This chapter examines the relationship between skeptical themes and debates concerning the rationality of religious belief. This relationship manifests itself not only in terms of critiques of the rationality of religious belief, but also in prominent defenses of the rationality of religious belief, such as Lockean evidentialism, reformed epistemology, and skeptical fideism. The discussion puts particular focus on a specific form of skeptical fideism that employs an epistemic parity argument with regard to the epistemological status of religious and everyday belief. In this regard, it considers quasi-fideism, an account of the rationality of religious belief that applies a Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to the religious case, and which has a natural affinity with skeptical fideism.

Faith in God conflicts with reason – or so we are told. This chapter focuses on two arguments for this conclusion. After evaluating three criticisms of them, we identify an assumption they share, namely that faith in God requires belief that God exists. Whether the assumption is true depends on what faith is. We sketch a theory of faith that allows for both faith in God without belief that God exists, and faith in God while in belief-cancelling doubt regarding God’s existence. We then argue that our theory, unlike the theory of Thomas Aquinas, makes sense of four central items of faith-data: (i) pístis in the Synoptics, (ii) ʾemunāh in the Hebrew scriptures, (iii) exemplars of faith in God, including Abraham, Jesus, and Mother Teresa, and (iv) the widespread experience of people of faith today. We close by assessing revisions of the two arguments we began with, revisions that align with our theory of faith, and find them dubious, at best.

This chapter aims to lay out a map of the diverse epistemological perspectives within the Islamic theological tradition in the conceptual framework of contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. It seeks to consider the epistemological views in light of their historic context, while at the same time seeking to “translate” those broadly medieval perspectives in tandem with a set of contemporary positions in religious epistemology: theistic evidentialism, reformed epistemology, and fideism. The chapter is divided into two main sections designated for discussions of differing accounts found in distinct trends of the Islamic tradition, namely the Rationalist and Traditionalist trends within Islamic theology. The discussion within the Rationalist tradition focuses on the philosophical theologians (mutakallimūn), of the dominant Mu’tazilite (mu’tazila), Ash’arite (ash‘ariyya) and Maturidite schools (māturīdiyya). The section on Islamic Traditionalism focuses on the Atharite (atharī) scripturalism of Ibn Qudāma, and in suparticular the thought of Ibn Taymiyya.

The final chapter shows that Kierkegaard discusses the ethics of belief, that is the normativity that governs the formation, maintenance, and relinquishment of beliefs. Kierkegaard is a clear nonevidentialist concerning religious belief, since he denies that justified religious belief requires sufficient evidence (indeed, such evidence is impossible). Still, the widespread fideist reading of Kierkegaard, which takes belief to involve a self-constituting leap of faith, is challenged by a pragmatist reading, which takes belief to be justified by normative practical reasons instead. By examining different interpretations and different primary sources, the chapter concludes that the ignored pragmatist reading is highly promising both textually and philosophically. Despite appearances (and long-standing interpretative traditions), Kierkegaard does offer justificatory practical reasons for religious belief. Still, an element of fideism remains, since divine revelation seems to constitute itself supernaturally at least in part, although this does not amount to a blind leap of faith.

The idea of religious liberty is sometimes thought to be necessary precisely because people will not agree on religious opinions. Yet the American tradition of religious freedom is grounded in the reality of both revealed religion and natural religion. While revealed religion, which is more contentious, is most often the subject of First Amendment cases, religious liberty need not presuppose that all religious knowledge is impossible. Instead, the Declaration of Independence famously affirms natural religion: that some things about God, human nature, and individual rights are knowable by reason. This chapter considers areas of natural religion, reason, and presuppositional thinking in order to show how knowledge is possible and how greater agreement can be achieved concerning religion.

In Book 2 of Cicero’s On the nature of the gods, Balbus argues for a Stoic theology and view of religion, and in Book 3 Cotta, an Academic skeptic, argues against him. I argue that both characters are supporters of traditional Roman pagan religion. In contrast to the Epicurean Velleius in Book 1, Balbus argues that the gods do care for us, in fact that the cosmic god fates every detail of our lives. He describes a world whose beauty is a principle reason to think that this rational creator has planned it for us, and further argues that this creator is good. He offers a complex rereading of Roman religion and poetic myth, according to which Roman religious practices were begun in ways that Stoic theology can support, and that it can still support once later distortions of this theology have been cleared away. Cotta, a pontifex, says that his skepticism is consistent with his priestly office, on grounds reminiscent of modern fideism. But he argues that Balbus’ dogmatic Stoic theology would destabilize the beliefs of those practising Roman religion, because Balbus cannot rigorously relate the many Roman gods to the one Stoic cosmic god.