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Debating Christian Religious Epistemology: An Introduction to Five Views on the Knowledge of God
What does it mean to believe in God? What passes as evidence for belief in God? What issues arise when considering the rationality of belief in God?
Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another.
Each chapter introduces an epistemic viewpoint, providing an overview of its main arguments and explaining why it justifies belief. The validity of that viewpoint is then explored and tested in a critical response from an expert in an opposing tradition. Featuring a wide range of different philosophical positions, traditions and methods, this
- Covers classical evidentialism, phenomenal conservatism, proper functionalism, covenantal epistemology and traditions-based perspectivalism
- Draws on MacIntyre's account of rationality and ideas from the Analytic and Conservatism traditions
- Addresses issues in social epistemology
- Considers the role of religious experience and religious texts
Packed with lively debates, this is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in understanding the major positions in contemporary religious epistemology and how religious concepts and practices relate to belief and knowledge.
Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another.
Each chapter introduces an epistemic viewpoint, providing an overview of its main arguments and explaining why it justifies belief. The validity of that viewpoint is then explored and tested in a critical response from an expert in an opposing tradition. Featuring a wide range of different philosophical positions, traditions and methods, this
- Covers classical evidentialism, phenomenal conservatism, proper functionalism, covenantal epistemology and traditions-based perspectivalism
- Draws on MacIntyre's account of rationality and ideas from the Analytic and Conservatism traditions
- Addresses issues in social epistemology
- Considers the role of religious experience and religious texts
Packed with lively debates, this is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in understanding the major positions in contemporary religious epistemology and how religious concepts and practices relate to belief and knowledge.
264 pages, Paperback
Published February 6, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 18, 2025
Perhaps the best non-introductory text on epistemology I have read, and better than I expected. Highly recommended. I will give brief thoughts on the approaches below.
1. I find Depoe's classic evidentialism attractive but unnatural though I am also an internalist and foundationalist. Most will not be able to build all of their beliefs from the ground up on the foundation of incorrigible basic beliefs and they do not have to (though such a philosophical exercise is meritorious).
2. I agree almost entirely with Phenomenohical Conservatism as presented and think all people naturally and rationally assume the world is as it seems to be unless encountering reasons to believe otherwise.
3. Mcnabb's Reformed Epistemology is too modest in its aims and the sensus divinitatus is better understood as religious experience. Proper functionalism has far more problems than Phenomenalogical Conservatism.
4. Oliphant's presuppositionalism tries to paint circular reasoning as a pious virtue (I know thay God divinely revealed his existence to me because God divinely revealed his existence to me) and is based on baldly faulty exegesis of Romans 1. Oliphant acknowledges this circularity, but I have never seen a good argument that any kind circular reasoning is virtuous.
5. Baldwin may actually present an epistemology I dislike more than presuppositionalism as it is both self-defeating (appealing to standards outside tradition to argue that all epistemology is tradition dependent) as well as circular (I know my authoritative epistemic traditions are the true way to knowledge because of my authoritative epistemic traditions). Baldwin argues this is not what he doing by arguing that the truth is mind independent and that science, math, and other disciplines access these mind independent truths. But isn't that the endeavor of epistemology as well? Baldwin fails to demonstrate that tradition is necessary as an epistemic instrument though of course it is pragmatic in philosophical endeavor.
If it seems like two of these views are not like the others its because they are. They start the epistemological endeavor assuming theology (Oliphant) and metaphysics (Baldwin) as well as authorities (Scripture, church, tradition). These views are popular enough in certain Christian traditions to merit their inclusion in this book.
1. I find Depoe's classic evidentialism attractive but unnatural though I am also an internalist and foundationalist. Most will not be able to build all of their beliefs from the ground up on the foundation of incorrigible basic beliefs and they do not have to (though such a philosophical exercise is meritorious).
2. I agree almost entirely with Phenomenohical Conservatism as presented and think all people naturally and rationally assume the world is as it seems to be unless encountering reasons to believe otherwise.
3. Mcnabb's Reformed Epistemology is too modest in its aims and the sensus divinitatus is better understood as religious experience. Proper functionalism has far more problems than Phenomenalogical Conservatism.
4. Oliphant's presuppositionalism tries to paint circular reasoning as a pious virtue (I know thay God divinely revealed his existence to me because God divinely revealed his existence to me) and is based on baldly faulty exegesis of Romans 1. Oliphant acknowledges this circularity, but I have never seen a good argument that any kind circular reasoning is virtuous.
