Justification Of Religious Belief Research Articles

Множественная истина, толерантность и проблема обоснования религиозных убеждений

Множественная истина, толерантность и проблема обоснования религиозных убеждений

Philosophy of religion and the scientific turn

Traditionally, analytic philosophy of religion has focused almost solely on specifically philosophical questions about religion. These include the existence of God and divine attributes, religious language, and the justification of religious beliefs, just to mention a few. Recently, many scholars in the field have begun to engage more directly with scientific results. We suggest that this is a promising direction for philosophy of religion to take. Nevertheless, we want to warn philosophy of religion against the excessive focus on methodology that has preoccupied the “science and religion dialogue” in theology. Instead of attempting to formulate a general methodology for all possible engagements between philosophy of religion and the sciences, philosophers of religion would do well to focus on local and particular themes. Since there is no single method in philosophy and since scientific disciplines that have religious relevance vary in their methods as well, progress can be made only if philosophical tools are employed to analyse particular and clearly demarcated questions.

Hidden Antinomies of Practical Reason, and Kant’s Religion of Hope

Abstract In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that morality obliges us to believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. I argue, however, that in two late essays - “The End of All Things” and “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” - Kant provides moral counterarguments to that position: these beliefs undermine moral agency by giving rise to fanaticism or fatalism. Thus, I propose, the Kantian position on the justification of religious belief is ultimately antinomial. One ought, moreover, to understand Kant’s considered position concerning the immortality of the soul and the existence of God to be similar to that he proposes concerning the theoretical ideas of reason in the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason: they are necessary as regulative ideas guiding moral action, not endorsed or even postulated as propositions. In other words, they are subject matters not of belief, but of hope.

Renewing the senses: a study of the philosophy and theology of the spiritual life

Preface 1. The world of sunlight and the world of shadows 2. Emotional feelings and the appearance of the sensory world 3. Concept application and the appearance of the sensory world 4. The spiritual life and the justification of religious belief 5. World-directed spiritual experience and the revelation of value 6. Doctrine, darkness and the spiritual life 7. The human form of life and the experience of value

Refuting The Whole System? Hume's Attack on Popular Religion in The Natural History of Religion

There is reason for genuine puzzlement about Hume’s aim in ‘The Natural History of Religion’. Some commentators take the work to be merely a causal investigation into the psychological processes and environmental conditions that are likely to give rise to the first religions, an investigation that has no significant or straightforward implications for the rationality or justification of religious belief. Others take the work to constitute an attack on the rationality and justification of religious belief in general. In contrast to these views, I argue that Hume aims to establish two important claims in ‘The Natural History of Religion’. First, almost all popular religions, including popular monotheism, are deeply superstitious. Second, superstitious monotheism is incompatible with the variety of theism supported by the argument from design. This incompatibility puts significant pressure on the rational acceptability of popular religions. In The Natural History of Religion (NHR), Hume describes Cicero’s argumentative strategy in De Natura Deorum. He claims that the skeptical Cotta ‘refutes the whole system of mythology by leading the orthodox gradually, from the more momentous stories, which were believed, to the more frivolous, which everyone ridiculed: From the gods to the goddesses; from the goddesses to the nymphs; from the nymphs to the fawns and satyrs’ (NHR 12.25 75). 1 The similarity between this description of De Natura Deo

Mill's argument against religious knowledge

AbstractIn On Liberty, Mill says that ‘the same causes which make … [a person] a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin’. Despite Mill's not having drawn it out, there is an argument implicit in his comments that is germane to both externalist and internalist understandings of the epistemic justification of religious beliefs, even though some of these understandings would not wish to use the term ‘epistemic justification’ to refer to whatever it is that they suggest must be added to true belief for it to count as knowledge. In this paper, we shall articulate this argument; examine how it challenges those religious believers who would wish to claim their religious beliefs as knowledge; and consider what they may do to meet this challenge.

Religieuze ervaring en geloofsverantwoording Rationaliteit als levenscategorie*Deze bijdrage is een uitwerking van een lezing gehouden op de vergadering van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Godsdienstwijsbegeerte van 16 juni 2001.

The justification of religious belief has been traditionally characterised by strong or weak foundationalism and evidentialism. An alternative is provided in this article: the justification of religious belief characterised by the rationality as a category of life. First, the author comments on Alston’s Perceiving God, where he maintains that an immediate perception of God has a non-conceptual character of presentation. Second, this article proposes viewing rationality as a category of life. Third, an initial impulse is given to the justification of religious belief on the basis of rationality as a category of life. Epistemology needs to be fused with hermeneutics. There is an alternative to the dilemma posed by strong foundationalism and contextualism. On the one hand, the Christian faith claims that it provides a disclosure of reality. On the other, rationality is person- and context-relative. There are standards of rationality that are applicable across all practices. Because the rationality of Christian faith is not exclusively internal to its own practice, there is the possibility of the discussion between theology and the scienccs and other worldviews.

A Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion – or A Philosophy of Wittgensteinian Religion?

I evaluate the plausibility of how broadly ‘Wittgensteinian’ approaches to the philosophy of religion: looking in the first half of the essay at the account such approaches give of the meaning of religious utterances, and in the second half at the account given of the required justification for believing such utterances. As regards the meaning of religious utterances I distinguish weak and strong Wittgensteinian theses, supporting the former but refuting the latter. Turning to Wittgensteinian approaches to the justification of religious beliefs I argue that although some beliefs are ‘groundless’ in a way that makes them an unquestionable feature of our conceptual landscape, anything as interesting as a religious belief can not be ‘groundless’ in the relevant sense (of being invulnerable to attack). Finally I argue that only Wittgensteinian approaches can capture the meaning and justificatory requirements of religious beliefs for a minority of ‘believers’: but that this minority is important.

The Justification of Religious Belief in the Pluralistic Public Realm: Another Look at Postliberal Apologetics

Pour les theologiens qui ont opere le tournant linguistique et historique, une approche coherente de la justification des principes et des croyances du christianisme est cruciale. L'A. met l'accent sur ce qu'il appelle un equilibrium qui ne se contente pas d'etre une confirmation conservatrice de ce que quelqu'un croit deja. Au contraire, cette approche cherche a construire un large systeme de principes doctrinaux, de croyances et de theories. En utilisant cette notion d'equilibrium, il est possible de maintenir la normativite des croyances chretiennes enracinees dans l'Ecriture

Religious Pluralism as a Problem for ‘Practical’ Religious Epistemology

After being dismissed for decades in philosophical theology, experiential arguments for the justification of religious belief, including belief in God, have again come to centre stage. One of the most thorough of these is William Alston's recent study, Perceiving God. Alston's purpose is to show that it is rational for someone to participate in what he calls Christian Mystical Practice (CMP) because CMP ‘is a socially established doxastic practice that is not demonstrably unreliable or otherwise disqualified for rational acceptance’ and to hold beliefs which that participation reliably generates. The thesis of this essay is that his individuation of mystical practices is not sufficiently nuanced. Once his naturalistic approach is brought more closely into line with actual practices, what he calls CMP splinters into multiple practices. A more complete account requires a more pluralistic understanding of the Christian traditions than Alston acknowledges.

Scepticism, Evidentialism and the Party Argument: A Pascalian Perspective

Sceptical arguments, it is commonly claimed, may succeed in disarming some powerful objections to religious belief, but they do nothing more than establish a state of parity between the believer and the objector. For this reason, they make no positive contribution to the justification of religious belief and therefore are of value only to the fideist who insists that religious beliefs do not have and do not need rational support. However, while this opinion is widely held by philosophers of religion, it ignores the fact that sceptical arguments have given rise to a constructive tradition in epistemology: what is often referred to as naturalism. In what follows I shall develop a suggestion from this tradition, and that is that sceptical arguments lead not to an abandonment of claims to justified belief but to a revision and contextualization of our epistemic standards. Though this suggestion can be found in a number of philosophers in this tradition, my inspiration for it comes from Pascal, who made an important place for scepticism in the evidentialist argument for Christianity which we find in the Pensées. To develop this suggestion, I shall first sketch a position inspired by Pascal and then argue that the possibilities it suggests have been insufficiently considered in a number of recent discussions of the importance of sceptical arguments in the epistemology of religious belief.

Human needs and the justification of religious belief

That religious beliefs are justified because they satisfy deep human needs is one of the perennial options in the epistemology of religious belief.1 No doubt, for some its appeal is the result of the difficulties they find in other options; but for others its appeal lies elsewhere. The satisfaction of human needs seems to be one of the central reasons many believers actually believe, and the justification afforded by these needs seems to be more compatible with the claim that belief in God is a matter of faith. Those who have offered theistic arguments that appeal to human needs, however, have rarely been clear as to the kind of justification they provide. The classical positions, those of Kant, Kierkegaard and James, have included the respective distinctions between theoretical and practical, objective and subjective, and intellectual and passional to indicate that the appeal to human needs is not on a par with the type of evidential justification characteristic of many other intellectual endeavors. But what precisely are the differences? Philosophers have commonly argued that one of the differences is that appeals to human needs may make believing in God a rational act but do not provide any evidence that what believers believe about him is actually true. Though this is certainly a plausible position, fashioned for the best of motives, it does not accurately capture the significance of human needs for religious belief. Still less does it provide much of a rational justification. In what follows I shall try to show why and at the same time to make a case for regarding the satisfaction of human needs as evidence.

