Plantinga, Proper Basicality, and Fideism

In the past decade, there has been a renewed interest in the questions of religious epistemology. Perhaps the most influential of the analytic philosophers in this area has been Alvin Plantinga. He contends that belief in God is properly basic, i.e. that Christians are justified in believing in the existence of God without formulating arguments to prove said existence. His critics, both atheists and theists, have charged him with abandoning reason in favor of a fideistic insulation of theism from rational criticism. This paper will analyze Plantinga's argument, criticisms of it (especially those charging it with fideism), and some possible defenses. It will conclude with the author's evaluation of proper basicality.

Plantinga begins his essay by describing what he calls the "evidentialist" objection to belief in God, in which it is held that belief in God is only capable of being justified if there is sufficient evidence of the existence of the Divine. He links this to classical foundationalism (CF) , which claims that, "some of one's beliefs may be based upon others; it may be that there are a pair of propositions A and B such that I believe A on the basis of B." (Plantinga 1981, p.41) Some examples are the spelling of words (based on their spelling in the dictionary) and the multiplication of large numbers, i.e. "72 times 71=5112" (based on 2 times 1=2, etc.) However, some beliefs are believed without being based on any other proposition, such as 2+2=4. These beliefs are called "properly" or "rightly" basic beliefs, since they can justly be held without evidence. The existence of God is not one of the "properly basic" beliefs, and must be proved through other evidence.

Plantinga then discusses the challenge to classical foundationalism posed by Reformed theology. Many Reformed theologians hold that the project of natural theology, proving the existence of God through reason (i.e. the theistic version of classical foundationalism [CF]) is not only futile, but wrong-headed. These theologians (and Plantinga) reject classical foundationalism in favor of a revised version of foundationalism in which theistic belief is "properly basic" for the believer. The notion that it is intellectually acceptable for the believer to assert belief in God without basing it on any other beliefs, propositions or arguments is the one Plantinga is interested in defending.

Plantinga notes that the evidentialist objection is not merely an epistemic one, but a "normative" or ethical one as well. The evidentialist claims that it is not simply inaccurate to hold theistic beliefs without evidence, but somehow intellectually inferior, or even immoral, as well. This attitude can be traced back to W.K. Clifford's classic essay, "The Ethics of Belief", in which Clifford argues that it is not only irrational but unethical to "believe without proof." He uses as an example a ship owner who allows a badly deteriorated ship to put to sea without proper inspection simply because it has always succeeded in making the trip before. The ship sinks. Clifford holds the ship owner responsible for the deaths of the crew because he failed to use proper empirical tests to determine the soundness of the ship. Clifford contends that NO belief should be held without empirically sound and logically valid proofs. William James, in "The Will to Believe", argues against Clifford's position. He believes it to be too reductive, and contends that it is permissible to believe a claim that does not possess the degree of proof that Clifford claims is necessary, if the claim is prima facie sound and is a living option for the believer. Kelly James Clark, citing C. S. Lewis, goes even farther and effectively stands Clifford on his head. Clark contends that, since Christians believe that their relationship to God is a personal one, it would be as IMMORAL to devise tests for God's existence as it would be to set up empirical tests for the chastity of one's spouse! It is against the background of this controversy that Plantinga casts his argument. HE first inquires as to what type of ethical duty is flouted in believing God without proof. Is it:

A) Teleological, "a moral obligation arising out of a connection between certain intrinsic goods and evils and the way in which our beliefs are formed and held?" (Plantinga, 1981, 43) Clifford seems to fall in this category.

B) Aretetical, rational states with corresponding "intellectual virtues" worthy of being conjoined and cultivated?

C) Deontological, it is obligatory for use simply because we are reasoning beings, and not out of any other value?

Plantinga chooses to respond to the deontological notion of evidentialism, which account he claims will refute the other forms as well. The evidentialist, as a classical foundationalist, MUST both claim that (A) there are properly basic beliefs and (B) that theistic belief isn't a member of the set of properly basic beliefs. On this account, all Plantinga has to do is demonstrate that B is not necessarily true in order to make the case for properly basic belief.

Plantinga contends that although properly basic belief may not be grounded on any other belief or inference, this does not mean that the belief is groundless. When he sees a tree, he believes that he sees the tree without any other propositions entering into the equation of belief, in the words of Roderick Chisholm, he is being "appeared treely to". This belief, along with some other circumstances, form the basis, or "GROUND", of Plantinga's belief that he sees a tree. Likewise, when he sees someone displaying pain behavior, he believes that the person is in pain. Perceiving it is, of course, crucial for formulating the belief, and once again it forms the basis for a properly basic belief.

