scholarly journals Belief-in and Belief in God

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
John N. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Belief In God ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
Special Case

Of all the examples of ‘belief-in’, belief in God is both the most mysterious and the most challenging. Indeed whether and how an apologist can make a case for the intellectual respectability of theistic belief, depends upon the nature of this ‘belief-in’. I shall attempt to elucidate this matter by an analysis of the relation of ‘belief-in’ to ‘belief-that’ and by treating belief in God as a special case of ‘belief-in’.

The Return of the God Hypothesis

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Meyer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Theistic Belief

Historian of science Frederic Bumham has stated that the "God hypothesis" is now more respectable hypothesis than at any time in the last one hundred years. This essay explores recent evidence from cosmology, physics, and biology, which provides epistemoiogical support, though not proof, for belief in God as conceived by a theistic worldview. It develops a notion of epistemoiogical support based upon explanatory power, rather than just deductive entailment. It also evaluates the explanatory power of theism and its main metaphysical competitors with respect to several classes of scientific evidence. The cmclusion follows that theism explains a wide ensemble of metaphysically-significant evidences more adequately and comprehensively than other major worldviews or metaphysical systems. Thus, unlike much recent scholarship that characterizes science as either conflicting with theistic belief or entirely neutral with respect to it, this essay concludes that scientific evidence actually supports such.

Basic Theistic Belief

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-464
Author(s):  
Bredo C. Johnsen
Keyword(s):  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Parallel Argument ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Reductio Ad Absurdum ◽  
Positive Argument ◽  
Theistic Belief

In several recent writings and in the 1980 Freemantle Lectures at Oxford, Alvin Plantinga has defended the idea that belief in God is ‘properly basic,’ by which he means that it is perfectly rational to hold such a belief without basing it on any other beliefs. The defense falls naturally into two broad parts: a positive argument for the rationality of such beliefs, and a rebuttal of the charge that if such a positive argument ‘succeeds,’ then a parallel argument will ‘succeed’ equally well in showing that belief in the Great Pumpkin is properly basic. (It is taken as obvious that ‘the Great Pumpkin objection,’ unrebutted, would constitute a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that the positive argument had succeeded in proving anything at all.) In this essay I shall argue both that Plantinga has partially misconceived the objection, and that he has not succeeded, indeed cannot succeed, in rebutting it, for the objection does in fact constitute a reductio ad absurdum of his position. For the sake of ease of exposition, I shall first provide a bare sketch of the positive argument, though I shall discuss it directly only as it bears on the attempted reductio.

Religious experience and the evidential argument from evil

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SILVER
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Evidential Argument ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Theistic Belief

This paper examines Alvin Plantinga's defence of theistic belief in the light of Paul Draper's formulation of the problem of evil. Draper argues (a) that the facts concerning the distribution of pain and pleasure in the world are better explained by a hypothesis which does not include the existence of God than by a hypothesis which does; and (b) that this provides an epistemic challenge to theists. Plantinga counters that a theist could accept (a) yet still rationally maintain a belief in God. His defence of theism depends on the epistemic value of religious experience. I argue, however, that Plantinga's defence of theism is not successful.

God and Rationality

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-292
Author(s):  
Robert C. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
General Notion ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Natural Theologian ◽  
Relevant Notion ◽  
Special Case

Is belief in God rational? Over a century ago, Hegel (following Kant) and Søren Kierkegaard established one set of parameters for discussing that question, but in a language that appears opaque to many philosophers today. Very recently, Alvin Plantinga, James Ross, and George Mavrodes have been debating similar issues in a modern analytic idiom. In this essay, I want to use this modern philosophical language in an attempt to clarify certain issues surrounding the relevant notion of “rationality” and related notions essential to the natural theologian, and in so doing attempt to make presentable the dispute between Hegel and Kierkegaard.For our purposes here, I take “rationality” to be predicated of an epistemological concept of belief, even if, as I believe, any such notion would have to be a special case and a logical derivative of a more general notion of “rationality” as primarily practical.

Is the fact that other people believe in God a reason to believe? Remarks on the consensus gentium argument.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Dobrzeniecki
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Second Line ◽  
Epistemic Trust ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Prima Facie Reason ◽  
Theistic Belief

According to The Consensus Gentium Argument from the premise: “Everyone believes that God exists” one can conclude that God does exist. In my paper I analyze two ways of defending the claim that somebody’s belief in God is a prima facie reason to believe. Kelly takes the fact of the commonness of the belief in God as a datum to explain and argues that the best explanation has to indicate the truthfulness of the theistic belief. Trinkaus Zagzebski grounds her defence on rationality of epistemic trust in others. In the paper I argue that the second line of reasoning is more promising and I propose its improved version.

