In the philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...

, reformed epistemology is a school of thought regarding the epistemology of belief in God

Theism

Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....

 put forward by a group of Protestant Christian philosophers

Christian philosophy

Christian philosophy may refer to any development in philosophy that is characterised by coming from a Christian tradition.- Origins of Christian philosophy :...

, most notably, Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...

, William Alston

William Alston

William Payne Alston was an American philosopher. He made influential contributions to the philosophy of language, epistemology and Christian philosophy. He earned his Ph.D...

, Nicholas Wolterstorff

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Nicholas Wolterstorff is an American philosopher and currently the Noah Porter Emeritus Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale University...

 and Michael C. Rea

Michael C. Rea

Michael C. Rea is an analytic philosopher, who is currently working as a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He specializes in metaphysics and philosophy of religion and has competence in epistemology and applied ethics as well....

. Central to Reformed epistemology is the idea that belief in God is a "properly basic belief

Basic belief

Under the epistemological view called foundationalism, basic beliefs are the axioms of a belief system.Foundationalism holds that all beliefs must be justified in order to be believed...

": it doesn't need to be inferred from other truths in order to be reasonable. Since this view represents a continuation of the thinking about the relationship between faith and reason

Faith and rationality

Faith and rationality are two modes of belief that exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility. Rationality is belief based on reason or evidence. Faith is belief in inspiration, revelation, or authority...

 that its founders find in 16th century Reformed

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 theology, particularly in John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

's doctrine that God has planted in us a sensus divinitatis, it has come to be known as Reformed epistemology.

Ideas

Reformed epistemology aims to demonstrate the failure of objections that theistic belief—and in later works of the school, full-blown Christian belief—is unjustified, unreasonable, intellectually sub-par or otherwise epistemically challenged in some way, even where one believes it without supporting argument. By contrast, many modern foundationalists

Foundationalism

Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...

, and evidentialists

Evidentialism

Evidentialism is a theory of justification according to which the justification of a belief depends solely on the evidence for it. Technically, though belief is typically the primary object of concern, evidentialism can be applied to doxastic attitudes generally...

 claim that theistic belief is rational only where one's so believing is inferentially based in propositional and/or physical evidence, and a subset of these think further that no adequate evidence is available.

Reformed epistemology seeks to defend faith as rational

Faith and rationality

Faith and rationality are two modes of belief that exist in varying degrees of conflict or compatibility. Rationality is belief based on reason or evidence. Faith is belief in inspiration, revelation, or authority...

 by demonstrating that theistic belief can be properly basic — reasonable though it is not held as an inference from other truths. Reformed epistemology grew out of the parity argument presented by Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...

 in his book God and Other Minds (1967): if believing in other minds is rational though unsupported by argument, so might believing in God be rational, even if similarly unsupported. Plantinga (2000a) would later argue that theistic belief has "warrant". Roughly, in Plantinga's theory of knowledge, warrant is that property of true beliefs that makes them knowledge. What this turns out to be, says Plantinga, is the property of being "produced by cognitive faculties functioning properly (subject to no malfunctioning) in a cognitive environment congenial for those faculties, according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth" Because there is an epistemically possible model according to which theistic belief is properly basic—i.e. the one on which God has designed our cognitive faculties such as to be disposed to form belief in God—theistic belief is warranted apart from theistic argument. Plantinga contends that this model is likely true if theistic belief is true; and on the other hand, the model is unlikely to be true if theism is false. This connection between the truth-value of theism and its positive epistemic status suggests to some that the goal of showing theistic belief to be externally rational or warranted requires reasons for supposing that theism is true (Sudduth, 2000). It should be noted that though Reformed epistemology denies that theistic arguments are necessary to rational belief in God, many of its adherents see theistic arguments of various sorts as providing that belief with additional warrant.

Faith as addressing issues beyond the scope of rationality

The position that faith addresses issues beyond the scope of rationality holds that faith supplements rationality, because the scope of rational human knowledge is limited. In essence, under this view, faith corresponds to beliefs that, although quite possibly true, cannot yet be fully grasped by our reason.

Proponents interpret the following passages of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 as teaching this view of faith and reason:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews

Epistle to the Hebrews

The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the books in the New Testament. Its author is not known.The primary purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews is to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The central thought of the entire Epistle is the doctrine of the Person of Christ and his...

 11:1

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 1st Corinthians

First Epistle to the Corinthians

The first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians , is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible...