5. Baldwin may actually present an epistemology I dislike more than presuppositionalism as it is both self-defeating (appealing to standards outside tradition to argue that all epistemology is tradition dependent) as well as circular (I know my authoritative epistemic traditions are the true way to knowledge because of my authoritative epistemic traditions). Baldwin argues this is not what he doing by arguing that the truth is mind independent and that science, math, and other disciplines access these mind independent truths. But isn't that the endeavor of epistemology as well? Baldwin fails to demonstrate that tradition is necessary as an epistemic instrument though of course it is pragmatic in philosophical endeavor.
If it seems like two of these views are not like the others its because they are. They start the epistemological endeavor assuming theology (Oliphant) and metaphysics (Baldwin) as well as authorities (Scripture, church, tradition). These views are popular enough in certain Christian traditions to merit their inclusion in this book.
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September 10, 2024This was quite enjoyable and clear.
The format was enjoyable to a point at which it became tedious. I think in the end it would have been better if they sent replies to each other, without publishing these, and then added a published addendum accounting for these to the end of their respective chapters. Because important modifications and clarifications are made in their replies to other views and so you'd have to skip all around to get a synopsis. Or perhaps if the chapters were simply divided by author instead of view / position / topic, it would have been less zig-zag in nature.
Also Oliphint is this Calvinist who doesn't know what epistemology is or the topic of the book apparently, because instead of talking about knowledge or any of its parts, he talks about how we have it and what we do with it, and then, instead of bringing meta-epistemological insights down intelligibly from his righteous and glorious peaks of theology to the topic of the book, he never gives an example of how this is supposed to determine the first order theory of knowledge. He does answer the divine hiddenness and peer disagreement problems, but these are just his conclusions, inferred from his reading of scripture, and never does he argue for his reading of scripture, which "has theology flowing from it" seen infallibly and unquestionably by him of course. Without these maybe 30 pages of slogging and the zig zag organization it would have been a potent read.
Baldwin's approach is similarly meta-epistemological but at least he rules out certain first order approaches of encyclopedic rationalism and postmodernism with this, and has certain insights about how the tradition-transcendent truths are -what I would call- arid commonways or flat desertscapes and not foundational ground on which you can build much. I think this is quite true. You don't get to stack theism on top of (infer it from) things like the laws of logic or physics of how to land a plane. You could do an inference of best explanation, but all these arguments seem to meet their fate at the court of simplicity, i.e. what counts as a virtuously simple theory, something with minimal explanative posits full stop or minimal explanative posits at the foundational level. These are decided (and sometimes adjusted to) after the person has already made up their mind on a whole paradigm, I believe. (I am a demonstrational relativist meaning there is no cross-paradigm proof to the faculty of ratio.)
And yet DePoe's classical evidentialist approach is attractive because it seems incorrigibility or something like this must be needed (and together with true belief sufficient) for what we *really* know, if anything. And yet a crack in the paint: Instead of ruling out a lot of what is knowledge to common sense, and a lot of common folk from the status of knowers, since they don't perform some act of checking direct acquaintances with the belief, the content of the belief, and the truth-bearing relationship that holds between them, DePoe allows that as long as they believe in a manner such that this operation could be articulated behind it, it amounts to the same. In other words, as long as they *have* these constituents of incorrigibility, or as long as they are accessible to awareness, not actually accessed, they have justification. But wait a minute - where did our subjective assurance go? Wouldn't training in logic be needed for it to be accessible to them, and wouldn't some people be too thick for even that? I don't mind ruling them out from knower status, since I am not a die hard egalitarian about everything - they will still get by fine without intellectuals conferring knower status on them. But if we do have to check or think through these connections, we have a more serious regress problem. Do you have to check this checking? Because the first order checking is really a translation of your experience into propositions, and this could go wrong. And then do you have to check your checking of this translation? This would be like a meta reflection on the hermeneutics you're using to check your first order translation. After this it would get fuzzy, but why take our limits to be the actual ones?
It seems there is something more promising coming from the newer approaches of the proper functionalist and phenomenal conservatives here. And once we see that there is a "no defeater" clause in proper functionalism and the same in PC, we see a kind of bridge between externalism and internalism I think, and the line between them blurs. I think adding a virtue theoretic component, as mentioned by Baldwin, would help to clarify the condition about defeaters. What does it mean to have a defeater? You're aware of it? This is too cheap. How about this: You could be aware of it, if - in accord with virtue - you crash tested your view by scouting out those defeaters, whenever that view becomes relevant to solidify and defend for the sake of overall virtue (to be a legit, good person in your relationships)? Clearly we need PF warrant, and the conditional nature of it (if God exists then our faculties are functioning properly when we believe in him) helps leverage an argument against naturalism (if only capricious nature exists, then it is questionable whether our faculties are aimed at truth, even if they're working properly), together with the traditionalist's argument against the Enlightenment liberal views (the Enlightenment or liberalism is itself a particular tradition, which it says it is against for the sake of universal man) is a powerful defense. But we also need justification and not just a hypothetical one, and the phenomenal conservative, fallibilist, so-far-undefeated, seeming-based, pro tanto justification is helpful here. But both PF and PC alone will allow a sort of static subject, who can have a sort of fragile knowledge, as long as they remain within their bubble.