PROPERLY BASIC THEISTIC BELIEF: A SESAME STREET OBJECTION

Think ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (47) ◽  
pp. 45-56
Author(s):  
Ken Nickel
Keyword(s):  
Sesame Street ◽  
Basic Belief ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
Basic Beliefs

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga wants everyone to agree that while sceptics will always be with us, no one is irrational in accepting what only the stubborn sceptic denies. Plantinga claims no one should be considered irrational for accepting what the religious sceptic denies either. Rather, the claim goes, belief in God should be as uncontroversial as any other properly basic belief sensible people happily hold without absolute proof sufficient to silence the sceptic. The legitimacy of placing theistic belief alongside other properly basic beliefs is challenged by the Sesame Street Objection: ‘one of these things is not like the others’.

Feeling Is Believing: Inspiration Encourages Belief in God

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 723-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clayton R. Critcher ◽  
Chan Jean Lee
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Affective Experiences ◽  
Transcendent Experience ◽  
Theistic Belief

Even without direct evidence of God’s existence, about half of the world’s population believes in God. Although previous research has found that people arrive at such beliefs intuitively instead of analytically, relatively little research has aimed to understand what experiences encourage or legitimate theistic belief systems. Using cross-cultural correlational and experimental methods, we investigated whether the experience of inspiration encourages a belief in God. Participants who dispositionally experience more inspiration, were randomly assigned to relive or have an inspirational experience, or reported such experiences to be more inspirational all showed stronger belief in God. These effects were specific to inspiration (instead of adjacent affective experiences) and a belief in God (instead of other empirically unverifiable claims). Being inspired by someone or something (but not inspired to do something) offers a spiritually transcendent experience that elevates belief in God, in part because it makes people feel connected to something beyond themselves.

John Henry Newman and the Illative Sense: A Re-consideration

1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-368
Author(s):  
Aidan Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Moral Experience ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Natural Theologian ◽  
Argumentative Strategies ◽  
Experiential Content ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Developing Pattern ◽  
Theology Proper

The aim of this article is to provide an historical description of an important piece of Victorian theology, and subsequently to suggest a new context, or rather a new content for a familiar theme. Firstly, it will consider in what sense Newman may be called a ‘natural theologian’; secondly, it will give an account of the notion of the illative sense within the developing pattern of Newman's thought; finally, it will suggest that, by a unilateral concentration on moral experience — the ‘voice of conscience’ — Newman failed to do justice to the full significance of his own argumentation. The point of the illative sense is not that it helps us to identify any one experiential content, or area of reflection, which might lead us to theistic belief, but that it provides an overall context in which a variety of experiential strata and argumentative strategies may be displayed. Newman was, perhaps, too dominated by an autobiographical sense in the realm of fundamental belief in God to identify and correct the individualism which in dogmatic theology proper he would have avoided. Our theistic materials do not lie simply within our own breasts, but in an inter-rogation, Gadamer-like, of the entire theistic tradition as that is mediated to us by the classic texts of our predecessors.

A DEBATE BETWEEN A THEIST AND A SANTA CLAUSIST (ACT I)

Think ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (40) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
Ruth Tallman ◽  
David Kyle Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Irrational Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Santa Claus ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Act One ◽  
Better Than

Many claim that belief in God is like belief in Santa Claus – it's an irrational belief that people justify with irrational arguments because they cherish it and because it comforts them. In this dialogue, true believers ‘have it out’ regarding whether either of their beliefs – belief in God, or belief in Santa – is rational, and a direct parallel between the reasoning of the two sides is demonstrated. Many important arguments regarding theistic belief are discussed in some form. The article is intended for use in an introduction to philosophy, or an introductory philosophy of religion course, as a humorous way to foster discussion and expose students to criticisms of theistic arguments, and to consider the possibility that theistic belief is no better than belief in the existence of Santa Claus. Act One.

Extreme self-sacrifice beyond fusion: Moral expansiveness and the special case of allyship

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Crimston ◽  
Matthew J. Hornsey
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Biological Markers ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Relevant Dimension ◽  
Special Case

AbstractAs a general theory of extreme self-sacrifice, Whitehouse's article misses one relevant dimension: people's willingness to fight and die in support of entities not bound by biological markers or ancestral kinship (allyship). We discuss research on moral expansiveness, which highlights individuals’ capacity to self-sacrifice for targets that lie outside traditional in-group markers, including racial out-groups, animals, and the natural environment.

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