In each case listed above, Plantinga gives an example of of properly basic belief. He next considers what serves as the guiding principle behind the "ground of justification." (Plantinga, 1981, p. 45) He concludes that there exists a principle such that:

D) In condition C, S is justified in taking p as basic.

E) I see a rose colored wall in front of me.

Plantinga claims the same warrant that justified properly basic true beliefs have for the belief, "God exists". He contends that, for Christians, the evidence for God's involvement in the world is such that their perception of the activity of the Divine is functionally equivalent to perceiving the existence of the rose-colored wall. The inferences that Christians make about their perception of God's activity in the world:

F) God is speaking to me.

G) God has created all this.

H) God disapproves of what I have done.

I) God forgives me.

J) God is to be thanked and praised.

The second objection that Plantinga wishes to meet claims that, "if belief in God is properly basic, why can't just any belief be properly basic?" (Plantinga, 1981, p.48) In other words, why can't we adopt just any form of belief without providing rational arguments for it, such as Linus Van Pelt's belief in the existence of the Great Pumpkin? Plantinga denies the notion that a rejection of the CF criteria necessarily entails the embrace of complete irrationality. He claims that such a position requires one to stay with a notion of CF, such as verificationism, that has been almost completely discredited, simply because of the alleged connection between verification and rational thought.

Plantinga traces the objection back to what he sees as the root of the dilemma that it poses, namely, the question of proper criteria for determining basic beliefs. He claims that even though we may not be able to fully articulate the criteria for proper basicality, we may assert that ... "certain propositions are not properly basic in certain conditions." (Plantinga, 1981, p.49) He gives Russell's paradoxes as an example of statements that seem to be properly basic, but when looked at closely fail to meet prima facie conditions for basicality.

What then comprises the essential criteria for knowledge and/or reason and properly basic belief? Plantinga considers the modern foundationalist's criterion for proper basicality:

K) 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.

How then does Plantinga propose to define proper basicality, in the absence of any "clearly acceptable arguments?" (Plantinga, 1981, p.50) He claims that the only adequate way of doing so is through inductive generalizations based on "examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously properly basic to the latter, and examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously not proper in the latter." Such examples would be tested by hypotheses that endeavor to delineate the "necessary and sufficient conditions of proper basicality". Plantinga here seems to argue for a view of proper basicality that is conditioned by environmental as well as social circumstances, since he subsequently claims that the claims for proper basicality may not, and indeed in the case of theistic claims will not, be accepted. He claims that Christians are only responsible to its own epistemic norms, not the norms of atheists. Thus the Reformed epistemologist is not obligated to consider EVERY set of possible basic beliefs, only those basic beliefs which are a "living option" for Christians. The Great Pumpkin is not an embarrassment for the theist, since there are no examples of a community of believers in the Great Pumpkin. Indeed, in the fictional world of PEANUTS, Linus Van Pelt has NO evidence for the existence of such a being, whether "subjective" or empirical. Thus, we can regard the Great Pumpkin to be "a paradigm of irrational basic belief." (Plantinga, 1981, p.51) It is a perfect example of why theistic proper basicality is NOT "fideistic", since Plantinga claims that one must have adequate experience for the existence of such a being before one can adopt a claim of properly basic belief for it.

As it might be expected, Plantinga's claim of proper basicality for religious belief has not gone unchallenged. This paper cannot hope to deal with them all, but will concentrate on the charge of fideism brought against Plantinga's work by Bredo C. Johnson. Johnson claims that Plantinga's assertion of proper basicality is fatally flawed due to several factors:

L) Even if Plantinga succeeds in showing that theistic belief is properly basic ON HIS TERMS, he still cannot escape the necessity of drawing a distinction between proper and improper basic belief. Johnson contends that Plantinga denies that such a distinction can be clearly drawn, and then apparently provides us with examples of the distinction (i.e. falsely remembering that one has had breakfast or that one is perceiving a rose-colored wall) which seems to be based on defeasability. Johnson accuses Plantinga of lack of clarity in the use of his examples to demonstrate his "weak" notion of proper basicality (PB). [Johnson, 1986, pp. 457-459]

M) The lack of clarity mentioned in L seriously compromises Plantinga's project, since he needs clearly defined parameters for basic theistic belief in order to avoid the reductio ad absurdem of asserting the PB of the Great Pumpkin. Plantinga appears to make PB a function of community belief in his claims to be independent of the epistemic norms of the atheistic community, responsible only to the epistemic norms of the Christian community. Johnson asserts that it only needs to be shown that there may be a possible world of Great Pumpkin believers in which all signs that in this world point to the existence of a God (i.e. "God loves me.") there point to the existence of the Great Pumpkin deity. Plantinga's argument from PB is a very subtle, perhaps even confused, form of fideism, since it attempts to provide grounds for justifying PB, without doing so clearly enough to either avoid absurdity or escape the need for epistemic agreement with communities of non- believers. (Johnson, 1986, p.460-63) Plantinga cannot avoid the charge that his proper basicality can only be defended through the enumeration of various circumstances through which PB can be claimed for theistic belief.

