The Great Pumpkin Objection
The Initial Objection
Plantinga’s positive view is that belief in God can be properly basic. Remember, this means that belief in God can be reasonable even in the absence of arguments, proof, or evidence. But this view seems to open Plantinga up to a serious worry. One way of stating this worry is that Plantinga seems to have given us a recipe for claiming that any belief is reasonable.For example, let’s say I believe that the Great Pumpkin exists. You might naturally regard this belief of mine as questionable. Accordingly, you might question it. You could demand that I produce some evidence or reasons for this belief.
And let’s say that I was unable to marshal any evidence or reasons in support of my belief. You would naturally think that my belief is unreasonable. (Perhaps you’d think that I was erroneously taking the Charlie Brown strips as pieces of nonfiction.)
But if Plantinga is correct, couldn’t I respond to your questioning by saying, “You’ve misunderstood me. My belief in the Great Pumpkin is properly basic. I don’t have any evidence for it, but this is only because I don’t need to have evidence for it. I don’t need to have evidence for my basic beliefs.”
And of course the point of this example has nothing to do with the Great Pumpkin. Couldn’t I respond in the above fashion to someone who questions any of my beliefs? If so, does this show that Plantinga is committed to the claim that “anything goes”? That is, given Plantinga’s positive view, will he be able to say that any belief is unreasonable? Or will he have to admit that every belief is a reasonable one?
Plantinga’s Initial Response
Obviously, Plantinga doesn’t want to allow any possible belief to count as reasonable. In his response to the objection, he attempts to show why this is not a consequence of his view, by showing why not just any belief can count as properly basic.As a preliminary point, remember that Plantinga’s positive view only holds that belief in God can be properly basic. He thinks that under certain conditions religious belief is properly basic. So, as a very initial response to the “anything goes” worry, Plantinga reminds us that there aren’t any beliefs that always “go”. For any belief that may be properly basic, it can only be properly basic under certain conditions.
But Plantinga realizes that this will not answer the Great Pumpkin objection. (At best, this just shows us that we shouldn’t overstate the objection.) So Plantinga moves on to a more substantial response to the Great Pumpkin objection.
Plantinga seems to think that the Great Pumpkin objection arises in virtue of the fact that he has rejected Classical Foundationalism in favor of his own version of Foundationalism on which belief in God can be properly basic. Remember, Plantinga offered two objections to Classical Foundationalism. In so doing, Plantinga has rejected the Classical Foundationalists’ criterion for "proper basicality".
Now, it doesn’t appear that Plantinga has a fully articulated replacement criterion. And Plantinga seems to think that this is what prompts the Great Pumpkin objection. Given that Plantinga hasn’t fully articulated any criterion for proper basicality, it looks like he is committed to the claim that anything can (under certain circumstances) count as properly basic.
But if this is what lies behind the Great Pumpkin objection, Plantinga has a ready response. While Plantinga does discuss at some length the proper methodology for developing a criterion for proper basicality, he admits that he does not yet have such a criterion fully articulated. But that alone doesn’t commit him to the claim that anything can count as properly basic. To illustrate this, he gives a parallel example involving the Verificationist’s theory of meaning.
We looked at one Verificationist (Ayer) earlier in the course. If you recall, the Verificationists offered a theory about what makes any statement a meaningful one. One way of putting this is that the Verificationists offered a "criterion of meaningfulness". But Plantinga points out that the Verification criterion has been thoroughly rejected (for reasons that Swinburne discussed).Now, after the failure of Verificationism, we might try to construct a full-fledged replacement criterion of meaningfulness. But even if we are unable to do so, our rejection of Verificationism doesn’t commit us to the claim that any statement is meaningful. Even in the absence of such a criterion we can still say, of a wide range of examples, which statements are meaningful and which are gibberish.
Plantinga’s point is that something similar is the case when discussing "properly basic beliefs". Even in the absence of a criterion of proper basicality, Plantinga isn’t committed to the claim that any belief can count as properly basic. He still feels that we can say, of a wide range of examples, which beliefs can be properly basic and which cannot.
Objection Restated
Plantinga’s point (illustrated by the Verificationism example) seems exactly right. For the reasons he’s given, Plantinga is not committed to saying that anything can count as properly basic. But even so, you might think he hasn’t really answered the Great Pumpkin objection.The objection was that, given what Plantinga has said, it seems like I could defend my belief in the Great Pumpkin simply by claiming that it is "properly basic". Rather than taking this as a point about Plantinga not providing a fully-articulated criterion for “proper basicality”, we might take this as a point about Plantinga not providing us with any reason to think that belief in God can really be properly basic.
Remember, up until this point, Plantinga has rejected Classical Foundationalism. And Plantinga takes this to show that both the Evidentialist Objection as well as the tradition of Natural Theology should be rejected. But why should this alone give us reason to think that his view is a plausible one? Why should we think that belief in God can really be properly basic?
The only answer that Plantinga seems to have given so far came in the form of citing an historical precedent. He drew on comments from various theologians who offered the Reformed Objection to Natural Theology. But all we saw when discussing those theologians was a series of controversial claims. They didn’t seem to have any real arguments or reasons in support of their view. (That’s not exactly true. We saw one argument, Barth’s Dilemma. But Plantinga himself pointed out the flaws of this reasoning.)
So, again, why should we think that belief in God can really be properly basic? This is the question that we might take the Great Pumpkin objection to be pressing. Plantinga needs to offer us some reason for thinking that a basic belief in God is relevantly different than a basic belief in the Great Pumpkin. (Is the only difference that the former, but not the latter, has impressive historical backing?) Even if it falls short of a "criterion for proper basicality", Plantinga still needs to give us some reason to think that belief in God can be properly basic, while belief in the Great Pumpkin cannot.
“Grounds”
Plantinga does attempt to spell out a difference between belief in God and belief in the Great Pumpkin. The relevant difference seems to just amount to the fact that:Remember, Plantinga’s official view is that certain beliefs can be properly basic under certain conditions. What is special about those conditions, on Plantinga's view, is that they provide grounds for the belief. For example, perceptual beliefs can be properly basic under certain conditions. The relevant conditions are those where the believer is having a certain perceptual experience. Those experiences serve as the grounds for the belief.Belief in God can have grounds, while Belief in the Great Pumpkin is groundless. In the case of belief in God, Plantinga thinks that the conditions required to make those beliefs properly basic are, roughly, those that Calvin described. In essence, Plantinga thinks that a basic belief in God is grounded on religious experiences.
It’s important to note here that Plantinga’s appeal to religious experience is not supposed to provide evidence for religious beliefs. What makes Plantinga’s view distinctive is his claim that belief in God doesn’t have to be supported by evidence. This is why Plantinga is careful to say that religious experiences provide "grounds" (and not evidence) for belief in God.
Further Worries
There are a number of additional worries we might raise against Plantinga’s response to the Great Pumpkin Objection. In class, we looked at Kretzman's objections to Plantinga, some of which relate to Plantinga’s appeal to religious experience.