Basic belief
Philosophy of Religion 2008
Lecture 8
Today
 Procedural work:
Returned next Weds
Sign up for feedback tutorial Weds/Thurs/Friday
So far: some tendency to wing it!
 Final topic: Religious belief as basic belief
 Some exam advice
Does belief require evidence or
argument?
We’ve considered arguments and evidence for and
against belief in the existence of God
 Challenging epistemological assumptions!
 Do we need evidence or argument for reasonable belief?
 Plantinga: ‘…belief in God is perfectly proper and
rational, perfectly justified and in order, even if it is not
accepted on the basis of … arguments, even if the
believer doesn’t know of any such arguments, and even
if in fact there aren’t any such arguments.’

Belief in God as basic belief
Plantinga argues that – for the believer – belief in God
is a basic belief
 It can be rational to believe in God without evidence or
argument (what follows is only an outline!)
 To understand this we need to understand

Foundationalism
The idea of a basic belief
The idea of Reformed Epistemology
Foundationalism
Debates about the existence of God have tended to
focus on the evidence
 Last week- evidentialism
 And arguments aim to provide rational support for
belief (or for unbelief!)
 But are these needed?
 Plantinga: the demand for evidence or argument is a
symptom of ‘classical foundationalism’

Foundationalism
Foundationalism: searching for solid ground for belief
 Beliefs that do not themselves need justification, which
can then serve as foundations for inference
 Are such things possible?
 Perhaps:

Beliefs whose truth is self evident
Perceptual/sensory beliefs
Incorrigible beliefs about my own mental life
Foundationalism

Beliefs whose truth is self-evident:
Simple arithmetic
Fundamental logical principles (identity, non-contradiction,
excluded middle etc)
Simple deductive judgements
‘so utterly obvious that one cannot even understand them
without seeing that they are true’ (Plantinga, Q & T)


Perceptual beliefs: ‘there’s a tree in front of me’
Incorrigible: ‘I seem to see a tree in front of me’ …
‘I have toothache’ … etc
Basic beliefs
 Foundationalism (probably) accepts these as
basic beliefs
 Rationally justified, even where supporting
evidence or argument is absent (or impossible)
 And beliefs formed by valid inference from
these basic beliefs are also justified
 But that’s all!
The failure of foundationalism

1.
Plantinga – two main objections:
Foundationalism cannot account for many perfectly
reasonable (basic) beliefs, e.g:
Belief in other minds
Belief in past events
Belief in moral precepts
Belief (even) in material objects (depending on criteria)
2.
The claim that ‘properly basic’ beliefs can be only
evident, perceptual, incorrigible is self-defeating:
It is neither basic on these criteria, nor derived by inference
from such basic beliefs …
We cannot show evidence or argument for it
Belief in God as basic belief
So it seems that there are beliefs that should count as
basic without meeting these criteria
 Why not belief in the existence of God?

If the believer feels aware of a divine presence
If they feel obligations to God
If they feel guilty or grateful before God
If ‘it seems to me that I am in communication with God, and
that I see something of his marvellous glory and beauty…’
‘The ways you are being appeared to’ (Plantinga in Q & T)

Strictly, these are not beliefs in the existence of God,
but the existence of God follows – rationally - from them
Could any belief be properly basic?
Can any belief count as rational on this basis?
Basicality depends on the circumstances … do we have
grounds for the belief?
 The sort of experiential criteria just mentioned provide
(defeasible) grounds for belief
 (Provided, presumably that they are veridical)
 So a difference between grounded and groundless
beliefs …
 Is Plantinga vulnerable here?


Reformed Epistemology
‘Reformed’ as in the reformation – Calvinistic,
protestant.
 Resistant to natural theology, arguments for the
existence of God.
 Argument is irrelevant, since

It is not the ground of faith, and doesn’t bring about faith
Belief can be (is) properly basic and perfectly rational –
doesn’t need argument or evidence
It is (Calvin) merely the working out of an innate disposition to
belief

Plantinga: but basic belief is not immune to argument,
may still be defeated
Reformed epistemology
[Calvin, Kuyper, Bavinck, Barth] ‘…think that Christians
ought not to accept belief in God on the basis of
argument: to do so is to run the risk of a faith that is
unstable and wavering, subject to all the wayward whim
and fancy of the latest academic fashion. What the
Reformers held is that a believer is entirely within his
epistemic rights in starting with belief in God, in
accepting it as basic, and in taking it as premise for
argument to other conclusions’ (Plantinga in Davies p81)
Limits to Plantinga’s argument
This is unlikely to convert the unbeliever … it depends
on the appropriate basic belief
 But it doesn’t really seek to do so – Reformed
Epistemology doesn’t think that argument is
necessarily appropriate
 And it doesn’t prove that the belief is true, just that it is
rational (Plantinga has further arguments re warrant)
 But it only aims to justify the believer as rational, show
that belief in God is as properly basic as other beliefs

Alston on ‘perceiving God’
Experience of God can provide justified beliefs in a way
analogous to sense perception
 What justifies ‘arbitrary epistemic chauvinism’ – why not
include religious experiences?

