Argumentative Justification and Religious Experience

Abstract

Much of the contemporary discussion among philosophers of religion about the justification of religious beliefs concerns the nature of justification itself. The philosophers interested in this discussion ask, first, what principles of justification are presupposed by critics of religious beliefs and, second, whether these principles are useful and reflexively adequate. Over the past twenty years several Reformed epistemologists have answered these questions in ways that support the possibility of justifying Christian beliefs. An uncontroversial conclusion of the discussion is that participants in the debate about the epistemic status of religious beliefs use the term “epistemic justification” to refer to a variety of different concepts. Conclusions about the usefulness and reflexive adequacy of the principles implied by these different concepts, in contrast, tend to be very controversial. Alvin Plantinga and Matthew Bagger provide helpfully opposed views on the justification of religious beliefs. Both make their accounts of justification explicit and offer criticisms of alternatives. Plantinga has devoted much of his recent attention to the concept of warrant (“the quality or quantity enough of which, together with truth and belief, is sufficient for knowledge”), but he also discusses the justification of Christian belief as an epistemic value distinct from warrant. He concludes that Christian beliefs can be and typically are justified. Bagger develops his account of justification specifically in opposition to the apologetics of Reformed epistemology. He concludes that beliefs based on religious experiences cannot be justified, in his sense, for many contemporary thinkers.