Alvin Plantinga is among one of the most important Christian apologists in the twentieth century. The scope of the paper is to explore Plantinga’s contribution toward negative apologetics and to offer a brief analysis of his treatment of objections especially those aimed at his warrants of Christian belief and properly basic beliefs.
The atheists have often charged Christian belief of God is irrational because it lacks proper evidence for the existence of God. This position is known as evidentialism. Clifford sums up evidentialism: "To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”[1] Clark expounds Clifford’s point:
“If one violates Clifford's Maxim, then one sins against mankind; he has acted in defiance of his duties to man. Since one ought to avoid such transgressions, one must test all of one's beliefs at the tribunal of reason. One must never stifle doubts except as dictated by the evidence. If one does not have sufficient evidence for one's beliefs, then one should withhold commitment to that belief. If a man does not have time to ponder the evidence, to consider the arguments pro and con, then Clifford says, "he should have no time to believe"[2]
What Clifford proposed is to place human reason at the highest level of judgment, and having evidence is the only criterion for anyone to hold any belief rationally. In Clifford’s view, a person cannot hold any beliefs until he has found sufficient evidence to support his belief. The belief of God, in Clifford’s mind, is outside of the rational belief because there is simply not enough evidence.
Classical Foundationalism is a close relative to evidentialism. Wolterstorff defines Classical Foundationalism:
The classical foundationalist is the foundationalist who holds that just two sort of propositions can be candidates for propositions which it is rational to hold immediately. It will contain propositions which are self-evident to the person in question--propositions which he just sees to be true. 1+1=2 would be an example of something self-evident to most of us. Second, it will contain propositions about one's states of consciousness which one cannot mistakenly believe to be true (or mistakenly believe to be false). These have been called incorrigible propositions in the philosophical tradition. Propositions which are self-evident for the person in question and propositions which are incorrigible for him--such propositions may properly be accepted immediately. They may properly be found in the foundations of a person's belief-structure. They are candidates for being properly basic. So contends the classical foundationalist.[3]
In short, Classical Foundationalism believes one can have a properly basic belief only if the belief is 1) Self-evident or 2) Incorrigible. All other non-basic beliefs a person has must be inferred beliefs. The strength or validity of the inferred beliefs is depended on the validity of basic beliefs. This whole belief system a person has is called “the noetic structure.” Plantinga notes foundationalists’ claim: “1) in a rational noetic structure the believed-on-the-basis-of relation is asymmetric and irreflexive, 2) a rational noetic structure has a foundation, and 3) in a rational noetic structure non-basic belief is proportional in strength to support from the foundations.[4]
It is Plantinga’s goal to show that if one takes Cliffords’ evidentialist point of view, one can have very few beliefs to live on and to function. Plantinga will point out that in order for a person to live, he must accept additional beliefs as properly basic beliefs, such as memory, belief in other minds, belief in testimonies, belief in God and etc. Clark comments: “the overwhelming majority of our beliefs are in fact basic, not acquired or maintained on the basis of others of our beliefs. Given that most of our beliefs are perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, or beliefs acquired because someone told us that such and such is the case, this should not be surprising. If one carefully attends to the structure of one’s believing, one will note that the number of beliefs that one reasons to—that is, the number of inferential, nonbasic beliefs—is slim indeed.”[5]
However, before we go on to Plantinga’s argument for including these additional beliefs (memory, other minds, etc) as properly basic, we must see how Plantinga debunks the absolute requirements for basic beliefs set by Classical Foundationalism.
