Belief in God is not properly basic

1983 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart C. Goetz
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
The Past ◽  
Belief In God

In this article I shall concern myself with the question ‘Is some type of justification required in order for belief in God to be rational?’ Many philosophers and theologians in the past would have responded affirmatively to this question. However, in our own day, there are those who maintain that natural theology in any form is not necessary. This is because of the rise of a different understanding of the nature of religious belief. Unlike what most people in the past thought, religious belief is not in any sense arrived at or inferred on the basis of other known propositions. On the contrary, belief in God is taken to be as basic as a person's belief in the existence of himself, of the chair in which he is sitting, or the past. The old view that there must be a justification of religious belief, whether known or unknown, is held to be mistaken. One of the most outspoken advocates of this view is Alvin Plantinga. According to Plantinga the mature theist ought not to accept belief in God as a conclusion from other things he believes. Rather, he should accept it as basic, as a part of the bedrock of his noetic structure. ‘The mature theist commits himself to belief in God; this means that he accepts belief in God as basic.’

Faith and Goodness

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Richard Swinburne ◽  
The Relationship

Recent work on the subject of faith has tended to focus on the epistemology of religious belief, considering such issues as whether beliefs held in faith are rational and how they may be justified. Richard Swinburne, for example, has developed an intricate explanation of the relationship between the propositions of faith and the evidence for them. Alvin Plantinga, on the other hand, has maintained that belief in God may be properly basic, that is, that a belief that God exists can be part of the foundation of a rational noetic structure. This sort of work has been useful in drawing attention to significant issues in the epistemology of religion, but these approaches to faith seem to me also to deepen some long-standing perplexities about traditional Christian views of faith.

Can Belief in God be Basic?

Horizons ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-282
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Matteo
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Natural Tendency ◽  
Marginal Status

AbstractAt least since the Enlightenment, religious thinkers in the West have sought to meet the “evidentialist” challenge, that is, to demonstrate that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a rational affirmation of the existence of God. Alvin Plantinga holds that this challenge is rooted in a foundationalist approach to epistemology which is now intellectually bankrupt. He argues that the current critique of foundationalism clears the way for a fruitful reappropriation of the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition's assertion of the “basic” nature of belief in God and its concomitant relegation of the arguments of natural theology to marginal status. After critically assessing Plantinga's proposal—especially its dependence on a nonfoundationalist theory of knowledge—this essay shifts to an analysis of the transcendental Thomist understanding of the rational underpinnings of the theist's affirmation of God's existence, with particular emphasis on the thought of Joseph Maréchal. It is argued that the latter position is better equipped to fend off possible nontheistic counterarguments—even in our current nonfoundationalist atmosphere—and, in fact, can serve as a necessary complement to Calvin's claim of a natural tendency in human beings to believe in God.

Heeft Het Theïsme Eigen Gronden? Alvin Plantinga Over de ‘Proper Basicality’ van Religieus Geloof

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerrit Glas
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Positive Account ◽  
Design Plan ◽  
Proper Response

The title of this article is ambiguous in the sense that it may direct the attention to either (a) theism as a system of beliefs of persons who are referring to particular facts that serve as external grounds for the foundation of theist beliefs (the foundationalist approach) or (b) to theism as a system of beliefs of persons who are convinced of theism’s truth on grounds that are intrinsic to their belief (the Pascalian approach). Traces of both conceptions of theism can be found in Alvin Plantinga’s thesis of the ‛proper basicality’ of religious belief, for instance in the distinction between evidence of the ‛on the basis of …’- type and evidence of the ‛inclination’- type. However, these two types of evidence do only lead to doxastic experience. In order to be warranted with respect to a particular knowledge claim, beliefs must be produced by noetic capacities that function properly, i.e. according to their design plan and in contexts that are appropriate to these capacities. This externalist epistemology exerts its greatest power in the criticism of the ‛evidentialist objection to belief in God’. However, it raises a number of objections with respect to its positive account of theism. When every community of thinkers creates its own relevant set of examples in order to establish criteria of proper basicality, does this not lead to skepticism? And, can doxastic experience not be honoured as a proper response to being called by divine discourse and, correspondingly, be seen as the relational foundation of theist belief?

scholarly journals Epistemologi Reformed : Sebuah Upaya Filsuf-Filsuf Kristen Membela Status Epistemologi Kepercayaan Kristen

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-229
Author(s):  
Thio Christian Sulistio
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God

Sejak pertengahan tahun 1980-an berkembang suatu gerakan di dalam filsafat analitik yang disebut epistemologi Reformed. Para filsuf yang tergabung dalam gerakan ini berupaya untuk menunjukkan bahwa kepercayaan kepada Allah (belief in God) dan khususnya kepercayaankepercayaan Kristen adalah rasional, terjustifikasi (justified) dan terjamin (warranted). Singkatnya, mereka berupaya untuk memperlihatkan bahwa secara epistemologis kepercayaan religius (religious belief), khususnya kepercayaan Kristen, memiliki status epistemik yang positif. Tokoh-tokoh yang menjadi arsitek dan pendiri gerakan ini adalah William P. Alston (1921– 2009), Nicholas Wolterstorff (1932– ), dan Alvin Plantinga (1932– ). Plantinga menyebut gerakan ini sebagai epistemologi Reformed karena para pendirinya, seperti Plantinga sendiri dan Wolterstorff, mengajar di Calvin College, Amerika Serikat, dan mereka banyak mendapatkan inspirasi dari John Calvin serta para teolog lain di dalam tradisi teologi Reformed. Sebagai sebuah gerakan yang ingin menunjukkan bahwa kepercayaan religius memiliki status epistemik yang positif, epistemologi Reformed menolak pandangan fondasionalisme klasik dan evidensialisme bahwa kepercayaan religius tidak rasional dan tidak terjustifikasi. Mereka juga mengklaim bahwa kepercayaan religius memiliki status epistemik yang positif di dalam konteks epistemologi yang lebih memadai. Artikel ini ingin memperkenalkan epistemologi Reformed dengan cara mempelajari kedua proyek epistemologi di atas dan melihat implikasinya bagi apologetika. Sebab itu, penulis pertama-tama akan membahas dua proyek epistemologi tersebut, dilanjutkan dengan membahas implikasinya bagi apologetika Kristen.

