Reformed Epistemology and Belief in God

• Reformed Epistemology is a school of Epistemology rooted in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism.

• Epistemology: The branch of Philosophy concerned with the nature and origin of knowledge

• The philosopher who has really pioneered Reformed Epistemology is Alvin Plantinga.

• Reformed Epistemology takes as its point of departure a critique of Classical Foundationalism

• Classical Foundationalism– There is a set of beliefs that are properly

basic (foundational), i.e. a set of beliefs that are properly NOT believed on the basis of other beliefs.

– Belief in non-basic beliefs is proportional to the degree of support they receive from the properly basic beliefs.

– In order for a belief to be properly basic, it must be:• Self-evident (e.g. 2+2=4)• Incorrigible (Undeniable, e.g. “I exist.”)• Evident to the Senses (e.g. “I am in

pain.”)• Reformed Epistemology rejects the last of

Classical Foundationalism’s claims.• Reformed Epistemology maintains that

Classical Foundationalism’s criteria for properly basic beliefs are too narrow.

• Reformed Epistemology maintains that beliefs can be properly basic without their being self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses.

– People clearly accept ordinary perceptual beliefs, e.g. ‘I see a tree’ as properly basic, even though they are neither self-evident, incorrigible, nor evident to the senses.

– “Upon having an experience of a certain sort, I believe I am perceiving a tree . . . . [M]y being appeared to [treely causes me to form this belief and] confers on me the right to hold the belief . . . . We could say, if we wish, that this experience is what justifies me in holding it; this is the ground of my justification, and, by extension, the ground of the belief itself.”Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God”

– A person does not form the belief ‘I see a tree’ on the basis of other beliefs he has.

– Nor does a person experience the tree and then infer from the experience ‘I see a tree.’

– The person simply has the experience and that experience immediately causes him to form the belief ‘I see a tree.’

– Plantinga gives exactly similar arguments for how memory beliefs and beliefs about the mental states of other persons are both formed and justified.

– Having the requisite experience is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for being justified in holding the belief the experience causes as properly basic.

– Regarding the belief ‘I see a rose-colored wall before me’ Plantinga comments:• “If I . . . know I am wearing rose-colored

glasses, or that I am suffering from a disease that causes me to be thus appeared to, no matter what the color of the nearby objects, then I am not justified in taking [‘I see a rose colored wall before me] as [properly] basic.”

Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God”

– Nevertheless, ceteris paribus, a perceptual experience is enough to justify, as well as cause, a perceptual belief.

• Reformed Epistemology and Belief in God as Properly Basic

– Following John Calvin, Plantinga maintains that certain experiences cause humans to form beliefs about God

• Calvin maintains that “God reveals and daily discloses Himself in the whole workmanship of the universe.” God’s divine art “reveals itself in the innumerable and yet distinct and well ordered variety of the Heavenly Host” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion)

• Calvin is NOT claiming that humans experience order in the universe and then infer, a lá the Teleological Argument, that God exists.

• Rather, Calvin is claiming that the experience of order in the universe causes humans to form such beliefs as ‘This flower was created by God’ or ‘This vast and intricate universe was created by God.’

• These beliefs are not inferred from the experiences; rather, the experiences cause humans immediately to form these beliefs.

• In other words, these experiences cause humans to form beliefs about God in exactly the same way that other experiences cause humans to form perceptual beliefs, e.g. ‘I see a tree,’ memory beliefs, and beliefs about the mental states of other persons.

– The experiences that cause humans to form perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, and beliefs about the mental states of other persons, ceteris paribus, also justify those beliefs as properly basic.

– Given all of the above, “God belief causing” experiences, ceteris paribus, should justify the “God beliefs” as properly basic.

– “According to Calvin, everyone, whether in faith or not, has a tendency or nisus [urge], in certain situations, to apprehend God’s . . . actions. This natural knowledge can be and is suppressed by sin, but the fact remains that a capacity to apprehend God’s [presence] is as much part of our natural noetic equipment as is the capacity to apprehend perceptual truths, truths about the past and truths about other minds.

