18 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 24, No. 3 ◆ Summer 2010 DAVID C. CRAMER is a licensed minister in the Missionary Church. He teaches religion and phi- losophy at Bethel College, Mishawaka, and serves at Keller Park Church in South Bend, Indiana, where he lives with his wife, Andrea, and their son, Wesley. He has published articles and reviews in Philosophia Christi, Ethics and Medicine, Mennonite Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Creating a Culture of Equality as Witness to the Truth: A Philosophical Response to Gender Difference David C. Cramer Introduction: Some personal confessions I have a confession to make: I am as convinced of egalitarian prac- tices in the church and home as they come. However, I have an- other confession that is perhaps more startling for us Christians for Biblical Equality:1 I believe that it is quite possible—indeed, quite likely—that the raw biblical material underdetermines an answer to many of the questions raised in contemporary gender debates. Speciically, I am thinking of debates over how church polity should be structured regarding gender as well as how the Christian husband/wife relationship should be structured.2 What I mean by stating that the raw biblical material under- determines an answer to these questions is simply this: here are no strictly exegetical arguments that could persuade a commit- ted hierarchist to become egalitarian, and, conversely, there are no strictly exegetical arguments that could convince a committed egalitarian to become a hierarchist. his is not to claim that there are no good exegetical arguments for these respective views. In- deed, as an egalitarian, I ind many of the exegetical arguments for egalitarianism to be quite strong and many of the exegetical arguments for hierarchism to be quite weak.3 But, I suppose that my hierarchist sisters and brothers maintain equal conidence in the strength of their opposing exegetical arguments. So, exegeti- cally speaking, it appears to me as though these rival camps are at a stalemate.4 Consider, for example, the words of one prominent hierarchy proponent and Evangelical heological Society (ETS) president on the current state of the debate: I think the debate between egalitarians and complementarians at ETS has, for the most part over the past couple of decades, . . . been amicable. here has been no rancor or hostility, for the most part, yet there are strong convictions on both sides. Yet it appears to me that neither side is backing down as it were. Both sides in this debate continue to be quite convinced they are right and the other view is wrong. I don’t anticipate that to change in any signiicant way in coming years. I think the complementarian view has been represented very well— for which I am grateful. here have been ine papers given, good support for the complementarian view that I think has resulted in more conidence for complementarians.5 Whatever we think of the hierarchist po- sition, then, we must grant that—at least subjectively—hierarchists are in the same epistemic position re- garding their views as we egalitarians are regarding our views. (“Epistemic” comes from the Greek word for “knowledge.” he philosophical subdiscipline of epistemology is thus the study of whether and how we have knowledge.) hough we might ind hierarchist views to be in certain respects deplorable, we must also admit that they are not all altogether implausible. Well-trained, knowledgeable, honest, and godly biblical exegetes can rationally justify their hierarchist position biblically. hey may not be able to convince us exegetically that their views are correct, but we cannot convince them exegetically that their views are wrong, either. So, again, the exegetical stalemate persists. A helpful analogy from philosophy of religion If we ind ourselves in something like the position described above (as I believe we do), we are actually in pretty good com- pany. Many Christian philosophers today believe that Christians are in an analogous position regarding our belief in the existence of God. he philosophical movement known as Reformed epis- temology (RE)—led by one of the world’s leading philosophers of religion, Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame— holds that the raw evidence from natural theology and Christian apologetics is perhaps suicient to justify rationally belief in God, but is certainly insuicient to compel the unbeliever rationally toward belief in God’s existence.6 In other words, given the raw evidence from natural theology and apologetics alone, there is epistemic parity between theism and atheism.7 One might think that such a concession would put the Chris- tian philosopher at a disadvantage with respect to the atheist philosopher, or would at least be reason for giving agnosticism or skepticism more serious consideration. Not so, according to Plantinga. Instead, Plantinga uses this epistemic parity (a view that both arguments are equally compelling rationally) as the very foundation for RE and hence for his larger Christian apolo- getic. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly for a Christian philosopher, Plantinga began his career in religious epistemology by arguing that all of the major theistic arguments are unsuccessful at prov- ing God’s existence.8 However, in that same work, Plantinga ar- gues that all of the major atheistic arguments are equally unsuc- cessful at proving that God does not exist. For Plantinga, belief in God is in the same boat as a number of our other properly held basic beliefs, such as perceptual beliefs (“I see a tree in front of me”), memory beliefs (“I had cereal for breakfast this morning”), belief in the existence of other minds (“I am not the only con- scious person in the world”), and so on. As Kirk R. MacGregor describes, properly basic beliefs are those beliefs “which low naturally from our experience, thereby presenting themselves to us as given, but cannot be proved by that experience; conse- quently, in the absence of any defeaters (i.e., logical or empirical