The first objection Plantinga raised against foundationalism is that the criteria of what counts as foundational belief is false. In other words, foundationalism cannot meet its own requirement and therefore is self-defeating in its nature. Plantinga writes:
"But now we must take a closer look at this fundamental principle of classical foundationalism:
(32) A proposition p is properly basic for a person S if and only if p is either self-evident to S or incorrigible for S or evident to the sense for S." (The numbering system is Plantinga’s)
(32) contains two claims: first, a proposition is properly basic if it is self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses, and, second, a proposition is properly basic only if it meets this condition. The first seems true enough; suppose we concede it. But what is to be said for the second? Is there any reason to accept it? Why does the foundationalist accept it? Why does he think the theist ought to?” [6]
Plantinga further shows that the 2nd part of (32), which he named (33), that a proposition is properly basic only if A is self-evident or incorrigible or evident to the senses for me. He wrote:
"It therefore appears that the foundationalist does not know of any support for (33) from propositions that are (on his account) properly basic. So if he is to be rational in accepting (33), he must (on his own account) accept it as basic. But according to (33) itself, (33) is properly basic to [him] only if (33) is self-evident or incorrigible or evident to the senses for him. Clearly (33) meets none of these conditions. Hence it is not properly basic for [him]. But then [the foundationalist] is self-referentially inconsistent in accepting (33); he accepts (33) as basic, despite the fact that (33) does not meet the condition for proper basicality that (33) itself lays down."[7]
To conclude, the foundationalists' criterion for proper basicality is: 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. Plantinga adds:
“But how could one know a thing like that? What are its credentials? Clearly enough, it is not self-evident or just obviously true. But if it is not, how does one arrive at it? What sorts of arguments would be appropriate? Of course a foundationalist might find [the criterion] so appealing he simply takes it to be true, neither offering argument for it nor accepting it on the basis of other things he believes. If he does so, however, his noetic structure will be self-referentially incoherent. [The criterion] itself is neither self-evident nor incorrigible; hence if he accepts it as basic, the modern foundationalist violates in accepting it the condition of proper basicality he himself lays down.[8]
Plantinga therefore declared the defeat of foundationalism: "It is evident that classical foundationalism is bankrupt, and insofar as the evidentialist objection is rooted in classical foundationalism, it is poorly rooted indeed.”[9]
After showing foundationalism’s definition of properly basic belief is insufficient and incoherent, Plantinga argues that memory, and belief in other minds among other beliefs can all be counted as properly basic beliefs.
“I believe, for example, that I had lunch this noon. I do not believe this proposition on the basis of other propositions; I take it as basic; it is in the foundations of my noetic structure. Furthermore, I am entirely rational in so taking it, even though this proposition is neither self-evident nor evident to the senses nor incorrigible for me.”[10] He adds: “I seem to remember having breakfast this morning; that is, I have an inclination to believe the proposition that I had breakfast, along with a certain past-tinged experience that is familiar to all but hard to describe…The phenomenology of memory is a rich and unexplored realm; here I have no time to explore it. In this case as in the others, however, there is a justifying circumstance present, a condition that forms the ground of my justification for accepting the memory belief in question.”[11]
Furthermore, Plantinga developed the theory: “God and Other Minds”, in the book of this title he argues that we human beings take the existence of other minds as properly basic without relying on evidence.
“The problem of other minds can be put as follows: each of us believes that he is not alone in the universe--that there are other beings who think and reason, hold beliefs, have sensations and feelings. And while a person can observe another's behavior and circumstances, he cannot perceive another's mental states. ‘The thoughts and passions of the mind are invisible’ says Thomas Reid. ‘Intangible, odorless, and inaudible,’ we might add; and they cannot be tested either. Hence we cannot come to know that another is in pain in the way in which we can learn that he has red hair; unlike his hair, his pain cannot be perceived…we cannot observe the thoughts and feelings of another; so we cannot determine by observation that another is in pain.”[12]
This is quite an interesting comeback for the evidentialist. While we can examine and test the existence of other people’s brains, and chemical functions within the brain, we cannot examine other people’s minds (thoughts and feelings). However, even though we cannot examine other people’s minds, we take it as properly basic belief that other people indeed, do think and have feelings. In the book Plantinga replies the objections to God and Other Minds, but it is not the scope of this paper to explore them in details. It suffices to say that Plantinga has built a good case to include the belief of other minds as properly basic.