– “Belief in the [presence] of God is in the same boat as belief in other minds, the past, and perceptual objects; in each case God has so constructed us that, in the right circumstances, we form the beliefs in question.”Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God”

– The “God beliefs” that are properly basic are beliefs such as ‘God has created all of this’ and ‘God is to be thanked and praised.’

– The belief ‘God exists’ is not properly basic.• “[I]t is not . . . accurate to say that it is belief

in God that is properly basic . . . . [W]hat are properly basic are such propositions as [‘God created all of this’ and ‘God is to be thanked and praised’], each of which self-evidently entails that God exists. It is not the relatively high-level and general proposition that God exists that is properly basic, but instead propositions detailing some of God’s . . . actions . . . .”

Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God”

• Further Thoughts on Reformed Epistemology– Reformed Epistemology is really just a

sophisticate, philosophical version of some very old religious intuitions about God’s presence in the world.• “This is my Father’s world, / the birds their

carols raise, / the morning light, the lily white, / declare their maker’s praise. / This is my Father’s world: / He shines in all that’s fair; in the rustling grass I hear him pass; / he speaks to me everywhere.”Stanza No. 2 of the Hymn “This is My Father’s

World”

• “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day pours out the word to day, and night to night imparts knowledge, not a word nor a discourse whose voice is not heard. Through all the earth their voice resounds and to the ends of the world, their message.”

Psalm 19:2-5b

– Reformed Epistemology is consonant with certain strains of contemporary Catholic thought.

• Contemporary Catholic theologian George Weigel has noted that:

– “What the Catechism [of the Catholic Church] calls ‘converging and convincing arguments’ for the reality of God emerge not from abstraction, but from our experience of the world and of our own lives.”George Weigel, The Truth of Catholicism

• Relying on the work of sociologist Peter L. Berger in his book A Rumor of Angels, Weigel also notes:

– “Berger describes little girls playing hopscotch in a park: ‘They are completely intent on their game, closed to the world outside it, happy in their concentration. Time has stood still for them . . . . The outside world has,

– “‘for the duration of the game, ceased to exist. And, by implication . . . pain and death, which are the law of that world, have also ceased to exist. Even the adult observer of this scene, who is perhaps all too conscious of pain and death, is momentarily drawn into the beatific immunity.’ The girls’ play takes place in a time dimension of its own, a time out of time . . . . The experience of being ‘in’ that time out of time is a signal of transcendence.”George Weigel, The Truth of Catholicism

• Weigel has identified experiences that he believes directs the human mind to something outside space and time, i.e. something eternal, in a word, God.

• The parallels between Weigel and Plantinga are obvious.

• A Word about Conceptualizations of God– For an experience to cause the belief ‘I see a

tree,’ one must possess the concept treeness.• If one possess this concept, the experience

immediately causes and, ceteris paribus, justifies the belief ‘I see a tree.’

• This is so even if one’s concept of treeness is defective, e.g. it includes the notion that a tree’s leaves are always green.

– For an experience to cause and, ceteris paribus, justify the belief ‘God is to be praised and thanked,’ one must possess the concept of God.

• As with perceptual concepts, one’s concept of God might be defective.

• For example, from a Christian standpoint, the Jewish and Islamic conceptualizations of God are defective because, in them, God is conceived as unitary rather than triune.

• One’s concept of God may be, from a Christian standpoint, even more defective than this, e.g. identifying God with the cosmos, a lá certain Eastern religions or Process Theism.

– What Plantinga argues is that, unless it’s been totally atrophied by sin, humans’ religious sense will cause and, ceteris paribus, justify some sort of religious belief, no matter how conceptually defective that belief may be.

• Plantinga would also argue that sin explains the existence of defective conceptualizations of God.

– One’s belief that one’s own conceptualization of God is the best available canNOT be properly basic. It must be argued for.

• Final Thoughts– Most philosophers believe that Plantinga

has successfully shown that beliefs about God are in the same epistemic boat as perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, and beliefs about other minds.

– What many philosophers also believe is that Plantinga has not shown that any of these beliefs is properly basic.

– Plantinga has written three books trying to establish this claim.

– The jury is still out on Plantinga’s work.