Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God

324 Pages·2004·2.98 MB·English

by  Alvin Plantinga

Faith and Rationality:
Reason and Belief in God
ALVIN PLANTINGA AND
NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF, EDITORS
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME
Copyright © 1983 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Reprinted in 1986, 1990, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Faith and rationality.
1. Faith and reason—Addresses, essays, lectures.
-2.-Religk>n-—Philosophy—Addresses, essays, lectures.
•I; Plantinga, Alvih. II. Wolterstorff, Nicholas.
' ISBN 0-268-00964-3 (cl.)
ISBN 0-268-00965-1 (pa.)
BT50.F34 1983 200'. 1 83-14843
ooThis book is printed an acid-free paper.
Contents
Introduction • Nicholas Wolterstorff 1
Reason and Belief in God • Alvin Plantinga 16
The Stranger • George I. Mavrodes 94
Christian Experience and Christian Belief • William P. Alston 103
Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has
No Foundations? • Nicholas Wolterstorff 135
Turning • George I. Mavrodes 187
Jerusalem and Athens Revisited • George I. Mavrodes 192
The Collapse of American Evangelical Academia •
George Marsden 219
Faith, Reason, and the Resurrection • D. Holwerda 265
Index 317
Introduction
Nicholas Wolterstorff
This book is a series of essays on the topic of faith and reason. But there
are many such essays, and many such books. What, if anything, makes
this one significantly different? From near the beginning of Christianity
there have been reflections on this topic. It could hardly have been other-
wise, given that the culture with which Christianity first interacted, once
it had emerged from Judaism, was the heavily philosophical culture of
Hellenism. What, after all these years of discussion, merits anybody's at-
tention in these additional essays on this ancient topic?
I judge that what is significant and unique about these essays is the
weaving in and out of four fundamental themes. They are essays around
these four themes.
(1) Perhaps the most basic theme is that of the collapse of classi-
cal foundationalism. Those words, for most readers, will require a bit of
explanation.
The last decade or so has seen radically new developments in the field
of philosophical epistemology. Among the most significant of these develop-
ments is the rise of metaepistemology. Rather than just plunging ahead and
developing epistemological theories, philosophers have stood back and re-
flected seriously on the structural options available to them in their construc-
tion of such theories. This has had a most illuminating effect. We have come
to see the structure of various epistemological debates more clearly than
ever before. We have come to see more clearly than before the assumptions
behind various positions staked out in these debates. We have been able
to formulate with more clarity traditional positions on various issues.
After immersing themselves in metaepistemology, thereby acquiring
a clearer picture of the structure of epistemological options, philosophers
have naturally looked about to find out which of these various options
have actually been developed in the West. What caught their attention
is the extraordinarily long dominance of one structural option - that op-
tion which has come to be known as classical foundationalism. Before
1
2 NICHOLAS WOI.TERSTORFF
I explain what that option is, let me first say that classical foundational-
ism, along with the other positions which are structural options to it, may
be (and has been) formulated as a theory of three different things. It may
be formulated as a theory of rationality, it may be formulated as a theory
of knowledge, and it may be formulated as a theory of authentic science
(scientia, Wissenschaft). For the purposes of these introductory comments
let me, without more ado, explain it as a theory of rationality —that is,
as a theory of what is rational for a given person to accept, to believe.
Any foundationalist whatsoever, whether a classical foundationalist
or one of some other stripe, will begin by making a distinction between
those of our beliefs which we hold on the basis of others of our beliefs
and those which we do not hold on the basis of other beliefs of ours —
those which we hold immediately, as the tradition said. From here the
foundationalist will go on to insist that not only can this distinction be
drawn abstractly but that in fact it can be made out within any person's
set of beliefs. Most people, on first hearing of this claim, seem not to
boggle at the suggestion that some of our beliefs are held on the basis
of other beliefs of ours. But many do boggle at the suggestion that some
of our beliefs are held immediately. So that is where the foundationalist
concentrates his endeavors at persuasion. This is the way things must be,
he argues. Maybe 1 believe p on the basis of my belief that q, and q on
the basis of my belief that r, and so on. But somewhere this chain has
to have a beginning. Somewhere, somehow, I have to have some beliefs
induced in me on which I can then begin to base others, but which are
themselves not based on others. The foundationalist proceeds then to give
examples of such immediately held beliefs. Almost all of us who accept
the proposition that 1 + 1 = 2 do not do so on the basis of yet other be-
liefs of ours; we just "see" that it is true. And when a person is of the
conviction that he feels dizzy, he does not base his conviction on yet other
beliefs of his. He just immediately knows that he feels dizzy.
