”

How to Avoid Dogmatism in Philosophy

All in all, it seems to me that there is much to commend in Petersen’s book. Yet, leaving aside some more minor questions, I have one main concern with the thrust of its argument. In order to clarify where this concern comes from, let me first reveal my own positionality. Coming from a Dutch Reformed background, I consider myself a systematic theologian in the tradition of mainline Protestantism (and, more broadly, that of the church catholic). My fellow countryman Petersen, on the other hand, works decidedly within the Kantian tradition. Of course, Kant being a Protestant of sorts himself, these two backgrounds are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and it will be interesting to see to what extent they may overlap in this case. But let me first briefly elucidate why I consider Petersen a scholar in the Kantian tradition.

Although he criticizes Kant for maintaining metaphysical assumptions in his philosophy, especially about the Dinge an sich, (Petersen 2023, 10), Petersen (2023, 17) himself also accepts the existence of “a world independent of the human mind.” To be sure, he primarily receives Kant through the work of Rickert, appreciating in particular the way in which Rickert extended the Kantian project towards a “transcendental naturalist analysis of values in cultural practices” (Petersen 2023, 17). Yet, in accepting the core claims of transcendentalism, Petersen in fact stays quite close to Kant. This is palpable in the way he more or less tacitly assumes the validity of well-known Kantian dichotomies such as that between reason and faith, the theoretical and the atheoretical, and philosophy and metaphysics. Indeed, his notion of metaphysics is most interesting here. Whereas analytical philosophers (and theologians) typically see metaphysics as “first philosophy,” Petersen (2023, 9) entirely separates it from philosophy and correlates it with religion, claiming that it “requires faith that goes beyond reason” and indeed characterizing it as “not belonging to theoretical philosophy but being a matter of faith.” As a result, metaphysics is not a part of Wissenschaft either (Petersen 2023, 9). That is, so I take it, it does not belong to the realm of knowledge. And here we stumble upon one of the most fundamental Kantian assumptions underlying the book: we cannot know what is beyond the realm of our sensory experience, so that “God or the Transcendent will go beyond philosophy proper” (Petersen 2023, 259). Clearly, the notion of uncertainty that figures in the title of this book not only applies to the contingencies of climate change but also to God. Interestingly, this does not mean that the notion of God is at best of marginal interest to Petersen—in fact, the contrary may be the case. It is in any case revealing that it figures as the central concept in his book’s title.

As a result of this firm Kantianism, theistic naturalists (Petersen discusses Fiona Ellis (2014), Alister E. McGrath (2002), and Karl E. Peters (2002) among others) can be accommodated by Petersen only on one condition: it must be acknowledged that their theism is a matter of faith beyond reason, not of knowledge. In fact, even though his transcendental naturalism does not commit him to one particular version of naturalism (theistic, agnostic, or atheistic), Petersen (2023, 260) himself occasionally comes quite close to endorsing the theistic variety of naturalism, for example when he writes: “A metaphysical assumption can be made that God exists … as a being omnipresent to all things in nature.” But then again he avers: “It should be clear, however, that the specific metaphysical assumption made by Peters [that is, the assumption that God exists in this way] … cannot be demonstrated” (Petersen 2023, 260).

Well, the latter seems fair enough—even though there is still a lot of work being done by analytical philosophers who continue to devise, refine, and strengthen arguments for the existence of God (cf., e.g., Rutten 2012; Sijuwade 2024). But it is the implicit dichotomy here that is telling: since this metaphysical assumption cannot be demonstrated, it is at best a possibility of which the truth-value is uncertain. In other words: one cannot know that God exists, and theists can only get access into the transcendental–naturalist boat if they accept that their faith is, in fact, nothing but metaphysical speculation. But why should we endorse such a binary between uncertain faith and indubitable knowledge? Is there not instead a continuum of things of which we can be less and more certain? And are we not pretty sure of many beliefs that we have not demonstrated, and perhaps even cannot demonstrate (e.g., all sorts of ordinary beliefs, such as concerning what we had for breakfast last Friday, to begin with)?