It is from the properly basicality of memory and belief in other minds Plantinga launched his proposition that belief in God is analogous to belief in other minds and belief in the past, and therefore it should be included in the properly basic beliefs. Plantinga: “my tentative conclusion: if my belief in other minds is rational, so is my belief in God. But obviously the former is rational; so, therefore, is the latter."[13]
Clark explains Plantinga’s position: “Plantinga's work at this point was an incipient criticism of evidentialism: just as belief in other minds does not require evidence in order to be rationally maintained, so too belief in God does not require evidence for its rational acceptability. Indeed, not only do we not have arguments for other minds, we do not need arguments for other minds; and the same goes for belief in God.[14]
Plantinga points out that his position is also found in Bavinck: “Bavinck points out that belief in God relevantly resembles belief in the existence of the self and of the external world—and we might add, belief in other minds and the past. In none of these areas do we typically have proof or arguments, or need proofs or arguments.”[15]
Clark continues:
“Our belief in other persons--that they exist, that they are persons and not automata, that they are intrinsically valuable, etc.--is never or rarely proportioned to the evidence. The logic of scientific and mathematical discovery is perverse when applied to personal relations. It would seem, then, that Plantinga is right in comparing belief in God to belief in other minds. This belief is affirmed not only on the basis of evidence or arguments. It is, rather, affirmed immediately in the appropriate circumstances. The theist is perfectly justified in rejecting the evidentialist's assumption that belief in God relevantly resembles belief in other scientific and mathematical hypotheses.[16]
Plantinga points out that his position is in agreement with Calvin and that the belief in God is a God given belief, which one should be able to accept it without evidence.
“Calvin's claim, then, is that God has created us in such a way that we have a strong tendency or inclination toward belief in him. This tendency has been in part overlaid or suppressed by sin. Were it not for the existence of sin in the world, human beings would believe in God to the same degree and with the same natural spontaneity that we believe in the existence of other persons, an external world, or the past. This is the natural condition; it is because of our presently unnatural sinful condition that many of us find belief in God difficult or absurd. The fact is, Calvin thinks, one who does not believe in God is in an epistemically substandard position--rather like a man who does not believe that his wife exists, or thinks she is like a cleverly constructed robot and has no thoughts, feelings, or consciousness.[17]
Plantinga further develops his point in his latest book Warranted Christian Belief, in which he delivered a fine tuned version of properly basic belief of God. We found his definition of warranted belief in general:
“a belief has warrant for [a person] only if
(1) it has been produced in [her] by cognitive faculties that are working properly (functioning as they ought to, subject to no cognitive dysfunction) in a cognitive environment that is appropriate for [her] kinds of cognitive faculties,
(2) the segment of the design plan governing the production on that belief is aimed at the production of true beliefs, and
(3) there is a high statistical probability that a belief produced under those conditions will be true. Under those conditions, furthermore, the degree of warrant is an increasing function of degree of belief.[18]
His concise outline of warranted Christian belief is found in the response to voodoo’s belief forming process objection.
“Suppose the extended A/C (Aquinas/Calvin) model is true (not just possible); then
(a) the central claims of the Christian faith are, in fact, true,
(b) there really are such cognitive processes as the sensus divinitatis and IIHS (the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit), and
(c) their deliverances do meet the conditions for warrant.[19]
He elaborates his proposition:
“Suppose a Reformed epistemologist believes the great things of the gospel on the basis of the sensus divinitatis and IIHS; suppose he notes, further, that his belief and that of many others is accepted in the basic way (where, of course, accepting p on the basis of testimony is one way to believe p in the basic way). Suppose he further comes to see or believe that God intends his children to know about him and to know the great things of the gospel, but also that it isn't possible for enough of us to know enough about him by way of inference from other beliefs; he therefore concludes (correctly) that God has instituted cognitive processes by virtue of which we human beings can form these true beliefs in the basic way. He concludes still further that the cognitive processes or mechanisms by way of which we form these beliefs are functioning properly when it delivers them, and are also functioning in an epistemically congenial environment according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth: that is, he concludes that Christian belief, taken in this basic way, has warrant. He thus concludes that these beliefs are properly basic with respect to warrant, drawing this conclusion from beliefs that themselves have warrant; but forming a belief in that way itself meets the conditions for warrant; hence, his view that theistic belief is properly basic with respect to warrant is itself warranted.”[20]
So far Plantinga has argued that the belief of God is similar to belief of other minds, as summarized in his Warranted Christian beliefs. We now need to examine some of the objections to Plantinga’s position and see how he responded to them.