Belief in God is not properly basic

In this article I shall concern myself with the question ‘Is some type of justification required in order for belief in God to be rational?’ Many philosophers and theologians in the past would have responded affirmatively to this question. However, in our own day, there are those who maintain that natural theology in any form is not necessary. This is because of the rise of a different understanding of the nature of religious belief. Unlike what most people in the past thought, religious belief is not in any sense arrived at or inferred on the basis of other known propositions. On the contrary, belief in God is taken to be as basic as a person's belief in the existence of himself, of the chair in which he is sitting, or the past. The old view that there must be a justification of religious belief, whether known or unknown, is held to be mistaken. One of the most outspoken advocates of this view is Alvin Plantinga. According to Plantinga the mature theist ought not to accept belief in God as a conclusion from other things he believes. Rather, he should accept it as basic, as a part of the bedrock of his noetic structure. ‘The mature theist commits himself to belief in God; this means that he accepts belief in God as basic.’

Foundationalism and the Justification of Religious Belief

Alvin Plantinga, in some essays recently published and presented, defends the rationality of a belief in the existence of God on the grounds that it is foundationally justified. Though this belief does not appear to be justified were we to adopt what Plantinga calls classical foundationalism, there are other, less restrictive (and presumably at least equally plausible) versions of foundationalism. Plantinga urges that we recognize that a belief in the existence of God can be warranted within one of these frameworks.

Religion within the Limits of the Quest for the Highest Good

(1) In this paper I want to discuss a certain way of understanding the concept of religion which I think is more satisfactory than other ways that have often been proposed in the literature, arguing, in brief, that the way to an adequate understanding does not lie through an analysis of the concept of ‘worship’ or ‘the worshipful’ or any notions derivative from these, as some writers have maintained, but instead through a comparative analysis of the various concepts of a ‘highest good’, thought of as a final salvation or ‘liberation’ for its seekers, found in the major religions. I shall also discuss some of the advantages of this way of regarding religion, as well as what I take to be certain of its consequences for the philosophy of religion. The discussion will also lay the groundwork for a pragmatic justification of religious belief (where ‘religious belief’ is understood in the way to be suggested), and will, I hope, help to shed light on the question of what would constitute a religiously satisfactory notion of the highest good.

Experience and the Justification of Religious Belief

Perhaps you have heard the story of the philosopher who fell off the edge of a cliff and was hanging by the limb of a tree. After calling for help for some time he heard a voice from the heavens saying, ‘I am here’. The philosopher explained his dilemma and then asked, ‘Can you help me?’ The voice replied, ‘Do you believe in me?’, to which the philosopher without hesitation, given the circumstances, said, ‘Yes, of course’. The voice came back, ‘Then, let go.’ There was silence and some moments passed before the philosopher somewhat meekly replied, ‘Lord, I know that this is not the best time and place for a discussion but you know how philosophers are, and you do seem to be asking a good bit of me. I know that many of your followers in recent times would agree that I should let go, but I have this feeling that they may be confusing the doctrine of salvation by faith alone with an epistemological doctrine that faith is a commitment that requires no justification. Could we talk about this? And, in the meantime, I hope you will not be offended if I ask, Is there anyone else up there?’

Book Review: IV. Ministry Studies: The Justification of Religious Belief

Book Review: IV. Ministry Studies: The Justification of Religious Belief

Moral goodness and the truth of religious claims

In The Justification of Religious Belief ~, Basil Mitchell at tempts to demonstrate that the case for or against Christianity is a cumulat ive argument. Among the evidence which might be presented in such a cumulat ive demonstration in support of theistic claims is the transformation of character effected in the person of the religious saint. In fact, moral goodness is regularly appealed to, both by laypersens and theologians, as warrant for believing religious propositions. However, such a moral transformation, Mitchell warns, cannot be considered direct evidence of the presence or activity of some supernatural being:

Basil Mitchell. The Justification of Religious Belief (Macmillan Co. of Canada, Toronto, 1974)

Basil Mitchell. The Justification of Religious Belief (Macmillan Co. of Canada, Toronto, 1974)

The Justification of Religious Belief.

The Justification of Religious Belief.