Abstract
Epistemological issues have inevitably been perennial issues for theism. For any claim to have insight into the nature and acts of the divine requires some sort of substantiation. And the appeal to faith typically made to meet this demand is often unconvincing. This raises a fundamental question: what could constitute proper grounds for theistic belief? In attempting to answer this question, we will need to address the underlying epistemic issue of what justifies commitment to any world-view.
Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at Cambridge University and King’s College, University of London. I wish to thank those faculties for their helpful discussion. I am especially indebted to Bill Alston, Brian Hebblethwaite, Phil Quinn, Bruce Russell and Keith Ward for their insightful comments. Support for the original paper was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities through a Summer Stipend Fellowship.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
An excellent account of evidentialism and its historical background is given by Nicholas Wolterstorff in his Introduction to Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 50û7
See Alvin Plantinga, ‘Is Belief in God Rational?’, in Rationality and Belief, ed. C. F. Delaney (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), p. 25
Coherentism and the Evidentialist Objection to Belief in God’, Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright [Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986], p. 133.
Cf. ‘On Taking Belief in God as Basic’, Religious Experience and Religious Belief: Essays in the Epistemology of Religion, ed. Joseph Runzo and Craig K. Ihara (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986), pp. 12–13.
Plantinga, ‘Is Belief in God Properly Basic?’, in Nous (1981), p. 50.
See Alston, ‘Religious Experience as a Ground of Religious Belief’, in Religious Experience and Religious Belief, p. 44, and ‘Plantinga’s Epistemology of Religious Belief’, in Alvin Plantinga, ed. James Tomberlin and Peter Van Inwagen (Dordrecht, Boston: D. Reidel, 1985), pp. 306–8.
Norwood Hanson, Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), p. 19
and Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 109 and pp. 115–16.
D. Z. Phillips, The Concept of Prayer (New York: Shocken, 1966), p. 60.
See also Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (New York: Shocken, 1971), p. 29.
Phillips, Faith and Philosophical Enquiry, p. 1 and Religion Without Explanation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976), p. 150.
Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God (New York: Crossroad, 1980), pp. 93, 96 and 164, respectively.
I argue specifically against Phillip’s non-cognitivist view in ‘Religion, Relativism and Conceptual Schemas’, The Heythrop Journal XXIV (1983).
See Julius Lipner, The Face of Truth (London: Macmillan; Albany: SUNY Press, 1986), pp. 16 ff.
Cf. Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), Vol. I, pp. 11–12.
On the distinction between internal and external questions see Rudolf Carnap, ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’, in Semantics and the Philosophy of Language, ed. Leonard Linsky (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1952), p. 209.
J. L. Mackie argues in The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), that the balance of probability lies against theism.
And Richard Swinburne argues in The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), that the truth of theism is more probable than not.
Anselm Proslogium in St Anselm: Basic Writings, trans. S. N. Deane (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1966), p. 7.
William James, ‘The Will to Believe’, in Essays on Faith and Morals (New York: Meridian, 1974), p. 48.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Joseph Runzo
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Runzo, J. (1993). World-Views and the Epistemic Foundations of Theism. In: World Views and Perceiving God. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23106-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23106-5_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-23108-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-23106-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)