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Belief in God is not properly basic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Stewart C. Goetz
Stewart C. Goetz
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Extract

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.’

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 475 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

page 475 note 1 Plantinga, Alvin, ‘Is Belief in God Rational?’, in Rationality and Religious Belief, ed. Delaney, C. F. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 7–27Google Scholar; ‘Is Belief in God Properly Basic?', Nous XV (1981), 41–51Google Scholar; and ‘The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology’, Christian Scholars Review XI (1981), 187–98.Google Scholar My discussion of Plantinga's views rests upon the articles.

page 475 note 2 Plantinga, , ‘Is Belief in God Properly Basic?’, p. 41.Google Scholar

page 476 note 1 Plantinga, , ‘Is Belief in God Rational?’, p. 27.Google Scholar

page 476 note 2 It seems fair to assume that when Plantinga speaks of beliefs being properly basic he is using ‘belief’ for what is believed, the propositional content, rather than any psychological state of belief.

page 477 note 1 ‘The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology’, pp. 193, 194. Plantinga notes that many Reformed thinkers have endorsed weak foundationalism.

page 477 note 2 Plantinga, , ‘Is Belief in God Properly Basic?’, pp. 48 ff.Google Scholar

page 477 note 3 Plantinga, , ‘The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology’, pp. 195–8.Google Scholar

page 477 note 4 I doubt that there are any criteria for proper basicality. If there are, I am convinced that they will involve propositions about states or events of myself.

page 481 note 1 For example, the theist might reject proposition (20) by making use of the concept of a contingent being. He could infer that a being who can create contingent beings is all–powerful. Because he is all–powerful he cannot perform an evil act, for he would have no reason for performing such an act. A person performs an evil act because he needs or wants something he cannot have or obtain through legitimate means, and the needs or wants provide the reasons for the act. But a being with the power to create things could never need or want anything it could not just create.

page 482 note 1 Is proposition (19) properly basic like proposition (18) ? It might be maintained that I can only know (19) is true subsequent to my knowing that (18) is true. For purposes of discussion, however, I will assume (19) is properly basic. If it is not it is still more basic than proposition (14).

page 482 note 2 ‘I apprehend there are very few cases in which we can, from principles that are contingent, deduce truths that are necessary. I can only recollect one instance of this kind – namely – that, from the existence of things contingent and mutable, we can infer the existence of an immutable and eternal cause of them.’ Reid, Thomas, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay VI, Chapter 5, The Works of Thomas Reid, 2 vols. ed. Sir Hamilton, William (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1863), 1, 442.Google Scholar

page 482 note 3 This is Plantinga's view. See his The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 65–9.Google Scholar

page 483 note 1 I have stated that if proposition (19) is properly basic, it excludes propositions (9)–(14) from that status. I have explicitly outlined how (19)'s being properly basic affects the status of (10) and thus (14). I think that the status of (10) has implications for the status of (11), (12), and (13). Take (13). Why is God to be thanked and praised? One of the reasons theists give is that God has created us. I am grateful to God because he has given me existence. But giving me existence is an activity encompassed by proposition (10). Thus (10) is related to (13).

page 484 note 1 Descartes, R., The Philosophical Works of Descartes, 2 vols. trans. Haldane, E. S. and Ross, G. R. T. (Cambridge: At the Univerisity Press, 1931), 11, 88–9.Google Scholar