N) Although Plantinga fails to address the question of how to avoid the proper basicality of the Great Pumpkin in his published writings, in private conversation he has raised the possibility that belief in pagan gods such as Thor may be a primitive form of belief in God, and thus be PB. Johnson doesn't believe that this is an option for Plantinga with regard to belief in the Great Pumpkin. Plantinga seems to want to say that belief in the Great Pumpkin is impossible since the GP is a fictional character. Johnson points out that for the purposes of Plantinga's assertion of PB, the GP is not considered to be a fictional character, but "an arbitrarily chosen representative of the set of objects the proper basicality of which Plantinga wishes to deny, while maintaining the proper basicality of belief in God." (Johnson, 1986, p. 463) Thus, Plantinga cannot avoid the challenge to PB posed by belief in the Great Pumpkin by pointing out the actual fictional nature of the entity in question.

Given the above criteria, we can construct a possible response to Johnson's objections from Plantinga's point of view. If we assume that there could exist a logically possible world in which the Great Pumpkin is worshipped as God due to the fact that the inhabitants interpret the signs and indications that they receive as being from such an entity, then their belief in GP is properly basic! Plantinga can say that without embarrassment, since in THIS world, the one we live in, belief in the Great Pumpkin is NOT a living option. There are too many "defeaters" in operation for anyone to claim proper basicality for such a belief. Belief in God, however, has a long tradition of acceptance in this world, with a great number of adherents claiming religious experiences. It is thus a "living option" for individuals in this world. It must be kept in mind that Plantinga does not deny the existence of criteria for meaningful belief, nor is he using proper basicality as a smoke screen for an argument for the existence of God. He is only interested in meeting the challenge of individuals such as Clifford who argue that it is prima facie irrational to believe in God without strictly valid proofs drawn from undeniable empirical evidence.

But what about other problems that arise from Plantinga's notion of proper basicality? It may not lead the theist down the path of fideism, but it certainly appears that PB is a part of every "lived option" embraced by humans, including the very denial of theistic belief expressed by atheism and agnosticism! Plantinga has no difficulty with this, since his Reformed epistemology denies the possibility of proofs for God's existence drawn from premises mutually acceptable to both the believer and the non-believer. (Plantinga, 1981, p. 42) However, those theists (such as this author) and non-theists who do not find Reformed theology altogether convincing are moved to ask: "Why is incommiserability any better then fideism?" In effect, the intellectual evils that follow from fideism (alienation from other thinking individuals, lack of mutual standards of rationality, etc.) are those of incommiserability as well. Plantinga has no reply to the atheist who says, "I am experiencing the absence of God." He may reply (and in fact does [Johnson, p.462]) that sin has clouded the atheist's perception, but on his own terms he cannot rationally demonstrate this to the atheist, or even consistently deny PB to his atheistic beliefs. PB may be useful in justifying the rationality of religious belief, but it cannot demonstrate the FACTICITY of religious belief. Without that, the claim of belief in a Divine Being is, at best, trivial in terms of philosophy. (Appleby, p. 139; Gilman, pp.155-156; Robbins, pp.246-247)

Bibliography

For this bibliography, I hoped to research the relationship between skepticism and religious belief in the hope of coming to a conclusion about the question of how one is rationally justified with regard to religious faith. Ironically, one of the most popular arguments of modern analytic philosophical theists is one that takes a skeptical view of natural theology and the possibility of an evidential defense of theism. Its most renowned defender, Alvin Plantinga, attacks the notion that one must have adequate evidence before one believes in God. He asserts that the theist's belief in God is properly basic. The bibliography centers on this argument, but I have attempted to include as much as I thought was relevant to the topic at hand.

The materials at hand were compiled from the Philosopher's Index and located at the Ellis and Stevens College libraries. For those articles that I have failed to retrieve, I have provided the Philosopher's Index abstracts (PIA).

Various Views of Religious Epistemology

Alston, William P. Religious Experience And Religious Belief. Nous 16, 3-12 March 1982.

Alston contends that religious experience can provide justification for religious beliefs. He derives this from an argument designed to show that Christian epistemic practice (CP) possesses the same epistemic status as the epistemic norms commonly used in everyday perceptual practice (PP).