Having drawn this quasi-psychological distinction between those of
our beliefs which are mediated by other beliefs and those which are pro-
duced immediately, the foundationalist goes on to argue that beliefs of
both kinds can be rational. Often, indeed, he will argue that if some of
a person's mediate beliefs are rational, then there must also be some of
his immediate beliefs which are rational. Here we need not trace out this
necessity-argument of his. Suffice it to say that on his view, beliefs of
both sorts can be held rationally.
AH foundationalists agree on yet one or two more things. They hold
that for at least some of the beliefs which we hold on the basis of other
beliefs, what makes it rational to hold the former is that those latter sup-
port them. The latter provide adequate evidence for the former —strictly,
INTRODUCTION 3
the propositions believed in the latter provide adequate evidence for the
propositions believed in the former. Now suppose one starts from a belief
Bp which it is rational for the person to hold because he holds it on the
basis of another belief Bq such that q adequately supports p. And sup-
pose he holds Bq on the basis of yet another belief Br such that r ade-
quately supports q. And so on. All foundationalists insist that if one fol-
lows out such chains of "believing on the basis of what provides adequate
evidential support for," beginning from a rationally held mediate belief,
one will always end exclusively with immediately held beliefs which it is
rational for the person to hold. Those stopping points may then be thought
of as the foundation of the person's structure of rational beliefs. On so
much, foundationalists of all species would agree.
It is easy to surmise where they differ. They differ on how one propo-
sition must be related to another for the one to provide adequate eviden-
tial support to the other. Thus one finds different theories of evidence
among foundationalists. And, perhaps more importantly, they differ on
which beliefs may properly be held immediately. Thus they differ on what
is to be found in the foundation of a structure of rationally held beliefs.
They all agree that every person's structure of "rationally held beliefs will
have this foundation/superstructure character. But they disagree on just
what is to be found in the foundation —and on how the-superstructure
is supported by the foundation.
I can now pick out that particular species of foundationalism which
has been called classical foundationalism. The classical foundationalist
is the foundationalist who holds that just two sorts of propositions can
be candidates for propositions which it is rational to hold immediately.
The foundation of a rational belief-structure will, on his view, contain
just two sorts of propositions. 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 conscious-
ness which one cannot mistakenly believe to be true (or mistakenly believe
to be false). That I am dizzy would be an example. These have been called
incorrigible propositions in the philosophical tradition. Propositions which
are self-evident for the person in question and propositions which are in-
corrigible for him —such propositions may properly be accepted immedi-
ately. 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. (Plantinga in his essay gives a slightly different
explanation of "classical foundationalism." The difference, for my pur-
poses here, makes no difference. What I here cail "classical foundational-
ism" he there calls "modern foundationalism.")
4 NICHOLAS WOI.TERSTORFF
I was observing that philosophers in the past decade have become
much more aware than ever before of the structural options available to
the epistemologist. One of those structural options is classical foundation-
alism, and most, if not all, philosophers would agree that this option,
along with close relatives of it, has constituted the dominant epistemologi-
cal tradition in the West. What must now be added is that most philoso-
phers who have seen clearly the structure of this particular option have
rejected it. On close scrutiny they have found classical foundationalism
untenable. And it makes no difference now whether it is construed as a
theory of rational acceptance, or of knowledge, or of scientia. It has seemed
unacceptable as any of these. (Some of the reasons for this judgment are
traversed in Plantinga's essay. It should be added that several writers in
this volume have contributed to producing this general consensus that clas-
sical foundationalism is untenable.) Thus in a most fundamental way tra-
ditional epistemology has come "unstuck" in recent years — with the result
that the field of epistemology is now filled with fascinating turmoil and
chaos, and with new probes in many directions.