Why shouldn’t these be a reliable source of knowledge?
Why do we need other, external reasons for believing these
are experiences of God (Cf perception)?
Why does any experience have to be shared to be reliable?
Kretzmann’s objections
‘Plantinga’s “theism without evidence” is not without
evidence’ (Kretzmann in Davies, p106)
 Plantinga opposes a straw evidentialist (!) …

The evidentialist objection is typically to the strength of the
evidence that theistic evidentialists rely on …

Evidentialism doesn’t stand or fall with foundationalism
So trying to refute foundationalism leaves evidentialism
untouched
Kretzmann’s objections

Plantinga’s understanding of evidence is too narrow
Evidence need not mean evidence in addition to raw
experience, sense of conviction etc

Plantinga’s understanding of belief is too narrow
Even an unsophisticated believer will offer some evidence or
justification for belief
‘conscientious believers, as well as objectors, live by the
evidentialist canon’

There is evidence at play in Plantinga’s account, just
not organised in propositional form
The Quinn/Plantinga debate
 A basic belief can be defeated by evidence,
testimony etc
 So it needs to be supported by argument and
evidence if it is to be maintained…(Plantinga
acknowledges this)
The Quinn/Plantinga debate
Reading and references
Seminar reading
Davies Introduction Ch. 1 (2nd Edn) Ch. 2 (3rd Edn)
Plantinga: ‘Reformed Epistemology’ in Q & T (Blackwell
Companion)
 Alston: ‘Perceiving God’ in S & M; ‘Why should there
not be experience of God?’ in BD1
 Quinn: ‘defeating theistic belief’ in WLC (and more ...)
 Hasker ‘The foundations of theism…’ in Faith &
Philosophy 15
 … and as reading list.



From last week
Cohen, L.J. (1989) ‘Belief and Acceptance’ Mind 98: 367-389
 Gerard Manley Hopkins: ‘God’s Grandeur’
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black
West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
The Exam
In Week 1, Autumn Term
3 hours, 3 questions from 10
Questions will cover the entire course, but may not be
limited to single topics …
 It is not only acceptable, but desirable, to draw on
material from the whole course in answers (stay
relevant!)
 Procedural questions will not reappear on the exam, but
the same topics may do



Some preparation advice
Remember that the lectures have only been able to
introduce topics …
 You must do your own further reading and thinking
about these topics and how they fit together
 Aim to understand, not to cram. A thought out defence
of a position gets much higher marks than an answer
merely reproducing lots of course or textbook material
 So think!

More preparation advice


Allow enough time! Prepare a timetable …
You may find it helpful to:
Select a more limited range of topics, rather than cover the
whole course in a cursory way
Make notes on each topic as a tree structure: main topic; key
headings for each topic; key questions under each heading;
arguments for/against; strengths and weaknesses
Make sure you are clear about the basic material, and what
you think about it, before reading further
Use practice questions – procedurals, Q’s from Davies etc
Some exam advice
Questions are carefully worded, so read the question
carefully, and answer it (error #1!)
 Don’t wing it … pick questions you are confident you
know about
 Stick closely to the question – go for depth rather than
breadth
 Don’t just describe – discuss (error #2!).
 And arrive at a conclusion …

More exam advice
Plan your answers, give yourself time to think. Good
exam answers have depth
 We don’t expect you to memorise quotations – if one
comes to mind by all means use it (and cite the author!)
 Split your time equally between answers
 Put question numbers on your paper … (doh!)

Goodbye….
All lectures slides and recordings available on my user
page: http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~nj509/
 Marking criteria in your Handbook, or here:
www.york.ac.uk/depts/phil/currentugrads/gradedescripto
rs.pdf
 ‘How we mark’ courtesy of Tom Stoneham, here :
www.york.ac.uk/depts/phil/current/howdowemark.htm
 You can mail me with timely and specific questions (I
won’t do your revision for you!)
 Feedback, please!

Any questions?