In fact, the history and philosophy of science have taught us that there are actually very few things that can be demonstrated beyond the slightest doubt. The demise of logical positivist verification and confirmation theories as well as the insufficiency of Karl Popper’s falsification principle are revealing in this connection (cf., e.g., van den Brink 2009, 29–46). And the philosophical attempts to arrive at a foundation of indubitable “rock bottom knowledge” over against all metaphysical speculation, whether carried out by René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl, the logical positivists, or others, have failed—some of them (such as the logical positivist one) dramatically so, starving the death of a thousand qualifications (see, e.g., Wolterstorff 1976, 31–51). Petersen, however, insists on the importance of this dichotomy from the beginning to the end of his book (cf. at the end of the book: “God or the Transcendent is a topic that goes beyond philosophy proper”; Petersen 2023, 256). As said, he mostly displays an open mind, welcoming as many forms of naturalism as he can. More generally, he is keen “to avoid dogmatic metaphysics and philosophy, and to opt instead for an open approach to metaphysics and philosophy” (Petersen 2023, 9). But at this point he is philosophically dogmatic himself—and, I would argue, more certain of his case than he should be.

Of course, it is always wise to take our uncertainties for what they are instead of reasoning them away, and Petersen rightly and refreshingly reminds us of this. That does not mean, however, that we should continue to highlight our theoretical uncertainty when in fact we are and can be (perhaps even should be) pretty sure of something. For example, although we should avoid dogmatism here as well (Petersen 2023, ch. 7), we can, and should, be pretty sure about the fact that contemporary climate change is both largely anthropogenic and threatening the future of our planet. Petersen’s (2023, 251) “heightened attention” to uncertainty (the word “uncertainty” occurs 222 times in his book) can easily backfire in this connection. Readers who only glance at his book’s title and observe the combination of the words “climate” and “uncertainty” may easily feel strengthened in their intuition that contemporary climate change is in fact uncertain (“even at UCL they acknowledge that!”). Happily, Petersen (2023, 253) does not endorse this view, but only points out in a very nuanced way that the near consensus about human-caused climate change should not be conflated with 100% certainty, as “many activists do.” Such nuances are quickly forgotten, though. Thus, emphatically associating climate change with uncertainty is in fact risky. It is my thesis that highlighting (even to the degree of radiating a sense of certainty on this point) religion’s uncertainty may similarly be counterproductive in the context of appropriately addressing contemporary climate change.

On Recovering from Kant

Petersen’s firm Kantianism with regard to religious belief reminded me of a paper by philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff that has become quite famous among theologians. The article is entitled “Is It Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant?” and was originally published in the journal Modern Theology (Wolterstorff [2001] 2010; I guess Wolterstorff intentionally submitted his piece to the journal bearing this title). Wolterstorff starts his contribution with the story of a female theology student one day entering his office and expressing her gratitude for his then recent book Divine Discourse (Wolterstorff 1995). “You know what,” the student said, “you just start talking about God as if nothing is wrong with that!” What she had found so frustrating during her studies was that most of her professors, just like most modern theologians, did not allow her to do so, instead requiring that she first showed how one can reasonably speak about God in the first place.

The student and Wolterstorff ([2001] 2010, 37) discuss this point and agree that Kant had been “the decisive influence here.” Wolterstorff therefore goes on to analyze Kant’s thinking on this issue, pointing out that the metaphor of a boundary was of tremendous importance to Kant in this connection. Knowledge of God is unavailable to us, since the transcendent lies beyond the boundary of what can humanly be known. Yet, there is another entryway to the transcendent realm, namely, faith. It is this Kantian way of thinking, I surmise, that underlies Petersen’s assessments of faith, religion, and metaphysics throughout his book.