The first objection is often known as the Great Pumpkin objection, and Plantinga also addressed a variant that he called “Son of the Great Pumpkin (SGP)” objection in his Warranted Christian Belief. We shall first look at “Son of the Great Pumpkin” objection and Plantinga’s response to it, because even atheists like Martin recognizes that the Great Pumpkin Objection does not hold up under scrutiny.[21] Martin raised a related objection which Plantinga called SGP.
“Although reformed epistemologists would not have to accept voodoo beliefs as rational, voodoo followers would be able to claim that insofar as they are basic in the voodoo community they are rational and, moreover, that reformed thought was irrational in this community. Indeed, Plantinga's proposal would generate many different communities that could legitimately claim that their basic beliefs are rational…Among the communities generated might be devil worshipers, flat earthers, and believers in fairies, just so long as belief in the devil, the flatness of the earth, and fairies was basic in the respective communities.”[22]
Martin’s objection is not without legitimacy. If Plantinga could claim that Christian’s belief in God is warranted because they have sensus divinitatis and IIHS as their base of belief, then any community could also claim that they have a sense of a Great Pumpkin and therefore claim their belief is warranted. Plantinga sums up the objection: “Would it follow that for any proposition p, if there were a community who endorsed p, these people would be warranted in believing that p is properly basic with respect to warrant for those in this community?”[23]
Plantinga replies:
“It doesn't follow, of course, that the voodoo epistemologist is also warranted in claiming that voodoo belief is properly basic with respect to warrant. For suppose voodoo belief is in fact false, and suppose further that it arose originally in some kind of mistake or confusion, or out of a fearful reaction to natural phenomena of one sort or another, or in the mind of some group hoping to gain or perpetuate personal political power. If so, then those original voodoo beliefs did not possess warrant. Suppose still further that these voodoo beliefs were passed on to subsequent generations by way of testimony and teaching. Now if a testifier testifies to some belief p that has no warrant for her, then p will also have no warrant for anyone believing it on just the basis of her testimony. If p has no warrant for the testifier, then it has none for the testifiee either--even if the latter's faculties are working perfectly properly. I am taught a lot of garbage by my parents…then, even if my own cognitive faculties are functioning properly in the conditions propitious for warrant, my beliefs acquired by way of this testimony lack warrant.”[24]
Here Plantinga disproves the voodoo belief to be warranted on three bases: 1) Voodoo beliefs is supposed to be false. 2) The belief could be formed out of naturalistic means, such as natural phenomena or for personal gains. 3) The belief is passed down to the next generation by true testimonies, but the belief itself is false.
Plantinga continues: “It could certainly happen, therefore, that the views of the Reformed epistemologist are legitimate in the sense of being warranted, and those of the voodoo epistemologist, who arrives at his views in structurally the same as the Reformed epistemologist, are not. That could be if, for example, the central claims of the Christian faith are true and voodoo belief is false. It is therefore not the case that if the claim that belief in God and in the great things of the gospel is properly basic with respect to warrant is itself warranted, then by the same token the claim that voodoo belief is properly basic with respect to warrant is itself warranted. Martin's argument, construed as we are currently construing it, therefore fails; its first premise is false.”[25] In other words, belief in voodoo is not warranted because voodoo is a false belief, it is a false premise.
Plantinga thinks Christian beliefs are warranted because the A/C model is supposed to be true, and voodoo belief is not warranted because the voodoo belief is supposed to be false. My beliefs are true because it is supposed to be true, and your belief is false because it is supposed to be false. This is the place where I find Plantinga’s explanation inadequate. He deploys circular reasoning in this point of his response, and Plantinga realizes his form of argument appeared to be circular in nature. He quickly addresses it.