Can Theodicy be Avoided? The Claim of Unredeemed Evil

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wetzel
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The World ◽  
Idea Of God

Theodicy begins with the recognition that the world is not obviously under the care of a loving God with limitless power and wisdom. If it were, why would the world be burdened with its considerable amount and variety of evil? Theodicists are those who attempt to answer this question by suggesting a possible rationale for the appearance of evil in a theocentric universe. In the past theodicists have taken up the cause of theodicy in the service of piety, so that God might be defended against libel from humans, particularly the accusation that God's reign lacks justice. Contemporary practitioners, who live in a world where the existence of God can no longer be presumed, tend to favour theodicy as an exercise in securing the rationality of religious belief. Their hope is that one crucial theoretical obstacle to responsible belief in God will have been eliminated, once the idea of God has been reconciled with the reality of evil. What has commonly united theodicists, at least since the Enlightenment, is that they must answer to a non–believing antagonist. Until relatively recently, theodicy has been a debate between apologists for theistic faith and their cultured detractors.

The Crucial Disanalogies Between Properly Basic Belief and Belief in God

1990 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Grigg
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Basic Belief ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Classical Foundationalism ◽  
Basic Beliefs

The antifoundationalist defence of belief in God set forth by Alvin Plantinga has been widely discussed in recent years. Classical foundationalism assumes that there are two kinds of beliefs that we are justified in holding: beliefs supported by evidence, and basic beliefs. Our basic beliefs are those bedrock beliefs that need no evidence to support them and upon which our other beliefs must rest. For the foundationalist, the only beliefs that can be properly basic are either self-evident, or incorrigible, or evident to the senses. Belief in God is none of these. Thus, says the foundationalist, belief in God is justified only if there is sufficient evidence to back it up.

Discernment Situations: Some Philosophical Difficulties

1966 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-445
Author(s):  
W. D. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Affirmative Answer ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
The Past ◽  
Basic Argument

The concept of a discernment situation has assumed a key J. position in much recent philosophical theology. To take examples: Professor I. T. Ramsey's account of religious language is determined throughout by it; Professor P. van Buren's attempt to state the secular meaning of the Gospel hinges upon the claim that such a situation occurred on Easter; and Dr A. Richardson's oft-repeated asseveration that Christian theology is a matter of the interpretation of history resolves itself into the claim that there have been such situations. The basic argument is that members of our race at certain moments in the past have discerned, and we and our contemporaries at certain moments of present existence may discern, the activity or purpose of God. Connected with this discernment, it is further contended, there is—or ought to be—a response of commitment. Israel, for instance, at the Exodus discerned that they were God's chosen people and responded in the Sinai covenant. The disciples, at the Resurrection, discerned that Christ was, in some sense, victor and committed themselves to him. The important point for philosophical theology is the claim that the occurrence of discernment-commitment situations constitutes an empirical grounding for religious belief and thus provides good reason for an affirmative answer to the troublesome question: how do we know that religious language refers to objective reality? We must look more closely into this.

Literal and Figurative Language of God

1981 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Whittaker
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The World ◽  
Object Of Knowledge

One of the most peculiar features of the belief in God is the accompanying claim that God is an indescribable mystery, an object of faith but never an object of knowledge. In certain contexts – in worship, for example – this claim undoubtedly serves a useful purpose; and so I do not want to dismiss the idea altogether. But when pious remarks about the ineffable nature of God are taken out of context and turned into philosophy, the result is usually an epistemological muddle. The trouble, of course, is that those who insist on God's mysteriousness still manage to say all sorts of things about him; he is an incorporeal spirit, he created the world, he loves his creatures, and so on. To assert these things is to presume some understanding of God, but no understanding is possible if God is completely incomprehensible. So if that is how it is, if the object of religious belief is utterly incomprehensible, then it makes no sense to say – or believe – anything about God.

Modernization and Religious Concord

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-250
Author(s):  
David Weakliem
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Intermediate Stage ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractTocqueville said that Americans combined a general belief in God with a lack of interest in denominational differences. Although this outlook may be particularly prevalent in the United States, it is also visible in other Western societies, although combined with lower levels of religious belief. This paper investigates the possibility of a relationship between a belief that there is truth in many religions and modernization, using data from the Gallup International Millenium Survey. The belief that there is truth in many religions is more prevalent in more affluent nations. Moreover, this belief does not seem to be merely an intermediate stage in a move away from religion. The relationship is about equally strong among people of all religious backgrounds. The tendency for modernization to lead to “religious concord” may help to explain the relationship between modernization and democracy noticed by Lipset.

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