Now, Wolterstorff ([2001] 2010, 54), using Wittgensteinian language in this connection, is quite critical of this “picture that has held us in its grip.” The picture forced itself upon us with so much self-evidence that “a good many … theologians have spoken far more confidently about the existence of The Great Boundary than about the existence of God” (Wolterstorff [2001] 2010, 52). Wolterstorff then very briefly sketches the contours of an alternative epistemology, which he connects with the work of the other philosopher (next to Kant) “who towered above all others in the late 18th century” but whose work for complex reasons has largely been obscured from view, viz. Thomas Reid (1710–96) (Wolterstorff [2001] 2010, 55; cf. Wolterstorff 2001). This “father” of Scottish common sense philosophy did not accept Kant’s mental representationalism, according to which concepts are in fact barriers between mind and reality, thus causing uncertainty about reality. Reid perceives and firmly rejected the tendency towards epistemological skepticism concerning the external world inherent in this imagistic view, i.e., the view that our interaction with reality is mediated by mental images of things (Cuneo and van Woudenberg 2004, 7).

The Reidian Alternative

Following a common sense approach, Reid suggests that the objects of our concepts are not mental states but real objects: dogs, tables, triangles, etc. Reid’s notion of common sense entails that our belief-forming faculties are in principle reliable, as even the most skeptical philosopher assumes in ordinary life (Cuneo and van Woudenberg 2004, 10; see an interesting parallel between Reid and American pragmatism here, next to one with British ordinary language philosophy). Since our perception as it were gives us direct access to the external world, we need not in a Cartesian tour de force first empty our head from all beliefs except those that are indubitable or that can be inferentially derived from such indubitable beliefs. In principle, we can trust our senses without having to prove in advance that their deliverances are valid. Of course, occasionally we can be wrong in that we do not actually perceive what we think we perceive—but the burden of proof here is on the one who thinks we are mistaken. And, as Reid is quick to point out, the very fact that we can see we are mistaken shows that we hold our sense perception to be generally reliable. In that sense, “his [Reid’s] understanding of the role of common sense within philosophy is that it is a doctrine concerning burden of proof” (Wolterstorff 2004, 98).

Moreover, what counts for our perception also applies to other commonly accepted sources of human knowledge, such as memory, consciousness (e.g., of pain), moral sense, etc. Comparing it to modern or classical foundationalism (i.e., the epistemological paradigm according to which we are only entitled to believe propositions that are either indubitable or incorrigible or derived in a logically flawless way from such propositions), John Greco (2004, 154) has aptly dubbed Reid’s variety of foundationalism “moderate as well as broad.” As Terence Cuneo and René van Woudenberg (2004, 8) explain: “Reid’s favored version of foundationalism is moderate because it tells us that a belief can be in an excellent epistemic standing—say, be a case of knowledge or certain—without being indubitable or incorrigible. And it is wide because it says that many of our beliefs about external objects, other minds, events in the past, moral truths, and the like are both (i) not inferred from other propositions and (ii) in excellent epistemic condition.”

Having been rediscovered at that time, Reid had a palpable influence on the collapse of modern foundationalism during the second half of the twentieth century and the rise of so-called Reformed epistemology in its wake. According to Reformed epistemology, just like our other belief-forming faculties, under certain conditions, our sensus divinitatis (i.e., the human propensity towards religious belief or transcendence) non-inferentially yields beliefs that can be justified and even true. In fact, Alvin P. Plantinga and others (e.g., Plantinga 1993; Plantinga 2000; Alston 1991) elaborate Reid’s theory of belief-forming faculties that under certain conditions yield knowledge when functioning properly and extend it from the external world to God (Reid himself does not seem to have done the latter; cf. Tuggy 2004, 299–300). If there is no structural boundary between humans and the external world, neither need we postulate one between humans and God. Again, we may be wrong in our beliefs about God, but there is no a priori reason to think we are irrational or otherwise beyond reason in holding such beliefs. In fact, it is even possible that humans come to know God (knowledge being conceived of as justified true belief plus a Gettier-condition), as theists of all traditions have typically held.

