Alvin Plantinga purports a “reformed epistemology” in his paper Is Belief in God Properly Basic? He says the modern foundationalist’s formulation of the criterion for proper basicality (viz. self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses) fails because it is “self-referentially incoherent.” He then says that one does not need a criterion for proper basicality to rationally or justifiably believe that something is properly basic. This is met with two objections: groundlessness or gratuitousness, and arbitrariness. Plantinga answers these objections by saying that rather than appealing to a criterion, we can use an inductive approach of using a relevant set of examples. He then applies all this to theistic belief. I argue that this approach cannot be applied to theism because one cannot arrive at a rational relevant set of examples. More specifically, Platinga’s principle of “relevance” fails to account for contradictory examples, which consequently makes belief in God arbitrary.

Plantinga begins by contextualizing his thesis. He says that those who object to theism and those who affirm theism both do so on the basis of evidence. This evidentialist approach is based upon classical foundationalism, which says some propositions are properly basic, while others are based on evidence tracing back to propositions that are properly basic. Properly basic beliefs are beliefs which are not based on another belief; conversely, beliefs that are not properly basic are accepted on the basis of evidence. Evidentialists think theists violate normative standards of rationality by believing in the existence of God without sufficient evidence. If a belief is irrational – that is, not based on evidence – then it should be rejected. Moreover, evidentialists minimally think that God is not a properly basic belief. Plantinga argues the contrary, namely, he argues that belief God is properly basic.

Plantinga also rejects the modern foundationalist approach[1]. He tells us that the modern foundationalist’s criterion for proper basicality is “self-referentially incoherent.” Their criterion is as such: “For any proposition A and person S, A is properly basic for S if and only if A is incorrigible for S or self-evident to S.” In essence, Plantinga says that the criterion itself fails to meet its own criterion.

In refining his views, Plantinga deals with two objections to the claim that belief in God is properly basic: groundlessness (or gratuitousness), and arbitrariness. First, basic beliefs are not groundless because there is some “circumstance or condition that confers justification.” For instance, for perceptual judgements, there are conditions that justify taking a judgement as basic – for example, in seeing a tree, the condition would include the characteristics of that tree being “appeared to” in a certain fashion. It has a “characteristic sort of experience” which acts as a “grounds” for justification.  Similarly, we may have the same grounds, the same justifying conditions for belief in God – to name a few, “guilt, gratitude, danger, a sense of God’s presense, a sense that he speaks, perception of various parts of the universe.” These do not amount to the belief in God’s existence, but merely belief in propositions such as, “God is speaking to me,” or, “God forgives me,” which ipso facto entail God’s existence.

The next objection Plantinga deals with is arbitrariness. The objection is as follows: because the reformed epistemologist rejects the criteria for proper basicality, she is committed to supposing anything can be properly basic. Plantinga argues that it is possible to eliminate arbitrary and meaningless basic beliefs without a criterion. Consider, again, the basic belief from the perceptual judgement, “I see a tree”.  There must be a way to eliminate, without a criterion, the prima facie basic belief: “I am hallucinating that I am seeing a tree.”

For Plantinga, the proper way to arrive at a criterion for proper basicality, that is not self-referentially incoherent, is by induction; or in other word, it must be “argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples.” For instance, perhaps we have the “grounds” for justifying the preceding events as properly basic: “I remember waking up this morning,” “I remember walking to the park,” and “the park ranger is telling me to watch out for trees.” These examples can give us a framework for properly basicality which we may use to inductively infer the proper basicality of the proposition, “I see a tree,” and dismiss the proposition, “I am hallucinating that I am seeing a tree.” Reformed thinkers, Plantings says, can hold that “certain propositions are not properly basic in certain conditions.” He adds that not “everyone will agree on the examples.” In the case of theistic belief, the “Christian community is responsible to its set of examples.” Granted, the theist would need to discern the “neighbourhood” of conditions which justify and ground belief in God, and demarcate such beliefs from irrational beliefs (like the existence of the Great Pumpkin).

Plantinga suggests that the relevant set of examples to justify a properly basic belief in God is derived from a Calvinistic sensus divinitatis. This is a “sense of divinity” which is akin to perception in that it is a faculty that can sense the divine; specifically, “God has implanted us to see his hand in the world around us.” As such, the “grounds,” or conditions for justifying the proposition “God is hearing my prayers” is the sensus divinitatis. In effect, we can gather similar instances to give us an inductive framework for properly basicality, and we can subsequently apply this framework to eliminate irrational propositions, like “there exists a Great Pumpkin.” Plantinga admits that one may object to the notion of an ingrained sensus divinitatis; yet, this irrelevant because what is in question is how rational the theist is in her belief in God, and she would readily attest to the notion of sensus divinitatis. In other words, the set of relevant examples regarding the “grounds” for justification may differ between the theist and the atheist, but they are both rational in their respective beliefs so long as they have proper “grounds.”

However, the issue is that propositions like “God is hearing my prayers” cannot be distinguished from the proposition “I merely have the feeling that God hears my prayers.” They entail two contradictory propositions: “God exists,” and, minimally, “I do not know if God exists.” Even if one accepts the sensus divinitatis as a “grounds” for justification, one cannot determine which proposition is more salient since all of the relevant sets of examples have the same issue. For whatever example is used – whether it is a sense of forgiveness or a sense of guilt – a contradictory example can be thought of which stipulates that one has the mere feeling of the sensus divinitatis. As such, it is not possible to come up with an inductive framework for proper basicality with satisfactory examples to eliminate irrational propositions, like “there exists a Great Pumpkin,” as not properly basic.

I have attempted to give an adequate account of Plantinga’s views. For the most part, I did not attack Plantinga’s general method; rather, I challenged Plantinga’s application of the sensus divinitatis to his inductive approach. To be charitable, perhaps the sensus divinitatis can somehow distinguish between the two contradictory propositions. But this seems highly ad hoc. Anywhere the sensus divinitatis goes wrong, it can be attributed to human fallibility. This may be a satisfactory explanation for the theist who has a first-hand account of the sensus divinitatis, just as it may be sensible for somebody with clairvoyant powers to maintain that information from their clairvoyant faculty is properly basic – of course, there is a way to verify the accuracy of one’s clairvoyant powers, and no way to verify one’s sensus divinitatis. In any case, somebody without direct access to such faculties would rightly question its warrant as rational grounds for belief.

Source

Plantinga, Alvin. “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” (1981) Nous 15: 41-52

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[1] Modern foundationalism is a subset of classical foundationalism – the other, according to Plantinga, being “ancient and medieval foundationalism.”