Plantinga

Plantinga’s “Religious Belief as ‘Properly Basic’” is a very rich paper. He is attempting to defend a radical position on which it can be reasonable to believe in God even in the absence of argument or evidence. But in providing this defense, Plantinga touches on a broad range of topics. As a result of this breadth, many students have a hard time understanding Plantinga. On an initial reading it can be very hard to see how the different pieces of Plantinga’s paper fit together.

I think there is a coherent structure to Plantinga’s paper. In the notes that follow, I'm going to spell out this structure. Additionally, I'm going to illustrate this structure by attempting to keep my official notes on Plantinga very simple. That is, I'm going to give you the “bare bones” of Plantinga on this page, and then provide links to the various details that put the flesh on these bones.

(So, my advice to you is to study this page to get the “big picture” of what Plantinga is trying to say. Once you’ve got a handle on that picture, you should then follow the links to study the details.)

Structure of the Paper

Plantinga is a theist. He believes that God exists. Additionally, Plantinga addresses our guiding question by claiming that belief in God is completely reasonable. However, Plantinga’s answer to our guiding question is a fairly radical one. Plantinga’s radical position is known as “Reformed Epistemology”.

But in order to defend his view, Plantinga will have to respond to a number of views that would object to him. (Plantinga has to eliminate the competition so that his view can emerge victorious.) Thus, before Plantinga states his positive view he engages on a negative campaign against a variety of other views.

In broad-brush strokes, Plantinga will argue that the main sources of resistance to his view all rest on a single epistemological view. After rejecting this epistemological view, he will then be in a position to state his positive view and defend it against further objections.

Thus, we can give a sort of outline that will help guide us through Plantinga’s paper:

Objections to Theistic Belief

Now that we’ve seen the outline of Plantinga’s paper, let’s walk through it. As already stated, Plantinga is a theist. Plantinga begins his paper with a sort of “laundry list” of objections that are often leveled against theistic belief.

Objections to Theistic Belief:

1) Verifiability Objection
2) “Bodiless Person” Objection
3) Logical (“Deductive”) Problem of Evil
4) Evidential (“Probabilistic”) Problem of Evil
5) Evidentialist Objection
Plantinga passes 1-3 over with little or no comment. He pauses a bit longer on 4, since it foreshadows some things that he will be concerned with later.

Objection 5 is the subject of extended discussion. The Evidentialist Objection is the objection he is most worried about. He realizes that this objection stands in direct opposition to his positive view.

Plantinga goes on at some length about the Evidentialist Objection. But in the end he focuses all of his attention on a key premise of that objection, the premise I referred to as the “Evidentialist Credo”:

“One ought not to believe something upon insufficient evidence.”
As we will see, Plantinga’s positive view is that it can be reasonable to believe in God upon no evidence whatsoever. Thus, Plantinga’s view is obviously in violation of the Evidentialist Credo. So, to defend his positive view Plantinga needs to object to the Credo. (He needs to give us reason for rejecting that Credo.)

Natural Theology

Before giving his objection to the Evidentialist Credo, Plantinga engages in a discussion of the tradition of “Natural Theology”, specifically focusing on the most notable member of that tradition, Thomas Aquinas.

Plantinga’s reason for doing so is that he thinks “natural theology” is also committed to the Evidentialist Credo. Thus, Plantinga’s positive view not only stands in oppostion to the Evidentialist Objection, it is in opposition to Natural Theology.

Classical Foundationalism

You might think that Plantinga’s job is getting tougher and tougher. In order to defend his view, he needs to object to not one but two prominent traditions in the philosophy of religion. But Plantinga attempts to object to both of them at once. (He thinks he can dismiss both in one fell swoop.)

As we’ve seen, both traditions share something in common. Both are committed to the Evidentialist Credo. And Plantinga claims that this Credo rests on a controversial epistemological view. The epistemological view that Plantinga has in mind is a version of Foundationalism, a version that he labels “Classical Foundationalism”.

Plantinga offers a pair of objections to Classical Foundationalism. In rejecting this epistemological view, Plantinga thereby takes himself to have rejected the Evidentialist Credo, which he claims rests on Classical Foundationalism. And since both the Evidentialist Objection and the tradition of Natural Theology rest on the Evidentialist Credo, they too should be rejected.

Reformed Objection to Natural Theology

Thus far, we have seen Plantinga’s negative campaign against a pair of rival views. With these two views out of the way, Plantinga now begins developing his positive view.

But even here Plantinga’s strategy is somewhat indirect. He discusses another religious tradition, what he calls the “Reformed Objection to Natural Theology”. His reason for doing so is that he wants to take a cue from this tradition. (Plantinga claims that these Reformers “had important things to say”, but that their comments have been “for the most part unclear, ill-focused, and unduly inexplicit” [p. 42] Plantinga thus hopes to extract their key insight but clean them up in an acceptable fashion.)

Here again, Plantinga’s discussion of the Reformed Objection is rich and detailed. However, I think we can isolate the key inisight he wishes to take from this discussion fairly easily. What all of the members of this tradition have in common is a commitment to the idea that:

It is rationally acceptable to believe in the existence of God without evidence, proof, or argument.

Plantinga’s Positive View: Reformed Epistemology

Plantinga’s positive view is based directly on the key insight he draws from the Reformed objection. However, Plantinga hopes to clarify this insight by putting it in the language of Foundationalism.

Plantinga rejected Classical Foundationalism, but that was only one possible version of Foundationalism. Plantinga’s own view is a different version of Foundationalism. Plantinga labels his view “Reformed Epistemology”:

Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology” is a version of Foundationalism on which belief in God can count as properly basic.
Thus, this is how Plantinga captures the key insight of the Reformed Objectors. In essence, his view claims that:
It is rationally acceptable to believe in the existence of God without evidence, proof, or argument, i.e., because Belief in God can be “properly basic”.

Further Objections

After articulating his positive view, Plantinga spends the final sections of his paper defending it against further objections that he anticipates. In class we focused on two of these objections:
  • The Great Pumpkin Objection
  • The Role for Arguments

    • Further Further Objections

    As we saw, Plantinga has answers to the objections he considers. However, in class I expressed some reasons to find these answers unconvincing. Additionally, there are a number of objections that we might raise that Plantinga has not anticipated. For the record, there has been a fairly sizable literature surrounding Plantinga’s view. (Many philosophers have taken shots at Plantinga’s view.) In class, we looked at an article by Kretzmann that was very critical of Plantinga's view.