Reading: Plantinga, “The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology”, pp. 246-254
Plantinga is a well-respected epistemologist who has for many years taught at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to epistemology, he also specializes in metaphysics and philosophy of religion. Plantinga is also a Calvinist, writing in the Reformed tradition.
Although Plantinga has argued for the existence of God elsewhere, in this article he argues that belief in God is rational even if our belief in God is not based on other beliefs: “a person is entirely within his epistemic rights, entirely rational, in believing in God, even if he has no argument for this belief and does not believe it on the basis of other beliefs he holds”(249). Put another way, belief in God “can properly be taken as basic” (249).
The first few pages of the article consist of a discussion of the Reformed tradition. I think these pages are pretty easy to follow. The section on Foundationalism is more difficult. Plantinga opens this section by observing that the Reformers, in holding that belief in God is properly basic, are implicitly rejecting classical foundationalism. He maintains that the Reformers are correct to reject classical foundationalism.
Epistemology is the area of philosophy that focuses on questions of knowledge and justification: What is knowledge? When am I justified in believing a particular proposition to be true? How do we come to know? What kinds of processes are truth-preserving or truth-destroying? What are the limits of human knowledge?, etc.. To be justified in believing a proposition is to have sufficient conditions for believing it be true. Foundationalism is a theory of knowledge and justification. Foundationalists distinguish between basic beliefs and beliefs that are derived from basic beliefs. For foundationalists, a belief counts as knowledge (alternatively, a belief is justified) if it is either a basic belief OR is derived from a basic belief by a sound argument.
Plantinga distinguishes between weak foundationalism and strong foundationalism. Weak foundationalism is the position described above. Strong foundationalism adds criteria for determining whether a belief is basic. Classical Foundationalism is weak foundationalism coupled with VERY STRICT criteria for basic beliefs.
More explicitly, classical foundationalism is:
Weak Foundationalism (to count as an item of knowledge or to count as justified, a belief must be either basic or based on a basic belief)
PLUS
EITHER the claim that beliefs are basic only if they are “either self-evident or evident to the senses” (Aquinas)
OR the claim that beliefs are basic only if they are indubitable – cannot be doubted because they cannot be false (Descartes)
The problem with classical foundationalism, as Plantinga sees it, is that its criteria for basic beliefs are far too strong. Those of you who’ve read Descartes may remember that Descartes runs into trouble precisely because he assumes that beliefs must be indubitable or derived from indubitable beliefs if they are to count as knowledge; this leaves him with the conclusion that the only items of knowledge are things like “I (the thinker) exist” and “I seem to see a bird flying”. “I seem to see a bird flying” in no way guarantees that there is a bird flying, so it turns out that we can’t know anything about the external world (including whether there are other people like us who think, have desires, etc.). To escape this conclusion, Descartes could back away from his strong position on knowledge and weaken his criterion for basic beliefs. Instead, Descartes argues for God’s existence. If Descartes’ arguments for God’s existence fail, then we’re left with the position that we can’t know anything about the external world.
In the final section of the article, Plantinga responds to The Great Pumpkin Objection: “If belief in God is properly basic, why can’t just any belief be properly basic?”. For example, why can’t Linus’ belief in the Great Pumpkin be properly basic?
Plantinga rightly notes that rejecting classical foundationalism’s strong criteria for basic belief does not entail the absurd position that “just any belief” can “be properly basic” (253). He points out that “the modern foundationalist’s criterion for proper basicality” is “self-referentially incoherent” - it “is neither self-evident nor incorrigible”; thus, “the classical foundationalist” and the modern foundationalist cannot consistently hold that their criterion for basicality is itself basic. So, by the foundationalist’s own theory, this criterion of basicality must be deduced from basic beliefs.
Plantinga doubts that ANY criterion of basicality can be derived from a set of premises, each of which is either self-evident or incorrigible. So, any criterion or set of criteria of basicality must be arrived at via induction. After outlining how this would work, Plantinga gives a counter-example to the classical foundationalist’s criteria for basicality. Plantinga concludes that “the Reformed epistemologist can properly hold that belief in the Great Pumpkin is not properly basic” while also “hold(ing) that belief in God is properly basic “ -- “even if he has no full fledged criterion of basicality” (254).