 13:12

Some have argued that strict rationalism to the exclusion of this type of faith erroneously concludes that because rational thought is successful at explaining some things, knowledge that comes from beyond the realm of rational thought is illegitimate. According to this line of reasoning,

Our science-dominated culture has ruled out religious experience as a clue to reality; but on what grounds? Science in the 1600’s was so successful in understanding the physical dimension of reality that people in the 1700’s began to think that the physical may be the only dimension of reality. But success in one area of inquiry does not invalidate other areas. The burden of proof is on those who would exclude a particular kind of experience from being a source of knowledge. http://www.leaderu.com/aip/docs/monsma.html

Under this view, faith is not static belief divorced from reason and experience, and is not illegitimate as a source of knowledge. On the contrary, belief by faith starts with the things known by reason, and extends to things that are true, although they cannot be understood, and is therefore legitimate insofar as it answers questions that rational thought is incapable of addressing. As such, beliefs held by this form of faith are seen dynamic and changing as one grows in experience and knowledge; until one's "faith" becomes "sight." This sort of belief is commonly found in mysticism

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

.

The evidentialist objection to theism

Reformed epistemology is to some extent a response to the evidentialist objection to belief in God, which can be formulated as an argument as follows:

1. It is irrational or unacceptable to accept theistic belief without sufficient or appropriate evidence or reason.
2. There is not sufficient/appropriate evidence or reason for theistic belief.
3. Belief in God is irrational.

The conclusion is not that God does not exist but rather that it is irrational to believe that God does exist.

Theists have responded to this argument in several ways. A few (perhaps Kierkegaard) accept the argument that belief in God is irrational, see that as a virtue, and accept some sort of fideism

Fideism

Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths...

. Traditionally, many theists have denied the second premise of the argument, and have applied to natural theology

Natural theology

Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...

 to show that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of God using premises that all rational people should to accept. (Perhaps the greatest example of this aspiration is Descartes' proof for the existence of God in his Meditations on First Philosophy

Meditations on First Philosophy

Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise written by René Descartes and first published in 1641 . The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Metaphysiques...

.)

Reformed epistemologists, however, deny the first premise — namely, that belief in God is irrational unless supported by sufficient evidence, where evidence is construed as providing propositions from which to infer God's existence. They contend that the requirement is unduly strict, for there are many reasonable beliefs that one may accept without argument (for example, belief in other minds

Problem of other minds

The problem of other minds has traditionally been regarded as an epistemological challenge raised by the skeptic. The challenge may be expressed as follows: given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds? The thought behind the question is that no matter...

, belief in an external world, and belief in the past

Past

Most generally, the past is a term used to indicate the totality of events which occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience time, and is...

). Moreover, many perceptual

Perception

Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...

 beliefs are not formed by way of arguments: e.g., one does not formulate an argument, "I'm being appeared to 'treely'; the way one is appeared to is the way things are; therefore: I am seeing a tree." Rather, upon seeing a tree, one simply believes one sees a tree. We might say that the experience epistemically "grounds" the belief without contributing to an argument on the basis of which one accepts it. Such beliefs are properly basic

Basic belief

Under the epistemological view called foundationalism, basic beliefs are the axioms of a belief system.Foundationalism holds that all beliefs must be justified in order to be believed...

 and need no argument to substantiate them. Reformed epistemology therefore rejects as arbitrary the evidentialist requirement of an argument to prove the existence of God, but not the existence of other persons, the truth of propositions about past, or the reality of the external world.

Criticisms

Although Reformed epistemology has flourished among several theistic philosophers, it has been criticized by theists and non-theists alike. Those of faith have frequently criticized Reformed epistemology for its commitment to negative apologetics, counter-arguments to arguments that faith is not rational, the fact that it offers no reasons for supposing that theism or Christianity is true (so-called positive apologetics), and its claim that any such inferences are unsound.

Criticisms from those critical of (or agnostic toward) faith as rational have included that Reformed epistemology rests on the presupposition that there is religious truth, but does not present any argument to show that there is any (compare Fideism

Fideism

Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths...

). Another common criticism is that as a tool for discriminating justified from unjustified constituent beliefs, Reformed epistemology falls short; that it springs forth from a presupposition that within each of us resides a doxastic mechanism (i.e. a mechanism for reasoning about beliefs) that generates religious convictions, belief in God, etc., supporting the conclusion that such beliefs are innate, hence properly basic.

Rationalists argue that beliefs held by faith, without evidence, contradict one another. Thus most "faiths," in the sense of "religions," hold that their view is correct and that other religions are false religions. The Bible, for examples, says, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me." Therefore, of the exclusive religions held through faith, either one is correct and all others are wrong, or they are all wrong. Rationalists argue that if, in all cases but one, faith leads to incorrect belief, then it is wrong in that one case to expect faith to lead to correct belief.