To be sure, Petersen as well distances himself in a certain sense from Kant’s more skeptical view of religion. He suggests that it might be an “(over)reaction to his pietistic upbringing” that made Kant qualify all “supposed contact with God as religious enthusiasm” (Petersen 2023, 81). Seemingly against this point of view, Petersen (2023, 81) then argues that “an important role can be played in religious ritual by the power of judgement and accompanying emotions. Like poetry, religious ritual can expand the mind, set the imagination free and present models of God.” Also, following Latour, Petersen (2023, 82) points to the important role of emotions and aesthetics in the context of religion. In doing so, he indeed broadens the scope of religion, not restricting its value to the moral (and pedagogical) realm, as Kant did. Yet, he does not liberate religion from its bondage to the domain of practical knowledge. Even the models of God he allows for cannot lead to theoretical knowledge, since “we are also uncertain about our models of God (which belong to practical knowledge)” (Petersen 2023, 79). To be sure, there is a slight hesitation in Petersen’s formulations in this context, which might strike the hermeneutically sensitive reader: when denying that there can be theoretical knowledge about God, he adds the word “perhaps” (“there can in a technical sense perhaps be no theoretical knowledge about God”; Petersen 2023, 79). Is that a slip of the pen, an attempt to remain polite to religious believers—or is it an acknowledgment of a modest sense of uncertainty on his part? This brings me to the relevance of all this in the context of Petersen’s advocacy for climate action and, even more prominently (for there is more emphasis on contemplation than action in Petersen’s book), a nature-centered spirituality.

Transcendental Naturalism and Classical Theism

Why is the issue discussed here relevant in the context of contemporary climate change? Well, if Petersen would be willing to open up his transcendental naturalism to incorporate classical theists, that is (roughly defined), those who think God exists and that it is possible to know God, he would be able to include the vast majority of the adherents of the world’s great monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) in his camp. No longer would they be forced to leave their claims to knowledge and rationality behind—which, quite naturally, they may be unwilling to do—before entering the naturalist boat. Instead, they could join Petersen in his attempt at “re-enchanting” the world, experiencing the natural world as a place of wonder and mystery instead of taking it for granted and instrumentalizing it.

Since the number of (mono)theists by far exceeds the number of Kantians, it may be key for the future of the planet how theists in particular take sides in the climate change debate (cf. Tyson 2021, 4–6, who follows Noble Prize-winning behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman in suggesting that American evangelicals in particular may be on the tipping point of the climate debate). Large groups of classical theists have shown themselves open to let their stance on climate change (and on ecological issues more generally) be influenced by an attitude of awe and wonder vis-à-vis nonhuman nature, and Petersen’s explorations may indeed help them open themselves even more intentionally to such values and treat them with full seriousness. Other theists, however, are prone to stick to the Baconian picture of a disenchanted world that we should continue to exploit for our purposes. Thus, it really matters in which direction the majority of them will eventually swing, and it would be very useful if Petersen could help them in making a choice from within the perspective of their own basic assumptions.

I am therefore curious to know whether Petersen will indeed be prepared to open up his transcendental naturalism to “others,” such as classical theists (or “people of Creation,” as Latour calls them) in particular. During the conference session where I read a first draft of this article, Petersen quite spontaneously reacted in an appreciative manner, suggesting he was indeed open to seriously consider this on certain conditions. Even though I would of course be happy if he maintains this approach in his more considered “official” response to this article, it is important to be clear about the philosophical price that will have to be paid for it. For what may at first sight seem only a modest extension of his theory—he already accommodates theistic naturalists, so why not including other theists as well?—may in fact amount to a major shift in his thinking that requires him to considerably qualify (if not give up) his transcendentalist approach. But transcendentalism seems as dear to him and close to his heart as a religious faith typically is to its adherents. It is the most basic assumption of his philosophical thinking—a dogmatic starting point not itself argued for but serving as the basis for all argumentation (so a kind of unmoved mover). And conceding that it may be possible to theoretically know God, as most theists believe, seems incompatible with remaining a transcendentalist firmly embedded in the Kantian tradition.

Thus, I realize I am asking a lot. In fact, it is not just the existence and knowledge of God (often conceived of by theists as a metaphysical being rather than “beyond being,” as in parts of the phenomenological tradition) that is at stake here, but also God’s agency. Unlike deists, theists typically believe God is somehow actively involved in this world. Latour makes short shrift of such notions. For him, like for Kant, “there is no place for the ‘supernatural’ in the philosophical analysis of religious practices” (Petersen 2023, 4). Indeed, according to Latour ([2015] 2017, 46), “‘[n]ature’ … has inherited … all the functions of the all-seeing and all-encompassing God of the old days, and who is just as incapable of bringing its Providence to have any effect whatsoever on the Earth!” And “the reassuring figure of an ordering God who protected the … people makes no sense” (Latour [2015] 2017, 176; for a more appreciative view of divine providence in the context of climate change, see van den Brink 2024).

