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by  Alvin Plantinga

Warranted Christian Belief
by
Alvin Plantinga
About Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga
Title: Warranted Christian Belief
URL: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/plantinga/warrant3.html
Author(s): Plantinga, Alvin (1932-)
Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Print Basis: Oxford University Press, 2000
Rights: Copyright 2000 by Alvin Plantinga. Used by permission of Oxford
University Press.
Date Created: 2008–01–26
CCEL Subjects: All; Apologetics
LC Call no: BT1102.P57 1999
LC Subjects: Doctrinal theology
Apologetics. Evidences of Christianity
Warranted Christian Belief Alvin Plantinga
Table of Contents
About This Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. ii
Title Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 1
Dedication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 2
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 3
Part I. Is There a Question?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 11
1. Kant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 11
I. The Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 12
II. Kant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 16
A. Two Worlds or One?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 18
B. Arguments or Reasons?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 26
2. Kaufman and Hick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 33
I. Kaufman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 34
A. The Real Referent and the Available Referent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 34
B. The Function of Religious Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 40
II. Hick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 43
A. The Real. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 43
B. Coherent?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 48
C. Religiously Relevant?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 54
D. Is There Such a Thing?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 56
Part II. What is the Question?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 61
3. Justification and the Classical Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 61
I. John Locke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 65
A. Living by Reason. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 68
B. Revelation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 72
II. Classical Evidentialism, Deontologism, and Foundationalism. . . . . p. 73
A. Classical Foundationalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 74
B. Classical Deontologism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 77
III. Back to the Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 79
IV. Problems with the Classical Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 83
A. Self-Referential Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 84
B. Most of Our Beliefs Unjustified?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 86
V. Christian Belief Justified. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 88
VI. Analogical Variations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 90
A. Variations on Classical Foundationalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 90
B. Variations on the Deontology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 91
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C. Is This the de Jure Question?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 93
4. Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 95
I. Some assorted versions of rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 96
A. Aristotelian Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 97
B. Rationality as Proper Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 97
C. The Deliverances of Reason. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 100
D. Means-Ends Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 102
II. Alstonian Practical Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 103
A. The Initial Question. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 103
B. Doxastic Practices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 104
C. Epsitemic Circularity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 105
D. The Argument for Practical Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 105
E. Practical Rationality Initially Characterized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 106
F. The Original Position. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 107
G. The Wide Original Position. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 108
H. A Narrow Original Position?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 110
5. Warrant and the Freud-and-Marx Complaint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 115
I. The F&M Complaint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 117
A. Freud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 117
B. Marx. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 120
C. Others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 122
D. How Shall We Understand the F&M Complaint?. . . . . . . . . . . . p. 123
II. Warrant: The Sober Truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 130
III. The F&M Complaint Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 136
Part III. Warranted Christian Belief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 139
6. Warranted Belief in God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 139
I. The Aquinas/Calvin Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 141
A. Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 141
B. Presentation of the Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 142
II. Is Belief in God Warrant-Basic?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 155
A. If False, Probably Not. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 155
B. If True, Probably So. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 157
III. The de Jure Question is not Independent of the de Facto
Question. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 159
IV. The F&M Complaint Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 160
7. Sin and Its Cognitive Consequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 165
I. Preliminaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 166
II. Initial Statement of the Extended Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 169
III. The Nature of Sin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 172
IV. The Noetic Effects of Sin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 177
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A. The Basic Consequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 177
B. Sin and Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 180
8. The Extended Aquinas/Calvin Model: Revealed to Our Minds. . . . . . p. 198
I. Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 203
II. How Does Faith Work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 205
III. Faith and Positive Epistemic Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 208
A. Justification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 208
B. Internal Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 210