Audi makes the claim that externalist views of moral epistemology are incapable of giving us the truth about moral actions, since they are unable to account for the internal states of moral actors. He asserts that internalist views, such as Kant's Categorical Imperative, provide us with better tools for the assessment of moral action, since they deal with both the actor's motivations and his dealings with the external world.

Daniels's article is a critique of Alston's "Religious Experience and Religious Belief." It is divided into three parts. In part 1, he attacks Alston's notion that common perceptual practice (PP) and Christian epistemic practice (CP) are related in their weak justificational stance. In Sec. 2, he contends that there are those (wine tasters, musicians, painters, etc.) who have stronger justification for their sense data than ordinary individuals do. In Sec. 3, he denies that religious believers fall into the same category as the individuals in Sec. 3, since their belief- object is not readily available to the senses.

Ferreira critiques the tu quoque argument as it is used in both sides of the debate in the philosophy of religion. Commonly used to contend that the philosopher's opponent has beliefs that are not justified with regard to his/her philosophy, the argument is used to contend for and equivalence of epistemic position by the philosopher against his or her opponent. Ferreira claims that the mere illustration of inconsistencies in the beliefs that a theorist of religion holds does not warrant the assumption that the critic's position is equally valid. There may be independent criteria for judging between the two belief systems that have nothing to do with other beliefs held by the theorists.

The author argues that accepting Swinburne's principle of credulity (POC) in order to prove the case for God's existence poses a major dilemma for the theist. If the theist accepts the POC, he must follow Swinburne in accepting Bayesian probabilism as his standard of belief. This in turn gives rise to a cruel inability to judge between competing truth claims.

Kuitert argues against the "Wittgenstienian" D.Z. Phillips's language-game theory of religious belief on the grounds that it is illogical, does not respect the notion of truth and person, has a deficiency in reciprocity and an unwarranted isolationism in general.

Levine critiques Oakes's claim of de re necessity for self- authenticating experiences of God by contending that Oakes confuses the ontological notion of being in a veridical state with the epistemological state of knowing that one is in a veridical state since there is no criteria for recognizing essentially veridical experience, the skeptic is not unjustified in his rejection of veridical truth claims as self-authenticating.

Marietta takes a strong verificationist/falsificationist view of religious language. He dismisses literalistic language used in reference to God, and argues for a rapproachment with liberal theologians whose religious goals are compatible with non-theistic humanism.

Oakes argues that Kai Nielsen and other atheistic evidentialists have made an equivocational error in assuming that not being able to sense God directly logically entails the denial that God is totally incapable of being sensed. The author contends that the effects of God's activities can be detected, and such detected acts can serve as a reasonable basis for claiming that God can be perceived.

The author argues for a weak notion of self-authenticating experience of God, in which he contends that it is not logically inconceivable for there to be self-authenticating experiences of God prima facie, although it may be the case that such experiences do not exist. He concludes that more work has to be done by skeptics to disprove them than a simple dismissal or comparison to fringe phenomena.

Oakes agrees with Levine on the subject's incapacity to know that experience is veridical when he/she has it. This, however, does not count against his ("modest") assertion that veridicality of belief is self-authenticating, since it depends on the logical impossibility of believing it to be veridical ("on the basis of its phenomenological content") and lacking certainty of it. Thus, he claims that Levine has not shown his argument to be invalid, since he has not shown, "that being veridical essentially does not entail being self-authenticated." -4-

(PIA) This paper explores the position of modern anti- realism, especially the "qualified anti-realism" of Hilary Putnam. It then seeks to examine the possibilities for theology within the boundaries of that philosophical position.

Sykes argues that tolerance should be shown between those who hold different religious beliefs due to the fact that our religious judgments are tacit in character.

Appleby, Peter C. Reformed Epistemology and belief in God. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 24: 129-142. Nov. 1988.

The author claims that Plantinga's assertion of the rationality of properly basic beliefs about God fails to assure the truth of theism. Rationality of belief is only the precondition, not the condition, of true belief.

Alvin Plantinga has argued that to defend their religious beliefs, theists need only to engage in negative apologetics- defend their beliefs against potential defeaters. I argue that the undeniable existence of pervasive religious pluralism places knowledgeable theists under the prima facie obligation to attempt to provide positive evidence for their religious beliefs.

In this classic essay, Clifford argues that it is not only epistemically wrong to hold a belief that one has no evidence for, but morally deficient as well. It is evil to do so, since by believing without proof we weaken our ability to make judgments of all kinds, especially ethical ones. It also becomes part of our epistemic foundation and thus weakens the whole fabric of our knowledge. Clifford contends that, as hard as it might be, we must only take actions for which we have rational justification, or suspend judgement altogether.