"Still, isn't there something circular in my argument?...Isn't it true that my own proposal has warrant for me only if theistic belief is in fact true and, indeed, warranted? I propose the extended A/C model as a model for the way in which Christian and theistic belief can have warrant, but won't it be the case that I am warranted in proposing this model only if, in fact, the model or something like it is correct, and Christian belief does have warrant? Perhaps the idea is something like this: because central Christian beliefs are included in or entailed by the model, I am warranted in thinking the model true only if I am warranted in accepting Christian belief; those central Christian beliefs must already have warrant, for me, if my belief that the model is true is to have warrant. But then am I not involved in some kind of objectionable circle?”[26]
Plantinga denies the charge of circularity:
“I can't see how. It is indeed true that I will have to be warranted in accepting Christian belief if I am to be warranted in accepting the extended A/C model as true; that is because the former is included in the latter. It is not the case, however, that if Christian belief has warrant for me, then the model must also have warrant for me. That would be true if I argued for Christian belief by way of an argument one premise of which was the extended A/C model. More exactly, that would be true if such an argument were the only source of warrant (emphasis mine), for me, of Christian belief. For then any warrant enjoyed by my Christian belief would accrue to it by way of warrant transfer from the premises of that argument; but one premise of that argument would be a conjunction, one conjunct of which was itself part of Christian belief. There would therefore be a vicious circle in the receives-its-warrant-from relation.”[27]
He continues: “So if the source of the warrant of my Christian belief were this argument, then indeed the project would suffer from vicious circularity. But it isn't, and it doesn't. The source of warrant for Christian belief, according to the model, is not argument of any sort; in particular, its warrant does not arise from some argument about how Christian belief can have warrant. To show that there is circularity here, the objector would have to show that any warrant enjoyed by Christian belief must, somehow, have come from argument of some sort; and this, as we have seen can't be done. This objection, then, is no more successful than the others."[28] (Emphasis mine)
Plantinga’s argument could be summarized as:
1. "The belief of God is warranted" is not based on an argument.
2. Anyone who would accuse him of circularity must first show that warranted Christian belief is based on an argument.
3. Since no one can show by a form of logical argument that Christian belief must be based on an argument.
4. Therefore, warranted Christian belief is not based on argument.
5. Therefore, warranted Christian belief cannot suffer from circularity.
I think there is an element of special pleading at this point of response. He proposed that Christian belief is warranted, then instead of giving an argument for the proposition, he argued that his proposition is not based on an argument so he can be exempted from the accusation of vicious circularity. Plantinga could have just said, my belief in God is true because I know it is true; I just know it, and I don't need an argument.
The second objection raised is that Plantinga does not give adequate criterion of proper basic belief. Most atheists would grant that memory and belief in other minds could be counted as properly basic, but are there better criterions than that of classical foundationalism that Plantinga can give in order to prevent any beliefs to become properly basic beliefs? Plantinga responds:
“And hence the proper way to arrive at such a criterion is, broadly speaking, inductive. We must assemble examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously properly basic in the latter, and examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously not properly basic in the latter. We must then frame hypotheses as to the necessary and sufficient conditions of properly basicality and test these hypotheses by reference to those examples.”[29]
Plantinga recognizes that such criterion may not be found at all.
"Further, it may be that we cannot find any revealing criterion; we may have to be content with some necessary conditions and some sufficient conditions… it may be that the best we can do here is to give some sufficient conditions of prima facie justification. When I am being appeared to in a certain way, I am prima facie justified in believing that I perceive a tree. But this justification is defeasible; if I am told by an authority that there are a lot of fake trees around, visually indistinguishable at medium range from real trees, then I am no longer justified in taking it as basic that I see a tree. So the circumstance of being appeared to in a certain way confers prima facie, not ultima facie, justification upon my belief that I see a tree."[30] Here Plantinga admits that belief in God is not properly basic in the ultima facie way, but is only prima facie (First-Face, on its first appearance[31].) Prima facie is used in legal court to mean “evidence that is sufficient to raise a presumption of fact or to establish the fact in question unless rebutted.”[32] Belief in God is proper because it seems right to the believers, and there was no authority to tell them that their belief is false. In other words, belief in God is just like belief in trees, both are assumed correct until proven false. And so far Plantinga has not seen any authoritative falsification of belief in God.