C. External Rationality and Warrant: Faith is Knowledge. . . . . . . . . p. 211
IV. Proper Basicality and the Role of Scripture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 213
V. Comparison with Locke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 219
VI. Why Necessary?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 220
VII. Cognitive Renewal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 230
9. The Testimonial Model: Sealed upon Our Hearts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 237
I. Belief and Affection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 238
II. Jonathan Edwards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 241
A. Intellect and Will: Which Is Prior?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 242
B. The Affirmations of Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 249
III. Analogue of Warrant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 253
IV. Eros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 254
10. Objections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 264
I. Warrant and the Argument from Religious Experience. . . . . . . . . . p. 266
II. What Can Experience Show?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 271
III. A Killer Argument?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 274
IV. Son of Great Pumpkin?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 280
V. Circularity?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 287
Part IV. Defeaters?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 290
11. Defeaters and Defeat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 290
I. The Nature of Defeaters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 292
II. Defeaters for Christian or Theistic Belief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 298
III. Projective Theories a Defeater for Christian Belief?. . . . . . . . . . . p. 299
12. Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 303
I. Scripture Divinely Inspired. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 305
II. Traditional Christian Biblical Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 309
III. Historical Biblical Criticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 313
A. Varieties of Historical Biblical Criticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 317
B. Tensions with Traditional Christianity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 324
IV. Why Aren’t Most Christians More Concerned?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 325
A. Force Majeure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 327
B. A Moral Imperative?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 330
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C. Historical Biblical Criticism More Inclusive?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 333
V. Nothing to be Concerned About. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 334
A. Troeltschian Historical Biblical Criticism Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 335
B. Non-Troeltschian Historical Biblical Criticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 336
C. Conditionalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 340
VI. Concluding Coda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 341
13. Postmodernism and Pluralism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 342
I. Postmodernism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 343
A. Is Postmodernism Inconsistent with Christian Belief?. . . . . . . . . p. 344
B. Do These Claims Defeat Christian Belief?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 346
C. Postmodernism a Failure of Nerve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 354
II. Pluralism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 355
A. A Probabilistic Defeater?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 358
B. The Charge of Moral Arbitrariness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 360
14. Suffering and Evil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 371
I. Evidential Atheological Arguments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 377
A. Rowe’s Arguments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 377
B. Draper’s Argument. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 381
II. Nonargumentative Defeaters?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 391
[Original] Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 405
Indexes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 425
Index of Scripture References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 425
Greek Words and Phrases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 426
Index of Pages of the Print Edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 426
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Warranted Christian Belief Alvin Plantinga
iii WARRANTED CHRISTIAN BELIEF
Alvin Plantinga
New York     Oxford
Oxford University Press
2000
Copyright © 2000 by Alvin Plantinga
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Plantinga, Alvin.
Warranted Christian belief / Alvin Plantinga.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0–19–513193–2 (pbk.)—ISBN 0–19–513192–4
1. Apologetics.  2. Christianity—Philosophy.  3. Faith and reason—Christianity.
I. Title.
BT1102.P57 1999
230’.01-dc21   98.054362
Warranted Christian Belief Alvin Plantinga

To
v WILLIAM P. ALSTON
Mentor, Model, Friend
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Warranted Christian Belief Alvin Plantinga

Preface
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This book is about the intellectual or rational acceptability of Christian belief. When I speak here
of Christian belief, I mean what is common to the great creeds of the main branches of the Christian
church, what unites Calvin and Aquinas, Luther and Augustine, Menno Simons and Karl Barth,
Mother Teresa and St. Maximus the Confessor, Billy Graham and St. Gregory Palamas—classical
Christian belief, as we might call it.
Classical Christian belief includes, in the first place, the belief that there is such a person as
God. God is a person: that is, a being with intellect and will. A person has (or can have) knowledge
and belief, but also affections, loves, and hates; a person, furthermore, also has or can have intentions,
and can act so as to fulfill them. God has all of these qualities and has some (knowledge, power,
and love, for example) to the maximal degree. God is thus all-knowing and all-powerful; he is also
perfectly good and wholly loving. Still further, he has created the universe and constantly upholds
and providentially guides it. This is the theistic component of Christian belief. But there is also the
uniquely Christian component: that we human beings are somehow mired in rebellion and sin, that
we consequently require deliverance and salvation, and that God has arranged for that deliverance
through the sacrificial suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was both a man and
also the second member of the Trinity, the uniquely divine son of God. I shall use the term ‘Christian
belief’ to designate these two components taken together. Of course, I realize that others may use
that term more narrowly or more broadly. There is no need to argue about words here: the beliefs
I mentioned are the ones I shall discuss, however exactly we propose to use the term ‘Christian’.