The following essays —especially those by the philosophers Alston,
Mavrodes, Plantinga, and Wolterstorff — are written in the context of these
new developments in epistemology. Up to this time there has been almost
no exploration of the significance of these new developments for our un-
derstanding and assessment of religious —and more specifically, Christian
— belief. Such exploration is at the very heart of these essays. Looking
back from the position of these new developments in epistemology, one
can see that almost all discussions on faith and reason for many centuries
have taken for granted either the truth of classical foundationalism or
some close relative of it, or they have departed from that position without
any clear awareness of what they were departing from. These essays, by
contrast, are written from the position of a clear realization of what con-
stitutes classical foundationalism and a vivid awareness of its collapse.
Actually, at several points they go beyond an exploration of the bearing
of these recent developments in epistemology on our understanding of
religious belief. They make a contribution to general epistemology. They
make a contribution to the general, postfoundationalist dialogue on epis-
temology that is now taking place.
One thing more must be said here. Some philosophers have con-
cluded from the collapse of the classical foundationalist theory of knowl-
edge that the concept of knowledge itself must be discarded. (Cf. Richard
Rorty.) And some have concluded from the collapse of the classical foun-
dationalist theory of rationality that the distinction between rational and
nonrational beliefs must be discarded. They have afiirmed that "anything
goes." (Cf. Paul K. Feyeraband.) Most emphatically these essays do not
INTRODUCTION 5
draw those conclusions. They are neither agnostic nor antinomian. So im-
portant, indeed, is this theme of opposition to agnosticism and antino-
mianism in these essays that I might well have singled it out for separate
attention as one of the major themes around which these essays are
organized.
(2) A second theme which weaves in and out of these essays is that
of the evidentialist challenge to religious belief, a challenge first issued
decisively in the European Enlightenment. Though these essays stand in
that long line of reflections on faith and reason which begin with the church
fathers, the context in which our discussion occurs is very different from
the context in which their discussion occurred, with the result that, for
all its affinities with those earlier discussions, ours is significantly differ-
ent. One facet of our context is the one already discussed: we live in the
situation where the main epistemological tradition of the West has col-
lapsed among those knowledgeable concerning recent thinking in episte-
mology. Another facet of our context is that the fundamental contentions
of the Enlightenment still prove persuasive to many.
The Enlightenment was not only an intellectual phenomenon but
also a broadly cultural phenomenon. Eighteenth-century European man
lived in the midst of the collapse of tradition and authority. Traditional
ways of relating to the earth and of organizing society were rapidly being
rejected in favor of ways that were "better" —ways that more effectively
secured desired ends. And the authoritative hold of the Christian church
on the European populace had been destroyed by the Reformation and
the wars of religion. For many in Europe these developments yielded an
exhilarating sense of liberation. The shackles of tradition and authority
had been thrown off, and man was now free. That theme is sounded power-
fully, for example, in Kant's famous essay "What Is Enlightenment?" But
obviously liberation from tradition and authority poses this crucial deci-
sion: If we are not to guide our decisions by those, by what then? Will
not any alternative merely place us under different shackles? And if guid-
ance by a shared tradition and authority is no longer available, what then
can unify society and secure a commonwealth?
The answer that the Enlightenment gave to these anxious questions
was Reason. We are to be guided by Reason. Reason is something that
each of us possesses intrinsically. It is not something extrinsic to us. Thus,
to follow the voice of Reason is not to submit to some new external au-
thority. It is to follow one's own voice. It is to submit to what is of the
very essence of oneself. And that, of course, is not really to submit to
anything. It is to be free. Furthermore, Reason belongs to all of us in
common. It belongs to the very essence of what it is to be human. To fol-
low the voice of Reason is to follow a voice that all of us hear. Reason of-
6 NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF
fers the genuine possibility of being the foundation for a commonwealth.
"Sapere aude!" says Kant. "Have the courage to use your own intelligence!
is ... the motto of the enlightenment."
Now the form assumed by the vision of the Enlightenment when
it came to matters of religion was what may be called the evidentialist
challenge to religious belief. The challenge can be seen as consisting of
two contentions. It was insisted, in the first place, that it would be wrong
for a person to accept Christianity, or any other form of theism, unless
it was rational for him to do so. And it was insisted, secondly, that it
is not rational for a person to do so unless he holds his religious convic-
tions on the basis of other beliefs of his which give to those convictions
adequate evidential support. No religion is acceptable unless rational, and
no religion is rational unless supported by evidence. That is the eviden-
tialist challenge.