The Anglican C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

 held that the tenets of Christianity were likely precisely because resurrection from the dead, the miracles and the story of Lazarus

Lazarus of Bethany

Lazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...

 seemed to defy rationality. However, he described his experience of faith in his book Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II...

by distinguishing between two usages of the word. He describes the first as follows:

"Faith seems to be used by Christians in two senses or on two levels ... In the first sense it means simply Belief."

Several paragraphs later he continues with:

"Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."

Another common objection, is known as the "Great Pumpkin Objection". Plantinga (1983) states the objection as follows:

It is tempting to raise the following sort of question. If belief in God can be properly basic, why cannot just any belief be properly basic? Could we not say the same for any bizarre aberration we can think of? What about voodoo or astrology? What about the belief that the Great Pumpkin returns every Halloween? Could I properly take that as basic? Suppose I believe that if I flap my arms with sufficient vigor, I can take off and fly about the room; could I defend myself against the charge of irrationality by claiming this belief is basic? If we say that belief in God is properly basic, will we not be committed to holding that just anything, or nearly anything, can properly be taken as basic, thus throwing wide the gates to irrationalism and superstition? (p. 74)

In short, the Great Pumpkin Objection states that Reformed epistemology is so liberal that it allows belief in any sort of far-fetched entity to be justified as simply foundational or basic. Someone might, for example, take as basic the belief that the Great Pumpkin is all-powerful, just as the Reformed epistemologist takes a similar belief in God as basic. Perhaps the belief is grounded in an experiential belief, such as Plantinga (1993b) describes. Thus, the objection intends to show that there must be something wrong with Reformed epistemology if it allows belief in the Great Pumpkin to be warranted as basic.

Plantinga's answer to this is that the objection simply assumes that the criteria for "proper basicality" propounded by Classical Foundationalism (self-evidence, incorrigibility, and sense-perception) are the only possible criteria for properly basic beliefs. It is as if the Great Pumpkin objector feels that if properly basic beliefs not be arrived at by way of one of these criteria, then it follows that just 'any' belief could then be properly basic, precisely because there are no other criteria. But, Plantinga says it simply doesn't follow from the rejection of Classical Foundationalist criteria, that all possibility for criteria has been exhausted, and this is exactly what the Great Pumpkin objection assumes.

Plantinga takes his counter-argument further, asking how the GP objector "knows" that such criteria are the only criteria. The objector certainly seems to hold it as 'basic' that the Classical Foundationalist criteria are all that is available. Yet, such a claim is neither self-evident, incorrigible, nor evident to the senses. This rebuts the Great Pumpkin objection by demonstrating the Classical Foundationalist position to be internally incoherent, propounding an epistemic position which it itself does not follow.

The justifications for faith as rational are based on semantic and epistemological strategies:
1. Less semantically precise definitions of rationalism that allow for faith to be accommodated as rational:

1.a Broadening of the definition of faith to include faith as a belief that rests on logical proof or material evidence.

1.b Weakening of the definitions of proof, evidence, logic, rational, etc., to allow for a lower standard of proof.

2. Attacking the epistemological underpinnings of rationality by asserting that certain beliefs not supported by reason or evidence are still properly basic because they are intuitive or that we are "naturally inclined" to believe them.

The semantic strategy (number 1) is common to those who hold that faith addresses issues beyond the scope of rationality, whereas the epistemological strategy (number 2) is employed by those who hold that faith underlies rationality.

Other people of faith have adopted the position that faith is implicitly irrational and have embraced the putative irrationality of faith as a demonstration of devotion to one's beliefs and deity. For example, Fideism

Fideism

Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths...

specifically recommends that one not be rational.

External links

• Religious Epistemology by Kelly James Clark in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).
• The Epistemology of Religion: Reformed Epistemology - by Peter Forrest, Jul 10, 2006.
• Reformed Epistemology and Christian Apologetics by Michael Sudduth. Saint Michael's College. April 2000
• Voodoo Epistemology by Keith DeRose. (A critical assessment of Plantinga's response to the "Great Pumpkin Objection.")
• Why Alston's Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective by Richard Gale, originally published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LIV, No. 4, December 1994.
• Reformed Epistemology Bibliography & time line compiled and categorized by Michael Sudduth.
• Reforming Reformed Epistemology (PDF) Duncan Pritchard. University of Stirling, Scotland.
• Are Christian Beliefs Properly Basic? by Keith DeRose. (A critical examination of Alvin Plantinga's provocative claim that Christian beliefs can be justified even without any evidence for them.)
• Articles on Christian Epistemology - from solagratia.org.