Would Petersen be prepared to voice a bit more uncertainty here? This is not asking him to give up on the integrity of the sciences (as epitomized by its methodological naturalism). In fact, there is quite some recent theory formation as to how the notion of divine action might plausibly function given what we know from the modern sciences (see, e.g., Russell and Moritz 2019; Koperski 2020; Silva 2022). It is asking, however, to take classical theism a bit more seriously—not as an obsolete tradition (as Latour does) but as a live option.

Despite the difficulties clearly involved here, I am still hopeful Petersen might accept my invitation, since there are some indications he takes classical theism more seriously than his transcendentalism formally allows him to do. First, I already pointed to the intriguing qualifier “perhaps” in his statement that there can be no theoretical knowledge of God (Petersen 2023, 79). Second, Petersen explicitly distances himself from Latour’s rejection of “big transcendence” (i.e., transcendence as confessed in the monotheistic religions), arguing that both this notion and the one of “mini-transcendences” preferred by Latour can be accepted, even though they can only “be taken on faith (or not)” (Petersen 2023, 56n1). I hope Petersen will become receptive to the view that it is definitely possible to go beyond this and argue philosophically for and against notions of God and transcendence. This is not to say that any generally convincing answers will ever be reached, or that in this life we will be able to move beyond the stage in which we see “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV). It is to say, however, that such notions need not be excluded from the house of knowledge and rationality. Third, Petersen does include in his work some analysis of contemporary classical theists, such as Plantinga and Alister McGrath, and it appears from these parts that he is sensitive to the fact that not all of them are crypto-fundamentalists, as Latour seems to think (Latour [2015] 2017, 156; cf. Petersen 2023, 245).

In particular, Petersen’s discussion of McGrath (focusing on McGrath 2002) is illuminating here. Petersen (2023, 170) notes that “[a]esthetics, beauty, wonder and poetry [i.e., the values that he holds in high esteem] all figure in McGrath’s book, on the basis of a fundamental alignment between nature and God.” Thus, he acknowledges that in order to experience nature in this way, it is not necessary to abandon one’s theistic beliefs—on the contrary, such beliefs may even be conducive to experiencing nature as somehow pointing beyond itself. Petersen (2023, 171) does not evaluate McGrath’s position but goes on asking how one could construe an analogous argumentation “without taking a theistic position.” But perhaps he could consider taking such a theistic position—one that goes beyond the one articulated by his “theistic naturalists” who accept the Kantian boundary—as epistemically legitimate? Maybe the discussion here of Wolterstorff’s and Reid’s criticisms can help him assess the weight of their arguments against epistemological boundary-thinking and consider the alternatives they propose.

Conclusion

Petersen has published a rich book from which I learned a lot and to which I have returned many times over the past couple of months. He brings together various philosophical and occasionally theological traditions, creatively gleaning insights from them for his main concern—the articulation of what one might call a nature-sensitive view of life for the Anthropocene—all the while weaving together the various threads in his discourse into a coherent whole. He is keen on doing full justice to his many interlocutors, never over-interpreting them, but he also dares to contradict them where he deems necessary. There is only one desideratum I have: that he shows a bit more uncertainty with regard to his Kantian maxim that “philosophy should limit itself to theorising only about the world ‘on this side’ and not try to specify any other world ‘beyond’” (Petersen 2023, 251). If Petersen (2023, 263) could give up on this “dogmatic” starting point, there would be a world to win in his attempt to adequately address “some of modernity’s problems rendered acute by climate change.”

Acknowledgments

A previous version of this commentary was presented at a book panel organized by the Science, Technology and Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) at the AAR Annual Meeting 2024, San Diego, USA, November 24, 2024. The International Society for Science and Religion has published a recording of the book panel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7hWwrhnmyE.