I suggest, in my essay, that this challenge was clearly issued by John
Locke —and that perhaps he was the first to issue it clearly and forcefully.
The basis for the challenge, in Locke, was his adherence to classical foun-
dationalism with respect to rationality. Though Descartes was certainly
a classical foundationalist, it is doubtful that he was that for anything
other than scientia. He seems not to have held that for anyone to have
any knowledge at all, that person must satisfy the demands of classical
foundationalism. And certainly he did not hold that for anyone to believe
anything rationally, he must satisfy those demands. In effect, what Locke
did was take the classical foundationalist demands that Descartes had laid
down for scientific belief and lay them down for rational belief in general.
If anyone was to believe anything rationally, he had to satisfy the demands
of classical foundationalism. Locke noticed that the central claims of Chris-
tianity, and of theism generally, are neither self-evident to us nor incor-
rigible reports of our states of consciousness. And so he insisted that to
be rational in holding them we needed evidence for them. If we are to
be rational in holding them, they must occur in the superstructure of our
system of belief. And concerning the contention that one ought never to
believe what it is not rational to believe, Locke, as a good precursor of
the Enlightenment, seems to have had no doubt whatsoever.
I think I do not exaggerate when I say that almost everybody in
the West has regarded the evidentialist challenge as tenable. We in the
West still live very much in the shadow of the Enlightenment. Some have
thought that the challenge could not be met; no adequate evidence is avail-
able for Christianity, nor for theism, they have insisted. For such people
the evidentialist challenge constitutes the ground of an objection to
Christianity. Others, including Locke, have thought that the challenge could
be met, or was already being met. They then have gone about assembling
INTRODUCTION 7
what they regarded as the adequate evidence, or showing that the adequate
evidence is already in hand.
It is in this context that the firral two essays in this volume should
be read. They are background essays. Marsden's project is to discover how
American evangelical academics in the nineteenth century understood the
relation between faith and reason. What he discovers is that they perva-
sively saw themselves as meeting the evidentialist challenge both with re-
spect to theism and with respect to Christianity. He also shows, however,
that the rise of evolutionary theory profoundly disturbed that confidence,
with the result that evangelicals in academia became a bewildered and in-
timidated lot for almost a century. David Holwerda in his essay discusses
an important contemporary theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg, who has
enthusiastically embraced the evidentialist challenge and the Enlighten-
ment spirit behind it, and has gone on to try to provide the evidence for
Christianity that the challenge requires from those who are Christians.
Lest a mistaken impression be conveyed here, it must be said that
though most Christians have accepted the validity of the evidentialist
challenge, there have been some who, instead of trying to meet it or show
that it has been met, have rejected it. Karl Barth is certainly one of the
premier twentieth-century examples of this. With a swipe of the hand Barth
made clear that he would have nothing to do with this challenge. To accept
it, he said, would be to prefer Reason to Christ and thus to fall prey to
an idol. What Barth does not do, however, is show just where the chal-
lenge is mistaken. That one or the other of the two theses making up
the challenge is in his judgment false —on that Barth is clear. And that
accepting it amounts in his judgment to replacing Christ with the idol
of Reason —on that too he is clear. But wherein the challenger sees the
structure of rationality mistakenly—on that Barth is far indeed from clear.
It is characteristic of the following essays that they too reject the
evidentialist challenge. Where they go well beyond Barth and others, how-
ever, is that they show just where the challenger sees things wrongly—just
where his perspective on rationality is askew. If I may be pardoned a bit
of overly dramatic rhetoric: in these essays the evidentialist challenge of
the Enlightenment is challenged and overcome.
(3) It is met and overcome in such a way that the resultant positions
bear a close affinity to positions long held on the relation of faith to rea-
son by the Continental Reformed (Calvinist) tradition. Thus a third theme
which weaves in and out of these essays is what might be called, admittedly
not very felicitously, "Calvinist epistemology," or "Reformed epistemology."
Characteristic of the Continental Calvinist tradition has been a revul-
sion against arguments in favor of theism or Christianity. Of course, at
its beginnings this tradition was not appraising the giving of such argu-