In this essay, Gowan holds that Plantinga's assertion of proper basicality as a rational justification of theistic belief based on modest foundationalism, fails to offer enough support for justifying belief to others. She asserts the necessity of adopting minimal for of foundationalism as a support for belief since such foundational beliefs are immediately justified in a weak sense, which allows believers to not only be justified, but to justify their beliefs to others.

The author asserts that Plantinga's argument for proper basicality does not demonstrate the proper basicality of belief in God. Although he concurs with Plantinga on the bankruptcy of classical foundationalism, he points out that that Plantinga's claim that, for the theist, belief in God is as basic as believing in the existence of a tree is inappro- priate, since theists and atheists can concur on the existence of trees through intersubjective observation. The analogy doesn't hold up.

The author argues that Plantinga has failed to meet the evidentialist objection that Plantinga's theory of properly basic belief enables one to claim justification for UFO's, swamp monsters, or the Great Pumpkin. Johnson bases his claim on the fact that God in Plantinga's foundationalism differs in no significant properties from the above-mentioned "unreal" entities.

(PIA) According to Plantinga, belief in God is properly basic because, for Christians at least, it is a ground of human culture. For Alston, that belief is properly basic because, whether a ground or not, it has the same evidential value as other beliefs that are grounds of human culture. I pose a pragmatic objection to the philosophical idea of the grounds of culture and its use to underwrite, in this case, Christian theological discourse.

Robbins claims that Plantinga, despite his assurances of properly basic beliefs, has actually left foundationalism through his claim that such beliefs are "community-relative" and thus not universally applicable.

(PIA) This paper argues that epistemological reliabilists such as A Plantinga and W Alston offer no help in discrimin- ating justified from unjustified religious beliefs. It constructs a reductio argument to show that, on their accounts, fundamentalism is found to be as reliable as any other religious belief system.

Zeis attacks Plantinga's modest foundationalism on the grounds that it is too "modest", i.e. his notion of properly basic belief only operates "under certain conditions" and thus resembles coherentism more than foundationalism.

Askew, Richard. On fideism and Alvin Plantinga. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 23: 3-16 1988.

Askew defends Plantinga from Penelhum's charge of fideism by pointing out that Plantinga considers properly basic belief to be the savior not of faith, but of reason.

In this work, Clark defends Plantinga's assertion of proper basicality against the charges of evidentialist critics. A good basic introduction to the controversy.

The paper argues for an acceptance of Plantinga and Rowe's version of the cosmological argument on the grounds that philosophers must start from ungrounded beliefs (i.e. properly basic beliefs) if they are to conduct philosophical inquiry.

Gilman claims that classical foundationalism (CF) and properly basic belief (PB) both contain truth in their critiques of each other. He proposes the adoption of R.G. Collingwood's notion of absolute presuppositions in order to establish properly basic belief in God, and to go on from there to a rational justification of theism.

The problem addressed is whether religious belief, defined here as accepting that God has created, and that what he revealed is true could ever be rational. That is, does the idea of religious belief imply that it is irrational? The author attempts to resolve this problem in favor of religious belief, and suggests how reasons can legitimately function in religious belief, the evidentialist objection to religion is answered, and it is proposed that reasons might function, not to prove that God has revealed, or that what he has revealed is true, but that the choice to believe is a morally responsible one.

(PIA) The position that belief in God is properly basic is defended against the charge that theistic beliefs lack the confirmation that non-theistic beliefs have. This disanalogy, I argue, is either irrelevant or false. It is irrelevant if is rests on the claim that the object about which rational beliefs must be formed must be regular, for regularity is not a necessary condition for confirmation nor for rationality. It is false if the claim is that no confirmation of any kind is possibly available for beliefs about non-regular objects. The non-regularity merely entails a non-regular, non- predicative type of confirmation, if at all. Hence, so far as this challenge is concerned, beliefs about God can be rational, since properly basic.

Plantinga responds to the evidentialist challenge to religious belief by arguing for the proper basicality of religious belief. Making a direct reference to Clifford's notion of ethical belief, Plantinga claims that there is nothing unjustified about religious belief for the believer, since his/her belief in God is as basic a part of his or her epistemic beliefs as assenting to the statement "I see a tree". He counters a charge of irrational fideism by pointing out that belief in the Great Pumpkin is not the same as belief in God, since the latter is a living option and the former isn't.

An excellent collection of essays on the subject, including "Faith and Reason as Governing Separate Realms" by William James.