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8 comments:
The epistemology aspect of philosophy is a tough area to attribute to religion. While Plantinga takes on several instances dealing with the justification for one's beliefs, it is still not an area that many theists take much comfort in. For what reason should a person justify their beliefs and to whom exactly should they have to justify them? Plantinga claims that while a person may justify his beliefs so strongly as to oppose any objection, those objections will eventually take their toll on that person. Should it automatically be that a person refusing to justify their religious beliefs is automatically labeled a bad theist or even an actual athiest? There is no reason that a person can worship their own divine being and not feel obligated to justify these beliefs.
Please allow me to reword the argument.
I believe God exists because he planted the concept of God in my brain. I don't have any real evidence to show that he exists. I just have a convenient thought that allows me to justify his existence. Oh, and Great Pumpkin type deities can't exist because God didn't put the idea of their existence in my head.
Yeah, no I don't buy that. I found the scientific arguments to be far more compelling.
I agree with Ed, that belief in God doesn't need to be justified in terms of other beliefs or arguments is ridiculous. However, I would say that the majority of religious folk believe in God in this manner.
What plantinga is arguing seems to be that belief in god is or can be perfectly rational in the absence of any evidence, justifications, or deductions. If it were a priori knowledge, then all people everywhere would have the same a priori knowledge of god. Yet clearly this is not the case. It does seem though that each culture around the world has developed some form of religion or another, so perhaps it could be that a knowledge (and I hate to call it that) of some supreme or several supreme beings is in fact a priori. Once again though, this doesn't solve any of the problems with deducing an entire theology.
I find it hard to belive that any belief can be considered rational without being accompanied by a valid argument for its rationality. That is, as Plantinga notes, unless the belief is sufficiently self evident or unfalsifiable. God's existence, in my opinion, is in no way self evident to human beings. His existence is, however, unfalsifiable in that as there is a lack of empircally based arguments for His existence, there is the same limitaion on the argument against His existence. The two schools of thought which drive these arguments are so fundamentally unparallel that a reasonable conclusion cannot be met.
Faith in God's existence solely as a basic principle of belief negates the very purpose of philosophical thought. The primary feature separating humanity from the rest of creation is sentience, reliance on rational thought to interpret the world. Plantinga's reliance on Biblical scripture as a sole basis for belief in God has two fundamental flaws: it is both a circular argument and its meaning may vary depending on individual interpretation. Nothing is truly gained by claiming that God's existence is presupposed in scripture because the scripture must have divine origin for it to be used for the basis of argument to begin with. Plantinga is using scripture as proof of a God that must be proven to exist in order for the work to have credibility. Even his interpretation of the scripture used for the basis of this claim is flawed. The Biblical quote asks the audience to look to the world around them and know that God exists. This very description may be used to support the importance of reason in understanding the divine. The individual must observe and interpret creation in order to conclude the existence of God. In his exploration of classic reformed epistemological arguments, Plantinga becomes a champion of ignorant bliss and defender of the intellectual lazy. There is a predominant trend throughout modern religious believers based on this ignorant system of thought that must be overcome in order to progress human knowledge. Overcoming this barrier is the true purpose of philosophy.
I thought this reading was a little ironic. It seems to me that Plantiga spends the whole reading trying to justify that man does not need justify his belief in God. So if man does can believe in God rationally and it does not need justification for it then I confused at why Plantiga spent so much time arguing this point because isn’t he undoing what he just stated once he begins his argument? I was also confused at why the term noetic structure kept coming up.
This reading to me is just another regression back to the point of God is higher than us or his ways are higher than our ways therefore a different set of rules applies to God. I can agree to the point that you don't have to justify or proove something to believe it, but to argue that it is completely rational to believe in God is not a claim I feel Plantinga proves.
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