Alvin Plantinga Research Articles

Basic religious certainty and the new testament

AbstractAre there basic religious certainties? That is, are there any beliefs which religious people legitimately hold without the need for rational justification? The question has been tackled, in different ways, by both Hinge Epistemologists and by Reformed Epistemologists. For the former, discussion has revolved around very general religious beliefs such as ‘God exists’ (e.g. Pritchard, 2000; Helm, 2001; Hoyt, 2007; Ariso, 2020). Reformed Epistemologists, like Alvin Plantinga, argue that Christian theism and particular Christian beliefs are ‘properly basic’ in that ‘I don’t believe them on the basis of any other propositions’ (Plantinga, 1981, p. 42). In this paper I want to do two things. First, I give an account of what basic religious certainty is from a Wittgensteinian, Hinge Epistemology point of view. On this account I will argue that the clearest examples of basic religious certainties are found in local, historical and more narrow expressions of religious belief, as opposed to the very general acontextual religious beliefs usually discussed. Secondly, I challenge the Reformed Epistemological notion that Christian doctrine can be ‘properly basic’, mainly by showing that the New Testament writers did not treat very general religious beliefs, such as ‘God exists’ or God is good’, as properly basic in either the Hinge or Reformed Epistemological ways. I will conclude by drawing out some implications for contemporary Christian epistemology.

God and Purported Logical Arguments from Evil and Suffering

Abstract Logical arguments from evil against the existence of God are the strongest form of arguments from evil. They maintain that the all-good, all-powerful God of traditional theism is logically incompatible with the evil in the world. Given that the most well-known logical argument from evil remains the argument put forward by John Mackie over fifty years ago, I begin by setting out Mackie’s argument in detail as well as Alvin Plantinga’s well-regarded critique of it. I then discuss Mackie’s not well-known confusing response to Plantinga’s critique along with attempts by Hugh LaFollette and Quentin Smith to support Mackie’s argument, which fail to take into account Mackie’s own concession to Plantinga’s critique. I then discuss my own attempt in 2019 to provide a Mackie-style logical argument from evil and the reception it has received. I end by suggesting that further discussion might best be pursued by taking up the related question of whether an objective ethics can by adequately supported without appealing to the existence of the God of traditional theism.

EXAMEN CRÍTICO DE LOS ARGUMENTOS DE PLANTINGA EN DEFENSA DEL EXCLUSIVISMO RELIGIOSO

In "Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism" Alvin Plantinga defends religious exclusivism from a variety of objections. In this paper I discuss two of those objections. First, where Plantinga set two grounds of their religious beliefs as exclusivist, they missed to mention a third important ground of exclusive believe which is ‘Holy Scriptures’. In this paper I'll try to show that this third ground can change the scenario. Second, in the against of moral objections, like Exclusivists, are guilty of moral failures and arrogant, elitist, egotistical, unjust, oppressive, and imperialistic etc.; Plantinga reply that: Religious exclusivism is not necessarily a moral or intellectual failure and, (because?) given the human condition, some exclusivism is inevitable in our lives. In other words, there is no alternative to religious exclusivism. I argue, in contrast to Plantinga, that there is a contradiction in their argument and a version of this principle is not absolutely correct.

Memory in Philosophy of Religion

This article analyzes the notion of memory in the philosophy of religion. The area of this problematic is defined by Descartes, who, in a thought experiment, postulates an all-powerful, evil demon capable of falsifying human perception. The problem of solipsism raised here also implies doubt about claims based on memory. Descartes’ assumptions are taken up constructively by Alvin Plantinga in his attempt to solve problems in the epistemology of religion by raising the following new question: is belief in God rational, and, if so, is it justified? Peter van Inwagen, for his part, uses memory analysis to construct arguments in support of theodicy. In considering these issues, other key topics within the philosophy of religion, such as the afterlife and the existence of the soul, which are closely related to the analysis of personal identity, inevitably arise.

