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Religious Experience After the Demise of Foundationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Dirk-Martin Grube
Dirk-Martin Grube
Affiliation:
Fachbereich für Systematische Theologie und Sozialethik, Christian Albrechts Universität, 24118 Kiel, Germany
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Extract

In this article, I argue that foundationalist reconstructions of religious experience lose on all counts: First, philosophical defences of foundationalism are untenable. Second, the theological benefits that can be reaped from foundationalism come at too high a price. I show that both William Alston's and Alvin Plantinga's foundationalism leads to sceptical conclusions. Third, I argue that the epistemic implications of foundationalist reconstructions of religious experience are incompatible with Christian ontology. Criticizing the account Plantinga develops in his books on warrant, I suggest that it is preferrable to reconstruct religious experience in antifoundationalist, i.e., coherentist, terms and develop the model of a mobile for these purposes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 37 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Bagger, Matthew C., ‘The Miracle of Minimal Foundationalism: Religious Experience and Justified Belief’, Religious Studies, 29 (September 1993), 297–312, p. 303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For Chisholm's influence on Swinburne and Alston, cf. Bagger's remark, op. cit., 300, n. 10.

3 See Chisholm, , Theory of Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 2. ed., 1977, 19ff).Google Scholar The foundationalist character of Chisholm's account comes out more clearly in the second edition of Theory of Knowledge than in the third one (1989). In the third edition, Chisholm can still regard the object of a belief to be self-presenting (the respective beliefs are called now ‘basic apprehensions’, 1989, 85) and he explicitly embraces the foundationalist epithet for this theory (see vii, 85, etc.). On the other hand, what he calls ‘commonsensism’ (74) or ‘critical commonsensism’ (64) allows only for the provision of prima facie legitimations of propositions. For example, referring to Plantinga, Chisholm holds that a religious belief's prima facie probability should not be taken to mean that the belief is a basic apprehension.

4 Albert, , Traktat über kritische Vernunft (Tübingen: Mohr, 4. ed., 1980), 13ff.Google Scholar

5 Cf. Rorty, , Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 156ff.Google Scholar

6 Margolis, , Pragmatism without Foundations: Reconciling Realism and Relativism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 146.Google Scholar

7 Nelson, Leonard, ‘The Impossibility of the “Theory of Knowledge”’, Empirical Knowledge, eds. Chisholm, and Swartz, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973), p. 8ffGoogle Scholar. The distinction between experience and belief is utilized, e.g., by Plantinga, , Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 92ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Similarly Margolis (1986, 269ff).

9 Cf. Alston, , ‘Religious Experience as a Ground of Religious Belief’, in Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. John Hick, 464–83, particularly, 466ff.Google Scholar

10 In this earlier article, Alston does not attempt to bridge this gap, I think. For a discussion of Alston's later (more ambitious) view, in Perceiving God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar cf. Bagger op. cit., 289ff.

11 Cf. Robbins', Wesley point that Plantinga is to be located in the tradition of ‘Augustinian Platonism’ (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LXI/2, 1993, 339)Google Scholar with John V. Apczynski's ‘historicist’ reading of Plantinga (in the same volume, p. 341f and Apczynski, ‘Belief in God, , Proper Basicality, and Rationality’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LX/2, 1992, 301–312, esp. 304ff).Google Scholar For Plantinga's own account, cf. ‘Reason and Belief in God’, Faith and Rationality, ed. A. Plantinga and N. Wolterstorff, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 16–93.Google Scholar

12 Plantinga (1983, 72). The following page numbers refer to this article.

13 Schwöbel, , God: Action and Revelation, Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992, 144Google Scholar. Note that this question pertains to an earlier article of Plantinga, viz., ‘Is Belief in God rational?’, Rationality and Religious Belief, ed. C. F. Delaney (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1979) but can easily be extended to Plantinga's later views.Google Scholar

14 Alasdair, MacIntyre, ‘Hume on “is” and “ought”’, The Is-Ought Question. A Collection of Papers on the Central Problem in Moral Philosophy, Hudson, William D. (ed.) London: Macmillan, 1969, 35–50, 37Google Scholar (MacIntyre rejects this maxim, though).

15 Volume I is entitled Warrant: The Current Debate, volume II Warrant and Proper Function (both New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar. A sequel is planned, Warranted Christian Belief.

16 Volume II, 177, similarly volume I, chapter 4. The following quotations are from volume II.

17 181f. For further examples of this sort, see volume I, 81ff.

18 For Kant's use of the distinction between concepts and intuitions, see Rorty, 1979, 154. See also Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1960, 52ff)Google Scholar. Even Kuhn's, Thomas (cf. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2. ed., enl., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970, p. 52)Google Scholar remark that the distinction between theory and data is relative to theory could be utilized as an additional (though admittedly different) witness in this context.

19 Cf. Rorty, , Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, Philosophical Papers, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 2ff and 126ff.Google Scholar

24 Part of the research which lead to this article was made possible by a grant from the Humboldt-Foundation. I have also benefitted a great deal from discussions with Christoph Schwöbel and Ingolf U. Dalferth.