Those who are uninterested in clarity and truth as applied to religious assertions will
naturally find this style of philosophizing uncongenial. Those who do care about such
matters may well find it indispensable.
NOTES
1.So called because of certain affinities with the Reformed, or Calvinistic, branch of
Protestantism. One need not, however, be a Calvinist, or even a Christian, to be a
Reformed epistemologist.
2.The use of this term is relatively new, but the idea has been in place since the beginning
of Reformed epistemology.
3.I have greatly simplified Plantinga's argument; in particular, I have omitted his
incorporation into the argument of divine middle knowledge, which permits God to
know, prior to his own decision about what sort of world to create, exactly what any
possible free creature would freely do in any situation in which it might be placed.
Plantinga, however, agrees that the free will defense does not depend on the assumption
of middle knowledge.
4.Swinburne's argument presupposes the principle of credulity, which states that “other
things being equal, it is proper and rational to believe that things are as they seem to be
(and the stronger the inclination, the more rational the belief)” (1998, 20). If Wykstra
means to deny this (I doubt that he does), he may succeed thereby in defeating
end p.443
Rowe's argument—but only at the cost of landing himself in a skeptical bog from which
there is no escape.
5.For a clear statement by Hick that his theodicy is of this kind, see (1991, 127–31); for
other theodicies of this type, see Farrer (1962), Peterson (1982), and Reichenbach (1982).
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