God and the Problem of Evil: Why Soul-Making Won't Suffice

AbstractIf you believe in the existence of an infinitely good, all-knowing, and all-powerful deity (‘God’), how do you explain the reality of evil – including the inexpressible suffering and death of innocents? Wouldn't God be forced to vanquish such suffering due to God's very nature? Alvin Plantinga has argued, convincingly, that if the possibility of ultimate goodness somehow necessarily required that evil be allowed to exist, God, being omnibenevolent, would have to allow it. But as John Hick has noted, the mere logical possibility of such a situation might not be enough to console the doubting theist. We need a positive reason to believe that evil as we know it is compatible with God's existence. So, Hick offers a ‘soul-making’ theodicy – or vindication – of God, suggesting that the human soul cannot fully progress to spiritual maturity (a kind of ultimate good on his account) without grappling with evil. In this short piece I argue that, if we accept Hick's premises about souls and soul-making, we can indeed make sense of evil to some extent. But, I suggest, his account cannot justify the type or amount of evil we see in the world, so his theodicy does not succeed

If the Free Will Defense Works, Then God Exists

The modal version of the ontological argument (MOA) for God’s existence is controversial, primarily, at its first premise, the premise that reads “possibly, there exists a maximally great being.” So, what’s needed is an argument for the possibility of a maximally great being, a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, has these properties essentially, and is such that it exists necessarily. Ironically, I think that such an argument can be found in the literature on the problem of evil, literature generally devoted to arguments against God’s existence. In particular, I argue that Alvin Plantinga’s “free will defense” (FWD) gives us such an argument. Moreover, since most philosophers agree that the FWD is successful, I argue that most philosophers should agree that FWD gives us a successful argument for the first premise of MOA. Thus, I argue that if most philosophers agree FWD is successful, then most philosophers should agree that God exists. There are several pressing objections to this line of reasoning that I consider in the paper. I argue that these objections fail.

Weird Fallibilism

In the friendly dispute between the philosophers of science Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos, both authors proclaim their allegiance to fallibilism: a term first coined by Charles Sanders Peirce, though often associated more strongly with Karl Popper. Yet Lakatos charges that Feyerabend’s position amounts to scepticism rather than fallibilism, given that the latter accounts for theoretical change but not theoretical progress. Famously, progress for Lakatos occurs by way of a progressive research program, one that expands in scope over time, tackles an ever more challenging range of problems, and often yields surprising verifications of its theories. But fallibilism is cheap if it merely entails the truism that the scientific consensus of any given moment might turn out to be false. If we describe knowledge in terms of the ancient and still influential formula “justified true belief,” there is good reason to hold that neither justification nor truth are attainable goals, and that they cannot even be approached asymptotically (as in the very different proposals of Alvin Plantinga and Martin Heidegger). Contra Lakatos this is not grounds for scepticism, but for what I term “weird fallibilism,” using “weird” in a technical sense drawn from my book on the American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Weird fallibilism is characterized by two fundamental claims: (1) truth never corresponds to reality, and (2) objects never correspond to their own qualities, a point in direct conflict with the “bundle of qualities” theory of objects handed down from British Empiricism. On this basis, a modification of the “justified true belief” criterion for knowledge is briefly sketched.

A Reply to Morriston’s Objection to Plantinga’s Free Will Defense

The logical problem of evil holds that the existence of the theistic God, who is considered omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. Since there is evil in the world, the existence of the theistic God is then logically impossible. Alvin Plantinga has argued that if God has a good reason to allow evil to exist, the logical problem of evil fails. And the good reason that God has might be the great value of significant freedom – the freedom to choose between moral good and evil. Wesley Morriston objects that Plantinga’s free will defense is incompatible with one of the components of his ontological argument that God is omnibenevolent in every possible world. This paper aims to show that Morriston mistakenly assumes that the free will defense theorist holds the account of significant freedom for both human and divine freedom. If I am right, Plantinga’s defense of free will can meet Morriston’s objection.

EVAAN: An empirical verification argument against naturalism

Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) claims that if both naturalism (N) and evolutionary theory (E) are true, then all our beliefs are unreliable (premiss 1). Consequently, given N&E, the belief in N&E is unreliable (premiss 2) and N&E is self-defeating (conclusion). The empirical verification argument against naturalism (EVAAN) is more cautious and improves EAAN by withstanding a rejoinder of the evolutionary naturalist to premiss 1. EVAAN claims that non-abstract beliefs that are not empirically verifiable are unreliable, given N&E (premiss 1a). This anticipates the evolutionary naturalist’s claim that empirical verifications play a crucial role in peer assessments and sexual selection of intelligence, and that, therefore, N&E makes empirically verifiable beliefs often reliable (premiss-1 rejoinder). However, even then it can be argued that the belief in N&E is unreliable, given N&E (premiss 2), because N&E is neither abstract, nor empirically verifiable (premiss 1b). EVAAN distinguishes reliably verifiable intelligence from metaphysical intelligence and claims that, if N&E is true, humans are lacking metaphysical intelligence. This paper also contains an argument against EAAN, by supporting the premiss-1 rejoinder.

