Reformed Epistemology

The position that belief in God can be rational and warranted as a properly basic belief, held without inference from arguments or evidence.

Definition

A religious epistemology holding that belief in God need not be grounded in propositional evidence to be rational, because it can be a properly basic belief produced by a reliable, properly functioning cognitive faculty.

Scope

This topic covers reformed epistemology as developed by Plantinga, Wolterstorff, and Alston: the claim that theistic belief can be properly basic, Plantinga's proper-function account of warrant and the sensus divinitatis, and the extended model for warranted Christian belief. It covers the great pumpkin and other objections concerning whether any belief could then be basic. It does not cover evidentialism, treated separately.

Core questions

• Can belief in God be rational without supporting argument?
• What is it for a belief to be properly basic?
• Does treating theism as basic open the door to any arbitrary belief being basic?
• How does warrant attach to belief in God on a proper-function account?

Key theories

Properly basic belief in God

Plantinga and Wolterstorff argue that belief in God can be accepted as basic in the way perceptual and memory beliefs are, since the evidentialist requirement that all beliefs rest on evidence is itself unmet and too strong.

Proper function and the sensus divinitatis

Plantinga argues that a belief has warrant when produced by faculties functioning properly in an appropriate environment according to a design plan aimed at truth; belief in God can have warrant if a sensus divinitatis reliably produces it.

History

Reformed epistemology emerged in the 1980s, drawing on Calvin's notion of an innate sense of the divine, and was launched by the 1983 volume Faith and Rationality. Plantinga developed it through his warrant trilogy, culminating in Warranted Christian Belief (2000), while Alston's Perceiving God supplied a complementary account based on religious experience as a doxastic practice.

Debates

Whether properly basic theism licenses arbitrary beliefs

The great pumpkin objection charges that if belief in God can be basic, so could any belief; reformed epistemologists reply that proper basicality is governed by criteria tied to reliable faculties, excluding arbitrary beliefs.

Whether warrant transfers if theism is false

Plantinga argues that whether theistic belief has warrant depends on whether theism is true, since warrant requires truth-aimed proper function; critics object this makes the epistemic question turn on the disputed metaphysical one.

Key figures

• John Calvin
• Alvin Plantinga
• Nicholas Wolterstorff
• William Alston

Seminal works

• plantinga2000
• plantinga1983
• alston1991

Frequently asked questions

What is the sensus divinitatis?

Drawing on Calvin, it is the supposed innate cognitive faculty or sense of the divine that, when functioning properly, produces belief in God in suitable circumstances, providing the warrant on Plantinga's model.

Does reformed epistemology say arguments for God are useless?

No. It holds that belief in God need not rest on arguments to be rational, but it does not deny that such arguments may have value; its central claim is that the evidentialist requirement is not a necessary condition for rational belief.