I also recognize that there are partial approximations to Christian belief so understood, as well as
borderline cases, beliefs such that it simply isn’t clear whether they qualify as Christian belief. All
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of this is true, but as far as I can see, none of it compromises my project.
Accordingly, our question is this: is belief of this sort intellectually acceptable? In particular,
is it intellectually acceptable for us, now? For educated and intelligent people living in the twenty-first
century, with all that has happened over the last four or five hundred years? Some will concede
that Christian belief was acceptable and even appropriate for our ancestors,1 people who knew little
of other religions, who knew nothing of evolution and our animal ancestry, nothing of contemporary
subatomic physics and the strange, eerie, disquieting world it postulates, nothing of those great
masters of suspicion, Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, nothing of the acids of modern historical biblical
And perhaps (as they may add) even for contemporaries who lead sheltered lives in cultural backwaters—for instance, the
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area between the east and west coasts of the United States.
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criticism. But for us enlightened contemporary intellectuals (so the claim continues) things are
wholly different; for people who know about those things (people of our rather impressive intellectual
attainments), there is something naive and foolish, or perhaps bullheaded and irresponsible, or even
vaguely pathological in holding onto such belief.
But can’t we be a little more precise about the objection? What, exactly, is the problem? The
answer, I think, is that there are alleged to be two main problems. Western thought since the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment has displayed at least two distinct styles of objection. First, there
have been de facto objections: objections to the truth of Christian belief. Perhaps the most important
de facto objection would be the argument from suffering and evil. This objection goes all the way
back to Democritus in the ancient world but is also the most prominent contemporary de facto
objection (see chapter 14). It has often been stated philosophically, but has also received powerful
literary expression (for example, in Dostoevski’s The Brothers Karamazov). The objection goes
as follows: according to Christian belief, we human beings have been created by an all-powerful,
all-knowing God who loves us enough to send his son, the second person of the divine Trinity, to
suffer and die on our account; but given the devastating amount and variety of human suffering
and evil in our sad world, this simply can’t be true.
The argument from evil may be the most important de facto objection, but it isn’t the only one.
There are also the claims that crucial Christian doctrines—Trinity, Incarnation, or Atonement, for
example—are incoherent or necessarily false. Many have argued that the Christian doctrine of three
divine persons with one nature cannot be coherently stated; many have claimed that it is not logically
possible that a human being, Jesus of Nazareth, should also be the second person of the divine
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Trinity, and many have thought it impossible that one person’s suffering—even if that person is
divine—should atone for someone else’s sins. Indeed, there are claims that the advance of science
has somehow shown that there really isn’t any supernatural realm at all—no God who has created
us and governs our world, let alone a Trinity of divine persons, one of whom became a human
being, died, and rose from the dead, thereby redeeming human beings from sin and suffering.
De facto objections, therefore, are many, and they enjoy a long and distinguished history in
Western thought. Even more prevalent, however, have been de jure objections. These are arguments
or claims to the effect that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or
rationally unjustified, or irrational, or not intellectually respectable, or contrary to sound morality,
or without sufficient evidence, or in some other way rationally unacceptable, not up to snuff from
an intellectual point of view. There is, for example, the Freudian claim that belief in God is really
a result of wish fulfillment; there is the evidentialist claim that there isn’t sufficient evidence for
Christian belief; and there is the pluralist claim that there is something arbitrary and even arrogant
in holding that Christian belief is true and anything incompatible with it false. De facto and de jure
objections are separate species, but they sometimes coincide. Thus there is a de jure objection from
suffering and evil as well as a de facto: it is often claimed that the existence of suffering and evil
in the world makes it irrational to hold that Christian belief is, in fact, true.
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