high standards for their success. An interesting stance on these matters has been defended
by Richard Swinburne. Swinburne accepts, in principle, the idea of a neutral
philosophical reason. He does not, however, consider that the employment of this reason
leads to rational certainty, but only to a degree of probability for this or that proposition.
The intrinsic probability of a proposition is an a priori matter, depending primarily on
simplicity; this probability is then modified in the light of evidence, according to the
principles of the probability calculus. In The Existence of God (1979), Swinburne uses
this framework to construct a cumulative case argument; he concludes that on the
evidence he has adduced (comprising versions of all of the traditional theistic arguments),
the existence of God is more probable than not.
A sharply contrasting position is found in the “Reformed epistemology”^1 developed in
the 1980s by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (1983). The central contention of
Reformed epistemology is that belief in the existence of God (along, perhaps, with some
other crucial religious beliefs) is “properly basic”; it is a belief that a person can be
justified in accepting without basing it on other beliefs she accepts. This claim is of
course highly controversial; the Reformed epistemologists' defense of it has in effect two
phases, an “external” phase directed to other philosophers regardless of their own beliefs,
and an “internal” phase directed specifically to other Christian thinkers. The external
defense trades heavily on what Wolterstorff has termed “perspectival particularism”^2
(1996, 19; 2000, 154–55). In brief, perspectival particularism recognizes that there is an
irreducible plurality of fundamental perspectives on reality, with a particular person's
acceptance of one of them strongly influenced by her prephilosophical beliefs and
commitments. Furthermore, it is not in general possible to show, by neutral philosophical
argument, that some one of these perspectives is correct and all the rest mistaken. In view
of this, it is perfectly appropriate and in no way irrational for a person to philosophize on
the basis of her own perspective, even if she has not been able to demonstrate the
correctness of that perspective in a way that is convincing to others. In particular, the
Christian philosopher is entitled to her own perspective, and to her own “set of examples”
(Plantinga's term) by which she determines the criteria for properly basic beliefs.
So much for the external defense of the claim that belief in God can be a properly basic
belief. The internal defense goes beyond this, by providing an explanation for how it is
that one can be justified in believing in God, even in the absence of evidence in support
of this belief. The answer is found in the claim that God has implanted in each human
being a natural inclination to form such a belief (Calvin called this inclination the sensus
divinitatis) under appropriate circumstances. Such circumstances might include being
impressed by the wonder of nature and spontaneously recognizing it as God's creation, or
reading the Bible and finding God speaking to one through it. In view of this divinely
implanted disposition, one is justified in believing in God, in the appropriate
circumstances, just as a person who sees a horse is justified in believing that there is a
horse in the vicinity. Now of course, nontheists cannot be expected to accept the assertion
that God has implanted in us the sensus divinitatis. They may, however, come to
recognize that belief in the sensus is a legitimate, integral part of the Christian worldview
(or at least, of some Christian worldviews). And in recognizing this, they may also be
brought to concede that the person who believes in God in a basic way violates no
epistemic duties in doing so.
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