Plantinga recognizes that such criterions are not convincing and not everyone would agree on these criterions of properly basic belief:
"Accordingly, criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below rather than above; they should not be presented ex cathedra but argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples. But there is no reason to assume, in advance, that everyone will agree on the examples. The Christian will of course suppose that belief in God is entirely proper and rational; if he does not accept this belief on the basis of other propositions, he will conclude that it is basic for him and quite properly so. Followers of Bertrand Russell and Madelyn Murray O'Hare may disagree; but how is that relevant? Must my criteria, or those of the Christian community, conform to their examples? Surely not. The Christian community is responsible to its set of examples, not to theirs. And hence criteria for proper basicality arrived at in this particularistic way may not be polemically useful.[33]
It is important to remember that Plantinga is doing negative apologetics in his books and we must not criticize Plantinga for failing to build a positive model of properly basic beliefs. His criterion for properly basic belief may not be polemically useful, but we must give him credit for shifting the burden proof to the atheists. It is not Christian apologetics’ task to prove every tree on the street is real, or to prove God exists, but it is the atheists’ job to prove which of the trees are fake and that God does not exist.
Those who are seeking positive apologetics from Plantinga are destined to feel frustrated with him. His model of warranted belief and properly basic belief is apparently circular and lack of proper criterions when viewed with a positive apologists view. Anyone who tries to build her faith on Plantinga’s books will find Plantinga does not provide any building materials. However, anyone who tries to attack Christian beliefs as irrational will find themselves irrational and their efforts self-defeating. As Mascord commented: “Outside of philosophical circles, scholars from within Plantinga's Reformed tradition, from Abraham Kuyper onwards, had been resisting the imperialistic encroachments of foundationalist evidentialism. Plantinga's insights are therefore not entirely new. What is new, or at least noteworthy, is the clarity and strength of Plantinga's counter-attack. Plantinga brings to his work a sharp analytical mind. No-one, to my knowledge, has done as good a job analyzing and critiquing the evidentialism position as has Plantinga.”[34]
[1]William Clifford, The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays. (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999), 346.
[2] Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason: A Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), 102. quotes Clifford, 347.
[3] Alvin Plantinga, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 3
[4] Ibid., 55.
[5] Clark, 131-132.
[6] Plantinga and Wolterstorff, Faith and Rationality, 59
[7] Plantinga and Wolterstorff, Faith and Rationality, 60-61.
[8] Ibid, 76
[9] Ibid, 62.
[10] Ibid, 60.
[11] Ibid, 79.
[12] Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 188.
[13] Plantinga, God and Other Minds, 271.
[14] Clark, 119.
[15] Plantinga and Wolterstorff, Faith and Rationality, 65.
[16] Clark., 121.
[17] Plantinga and Wolterstorff, Faith and Rationality, 66.
[18] Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function, (Oxford University Press, 1993), 66.
[19] Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 347.
[20] Ibid., 347
[21] Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 272.
[22] Martin, 272, quoted in Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, p.345.
[23] Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 347
[24] Ibid., 348.
[25] Ibid., 349.
[26] Ibid., 352.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Plantinga and Wolterstorff, Faith and Rationality, 76
[30] Ibid., 77
[31] "prima facie - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prima+facie.
[32] "Legal Definition of Prima-Facie, Evidence, Case." The 'Lectric Law Library's Entrance, Welcome & Tour - legal resources and definitions. http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/p078.htm.
[33] Plantinga and Wolterstorff, Faith and Rationality, 77.
[34] Keith Mascord, Alvin Plantinga and Christian Apologetics (Paternoster Theological Monographs). (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 68.
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