Arguments Favoring Epistemic Justification of Religious Belief: A Critique

In the epistemological trajectory of Philosophy of Religion, contemporary religious epistemologists seem to have undertaken the task of attestation of religious beliefs, their defence, ascertainment and justification, resorting to sanctioned methods of epistemic justification. The models of epistemic justification of religious beliefs they have adopted were intended to bring in a kind of objectivity into religious realm and make meaningful assertions on shared experiences. The acclamation of such esteemed epistemic attempts should be viewed as feverish attempts made by religious epistemologists to subject religious beliefs to standard epistemic treatment. In this paper, three contemporary models of justification of religious beliefs by three outstanding religious epistemologists, namely, Alvin Plantinga whose theory of proper basicality and the warrant, the epistemological holism with the application of Lakatosian principle in Philosophy of Science by Nancey Murphy and the cumulative case evidentialism by Richard Swinburne are critically analyzed using the parameters of logical consistency, methodological acumen, norms of belief formation, the role of subjectivity, features of religious language and the hermeneutic dynamics.

Modal Ontological Arguments

AbstractInspired by the third chapter of Anselm's Proslogion, twentieth century philosophers including Charles Hartshorne and Alvin Plantinga developed “modal” ontological arguments for the existence of God. Such arguments use modal logic to infer God's existence from the premises that (i) God's existence is possible and (ii) if God exists, He exists necessarily. Like other ontological arguments, modal arguments have won few converts to theism; many commentators consider them question‐begging or liable to parody. This article details how recent attempts to defend these arguments have tried to overcome these difficulties by drawing on modern accounts of the epistemology and metaphysics of modality.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Theistic Arguments from Horrendous Evils

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Theistic Arguments from Horrendous Evils

The ‘Diderot Objection’ to Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology

AbstractIn response to Pascal's famous wager argument for adopting Christian belief, Denis Diderot noted that ‘An Imam could just as well reason this way’. In this article, I will show how Diderot's observation about Pascal's argument can legitimately be made about Alvin Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology (RE) and its use in defending the rationality of Christian belief. Plantinga's RE can, with some minor adjustments, easily be adopted by Muslims. I shall argue that an Islamic analogue of Plantinga's Christian RE presents an undercutting rationality defeater for Christian belief for those reflective Christians who adopt Plantinga-style religious epistemology. I call this defeater the ‘Diderot Objection’ to Plantinga's RE. As part of my discussion, I will consider how Plantinga attempts to respond to this sort of objection and will show why his response runs into difficulties.

Plantinga and Aquinas on the Viability of the ‘Third Way’

This article deals with Alvin Plantinga’s arguments against St. Thomas Aquinas’s third way to show that God exists. Although attacks on this argument have come from Christians and non-Christians, my contention is that these rebuttals of the third way arise because of a misunderstanding of the argument itself. Thus, the metaphysical background for understanding the third way is first explained, and then the arguments Plantinga raises against it are dealt with. After reading this article it should be clear that the third way to show God’s existence is plausible and that Plantinga’s attacks against it are based on a straw man rather than the substantive argument the third way actually is.

Is Being a Good Empiricist the Same as Being a Good Naturalist? The Case of the Relationship Between Science and Christian Theism

Using Feyerabend’s argumentation, and rephrasing of the problem in terms of the Model of Levels of Analysis, I show that a good empiricist need not be a (metaphysical or methodological) naturalist. I characterize the ideas of Alvin Plantinga and Jitse M. van der Meer as being representative of two different varieties of theistic response to the problem of the relationship between Christianity and contemporary science. Against van der Meer, I argue for Plantinga’s conclusion about the value of theism-based science. Against both approaches, I point to situations where theistic assumptions do indeed influence the contents of observation.

Проблема эпистемического разногласия в современной философии религии Часть I

In this article I focus on the problem of religious disagreement – whether one should lose one’s confidence in his or her religious beliefs in the face of signific­ant disagreement on certain religious issues. The article consists of two large parts. In the first one, the author describes the main categories of the epistemo­logy of disagreement in the focus of religious disagreement (first-order and higher-level significance of evidences in disagreement, fundamental and super­ficial disagreements, and describes the conciliatory approach to the problem within which the question of religious disagreement is usually stated). In the second part the author describes three contemporary projects of philosophical theology (Richard Swinburne’s, Alvin Plantinga’s, and William Alston’s) and analyses how they respond to the problem of religious disagreement. It is shown that in the case of religious disagreement one cannot successfully apply the con­ciliatory approach, which says that religious person should reduce his or her con­fidence in the truth of the religious beliefs he or she holds. The author draws this conclusion relying on two intuitions: 1) we may distinguish between internal (within one belief system, hypothesis, theory) and external (collisions of belief systems, hypotheses, theories with other, competing belief systems, hypotheses and theories) epistemic disagreements; 2) epistemic disagreements are normal for some human intellectual activities, and rather their absence is abnormal and can sometimes lead to undesirable consequences.

