Godsgeloof in het tijdperk van wetenschap: Een epistemologisch drama

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-195
Author(s):  
Herman Philipse
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Religious Believer ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Richard Swinburne

In this article it is argued that all religious beliefs to the effect that a specific god exists are prima facie implausible for two reasons: traditional sources of religious knowledge, or methods of religious investigation, such as revelations, prayer, and the interpretation of ‘signs’, have turned out to be unreliable, and religious beliefs are implausible given the background knowledge provided by modern science and scholarship. Four contemporary apologetic strategies for the religious believer, developed in detail by analytic philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga or Richard Swinburne, are discussed and criticized. It is further argued that the 18 objections against my argument for universal strong disjunctive atheism in ‘Atheïstisch manifest. De onredelijkheid van religie’ (Amsterdam, 1995, 2004), put forward by René van Woudenberg and Rik Peels (NTT 62/1:24-44), are inconclusive.

Religious Disagreement, Religious Experience, and the Evil God Hypothesis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Lougheed
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Believer ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Epistemic Peer ◽  
Religious Disagreement

Conciliationism is the view that says when an agent who believes P becomes aware of an epistemic peer who believes not-P, that she encounters a (partial) defeater for her belief that P. Strong versions of conciliationism pose a sceptical threat to many, if not most, religious beliefs since religion is rife with peer disagreement. Elsewhere (Removed) I argue that one way for a religious believer to avoid sceptical challenges posed by strong conciliationism is by appealing to the evidential import of religious experience. Not only can religious experience be used to establish a relevant evidential asymmetry between disagreeing parties, but reliable reports of such experiences also start to put pressure on the religious sceptic to conciliate toward her religious opponent. Recently, however, Asha Lancaster-Thomas poses a highly innovative challenge to the evidential import of religious experience. Namely, she argues that an evil God is just as likely to explain negative religious experiences as a good God is able to explain positive religious experiences. In light of this, religious believers need to explain why a good God exists instead of an evil God. I respond to Lancaster-Thomas by suggesting that, at least within the context of religious experience, (i) that the evil God hypothesis is only a challenge to certain versions of theism; and (ii) that the existence of an evil God and good God are compossible.

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.

Embodiment in Religious Knowledge

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 14-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aron Barbey ◽  
Lawrence Barsalou ◽  
W. Kyle Simmons ◽  
Ava Santos
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Daily Experience ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Actual Experience ◽  
Perception Action ◽  
Representation Of Knowledge

AbstractIncreasing evidence suggests that mundane knowledge about objects, people, and events is grounded in the brain's modality-specific systems. The modality-specific representations that become active to represent these entities in actual experience are later used to simulate them in their absence. In particular, simulations of perception, action, and mental states often appear to underlie the representation of knowledge, making it embodied and situated. Findings that support this conclusion are briefly reviewed from cognitive psychology, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. A similar representational process may underlie religious knowledge. In support of this conjecture, embodied knowledge appears central to three aspects of religious experience: religious visions, religious beliefs, and religious rituals. In religious visions, the process of simulation offers a natural account of how these experiences are produced. In religious beliefs, knowledge about the body and the environment are typically central in religious frameworks, and are likely to affect the perception of daily experience. In religious rituals, embodiments appear central to conveying religious ideas metaphorically and to establishing them in memory. To the extent that religious knowledge is like non-religious knowledge, embodiment is likely to play central roles.

Is Simplicity Evidence of Truth?

2007 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 261-275
Author(s):  
Adolf Grünbaum
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Richard Swinburne

In a short 1997 book entitled Simplicity as Evidence of Truth, the Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne has put forward the following thesis summarily: ‘… for theories (of equal scope) rendering equally probable our observational data (which, for brevity I shall call equally good at “predicting”), fitting equally well with background knowledge, the simplest is most probably true’.

Mill's argument against religious knowledge

2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. MAWSON
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Religious Knowledge

AbstractIn On Liberty, Mill says that ‘the same causes which make … [a person] a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin’. Despite Mill's not having drawn it out, there is an argument implicit in his comments that is germane to both externalist and internalist understandings of the epistemic justification of religious beliefs, even though some of these understandings would not wish to use the term ‘epistemic justification’ to refer to whatever it is that they suggest must be added to true belief for it to count as knowledge. In this paper, we shall articulate this argument; examine how it challenges those religious believers who would wish to claim their religious beliefs as knowledge; and consider what they may do to meet this challenge.

scholarly journals Knowledge and the Fall in American Neo-Calvinism: Toward a Van Til–Plantinga Synthesis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Bálint Békefi
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sensus Divinitatis ◽  
Cornelius Van Til ◽  
Van Til