Проблема эпистемического разногласия в современной философии религии Часть II

In this article I focus on the problem of religious disagreement – whether one should loose one’s confidence in his or her religious beliefs in the face of signi­ficant disagreement on certain religious issues. The article consists of two large parts. In the first, I describe the main categories of the epistemology of disagree­ment in the focus of religious disagreement (first-order and higher-level signific­ance of evidences in disagreement, fundamental and superficial disagreements, and describe the conciliatory approach to the problem within which the problem of religious disagreement is usually stated). In the second part I describe three contemporary projects of philosophical theology (Richard Swinburne’s, Alvin Plantinga’s, and William Alston’s) and analyse how they respond to the problem of religious disagreement. I show that in the case of religious disagreement one cannot successfully apply the conciliatory approach, which says that religious person should reduce his or her confidence in the truth of the religious beliefs he or she holds. I draw this conclusion relying on two intuitions: 1) we may distin­guish between internal (within one belief system, hypothesis, theory) and ex­ternal (collisions of belief systems, hypotheses, theories with other, competing belief systems, hypotheses and theories) epistemic disagreements; 2) epistemic disagreements is normal for some human intellectual activities, and rather their absence is abnormal and can sometimes lead to undesirable consequences.

Warranted Catholic Belief

Extending Alvin Plantinga’s model of warranted belief to the beliefs of groups as a whole, I argue that if the dogmatic beliefs of the Catholic Church are true, they are also warranted. Catholic dogmas are warranted because they meet the three conditions of my model: they are formed (1) by ministers functioning properly (2) in accordance with a design plan that is oriented towards truth and reliable (3) in a social environment sufficiently similar to that for which they were designed. I show that according to Catholic doctrine the authoritative spokespersons of the Church—ecumenical councils and popes—meet these conditions when defining dogmas. I also respond to the objection that the warrant of Catholic dogmas is defeated by the plurality of non-Catholic Christian sects that deny Catholic dogmas.

Plantinga’s Interpretation of Epistemological Deontologism

Alvin Plantinga challenges the rooted tradition of thinking about justification as the subject’s fulfillment of his or her epistemic duty. I try to show that, in several respects, Plantinga misinterprets the idea of epistemic duties and that, consequently, his argument against deontologism is not sound. I begin by summarizing Plantinga’s understanding of epistemological deontologism and then offer my own critique of this interpretation, which focuses on five issues: the problem of recognizability of epistemic duty, describing epistemic duty as subjective, Plantinga’s assumption of the principle of obviousness, the understanding of justification as absence of guilt, and the issue of doxastic voluntarism.

The Relevance of Kant’s Objection to the Ontological Arguments and Avicenna’s Exploration of Existence as an Alternative Grounding

In the present paper, the three most prominent formulations of the ontological argument will be analysed, namely the classical argument which renders existence a perfection, Norman Malcom’s modal version of the argument which labels not existence but necessary existence a perfection, and Alvin Plantinga’s modal version of the argument which appeals to the possible worlds semantics to prove the necessity of God’s existence. According to Kant’s objection, the ontological argument takes existence to be a predicate that adds up a further perfection to the concept of God and thereby entails either a reference problem between the actual object and its concept or infers God’s actual existence in a tautological way. Despite its impact, Kant’s objection to the argument has been criticised for his ambiguous employment of the notion of existence as well as for being irrelevant to the ontological argument and to the modal ontological argument by Plantinga. In the present study, I aim first to show that Kant’s objection is not only relevant to the classical version of the argument but also to the modal formulations of it as opposed to Plantinga’s claim. In doing so, I argue that it is not Kant’s use of the notion of existence that is ambiguous, but it is the classical and modal versions of the ontological argument which gain their apparent strength from their ambiguous employment of the notion of existence. Second purpose of the paper is to give an alternative analysis of the notion of existence based on Avicenna’s metaphysics and thereby to point towards an alternative ground for a possible reformulation of the ontological argument, which could avoid Kant’s objection.