Abstract Cornelius Van Til and Alvin Plantinga represent two strands of American Protestant philosophical thought influenced by Dutch neo-Calvinism. This paper compares and synthetizes their models of knowledge in non-Christians given the noetic effects of sin and non-Christian worldview commitments. The paper argues that Van Til’s distinction between the partial realization of the antithesis in practice and its absolute nature in principle correlates with Plantinga’s insistence on prima facie–warranted common-sense beliefs and their ultimate defeasibility given certain metaphysical commitments. Van Til endorsed more radical claims than Plantinga on epistemic defeat in non-Christian worldviews, the status of the sensus divinitatis, and conceptual accuracy in knowledge of the world. Finally, an approach to the use of evidence in apologetics is developed based on the proposed synthesis. This approach seeks to make more room for evidence than is generally recognized in Van Tilianism, while remaining consistent with the founder’s principles.

scholarly journals Colliding Epistemologies: Reflections on Nidhal Guessoum

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 426-446
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Lohlker ◽  
Margareta Wetchy
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
Current Topic ◽  
A Current

Abstract Modern sciences and Islam are oftentimes perceived (or presented) as irreconcilable or even as mutually exclusive poles. In attempting to re-establish the dialogue on the topic and to find contemporary approaches that might enable one to keep personal religious beliefs while also engaging with modern sciences, this article discusses the works of contemporary physicist Nidhal Guessoum. Guessoum not only critically examines current developments in the realm of science in the Muslim world, but also provides the reader with a solution to what seems to be a problem of colliding epistemologies: reconciling the two traditions. According to Guessoum, both traditions – although using different methods – work towards advancing knowledge and should thus both be upheld and progressed. To illustrate his approach to scientific methodology and thinking, the article also provides an analysis of Guessoum’s videos on COVID-19 and thereby addresses a current topic which clearly proves the need for reliable modern science.

Is Simplicity Evidence of Truth?

2007 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 261-275
Author(s):  
Adolf GrüNbaum
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Richard Swinburne

In a short 1997 book entitled Simplicity as Evidence of Truth, the Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne has put forward the following thesis summarily: ‘… for theories (of equal scope) rendering equally probable our observational data (which, for brevity I shall call equally good at “predicting”), fitting equally well with background knowledge, the simplest is most probably true’.

Darwin's Doubt, Non-deterministic Darwinism and the Cognitive Science of Religion

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-483
Author(s):  
Robin Attfield
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Science Of Religion

AbstractAlvin Plantinga, echoing a worry of Charles Darwin which he calls ‘Darwin's doubt’, argues that given Darwinian evolutionary theory our beliefs are unreliable, since they are determined to be what they are by evolutionary pressures and could have had no other content. This papers surveys in turn deterministic and non-deterministic interpretations of Darwinism, and concludes that Plantinga's argument poses a problem for the former alone and not for the latter. Some parallel problems arise for the Cognitive Science of Religion, and in particular for the hypothesis that many of our beliefs, including religious beliefs, are due to a Hypersensitive Agency-Detection Device, at least if this hypothesis is held in a deterministic form. In a non-deterministic form, however, its operation need not cast doubt on the rationality or reliability of the relevant beliefs.

scholarly journals INTRODUÇÃO AO PENSAMENTO REFORMACIONAL DE HERMAN DOOYEWEERD

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-138
Author(s):  
Davi Tavares Viana
Keyword(s):  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
William Alston ◽  
Richard Swinburne

Este artigo apresenta o pensamento introdutório de Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), jusfilósofo membro da Academia Real Holandesa de Ciências e Artes pouco conhecido no Brasil, porém notabilizado internacionalmente por significativa contribuição para a filosofia e outras áreas do conhecimento. O artigo está dividido em quatro momentos. No primeiro, apresentam-se como possíveis soluções à crítica positivista ao discurso metafísico dooyeweerdiano a resposta realista (pós-positivista) defendidas por Alvin Plantinga, William Alston e Richard Swinburne. No segundo, serão tratados sucintamente as principais contribuições do seu pensamento manifestadas através da filosofia da ideia cosmonômica cujo principal objetivo foi a tentativa de reformar a razão. Logo em seguida, será apresentada a crítica do filósofo americano PhD pela Universidade de Havard, Nícolas Wolterstorff, ao filósofo holandês. E, por fim, visando conferir um efeito prático à teoria reformacional dooyeweerdiana será indicada uma possível solução para a polaridade existente na filosofia política entre o poder político e a justiça.

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