I would suggest that to have a defeater means that you have a defeater if you would have found one if you had been living properly. E.g. you won't be justified in your belief even if no defeater is consciously available to you, if you should have been engaged in some field or fields (disciplines) with a healthy personality profile (involving some degree of open mindedness and focus), and you would have then found it had you engaged, but you didn't engage and so didn't find it. Otherwise, you are more likely justified the more you are sheltered. And here I don't subscribe to falsificationism (the view that for a thesis to be part of science it has to be able to be falsified), but rather informed choice, a choice that is informed by the relative net advantages one sees in one's theory over others. To be mature men (I am speaking in terms of an honor culture now which could be jarring to academics) should not be unarmed and unexperienced in information warfare, as long as we are given the aptitude for it, though we need more than intellectual virtue.
The format was enjoyable to a point at which it became tedious. I think in the end it would have been better if they sent replies to each other, without publishing these, and then added a published addendum accounting for these to the end of their respective chapters. Because important modifications and clarifications are made in their replies to other views and so you'd have to skip all around to get a synopsis. Or perhaps if the chapters were simply divided by author instead of view / position / topic, it would have been less zig-zag in nature.
Also Oliphint is this Calvinist who doesn't know what epistemology is or the topic of the book apparently, because instead of talking about knowledge or any of its parts, he talks about how we have it and what we do with it, and then, instead of bringing meta-epistemological insights down intelligibly from his righteous and glorious peaks of theology to the topic of the book, he never gives an example of how this is supposed to determine the first order theory of knowledge. He does answer the divine hiddenness and peer disagreement problems, but these are just his conclusions, inferred from his reading of scripture, and never does he argue for his reading of scripture, which "has theology flowing from it" seen infallibly and unquestionably by him of course. Without these maybe 30 pages of slogging and the zig zag organization it would have been a potent read.
Baldwin's approach is similarly meta-epistemological but at least he rules out certain first order approaches of encyclopedic rationalism and postmodernism with this, and has certain insights about how the tradition-transcendent truths are -what I would call- arid commonways or flat desertscapes and not foundational ground on which you can build much. I think this is quite true. You don't get to stack theism on top of (infer it from) things like the laws of logic or physics of how to land a plane. You could do an inference of best explanation, but all these arguments seem to meet their fate at the court of simplicity, i.e. what counts as a virtuously simple theory, something with minimal explanative posits full stop or minimal explanative posits at the foundational level. These are decided (and sometimes adjusted to) after the person has already made up their mind on a whole paradigm, I believe. (I am a demonstrational relativist meaning there is no cross-paradigm proof to the faculty of ratio.)
And yet DePoe's classical evidentialist approach is attractive because it seems incorrigibility or something like this must be needed (and together with true belief sufficient) for what we *really* know, if anything. And yet a crack in the paint: Instead of ruling out a lot of what is knowledge to common sense, and a lot of common folk from the status of knowers, since they don't perform some act of checking direct acquaintances with the belief, the content of the belief, and the truth-bearing relationship that holds between them, DePoe allows that as long as they believe in a manner such that this operation could be articulated behind it, it amounts to the same. In other words, as long as they *have* these constituents of incorrigibility, or as long as they are accessible to awareness, not actually accessed, they have justification. But wait a minute - where did our subjective assurance go? Wouldn't training in logic be needed for it to be accessible to them, and wouldn't some people be too thick for even that? I don't mind ruling them out from knower status, since I am not a die hard egalitarian about everything - they will still get by fine without intellectuals conferring knower status on them. But if we do have to check or think through these connections, we have a more serious regress problem. Do you have to check this checking? Because the first order checking is really a translation of your experience into propositions, and this could go wrong. And then do you have to check your checking of this translation? This would be like a meta reflection on the hermeneutics you're using to check your first order translation. After this it would get fuzzy, but why take our limits to be the actual ones?
It seems there is something more promising coming from the newer approaches of the proper functionalist and phenomenal conservatives here. And once we see that there is a "no defeater" clause in proper functionalism and the same in PC, we see a kind of bridge between externalism and internalism I think, and the line between them blurs. I think adding a virtue theoretic component, as mentioned by Baldwin, would help to clarify the condition about defeaters. What does it mean to have a defeater? You're aware of it? This is too cheap. How about this: You could be aware of it, if - in accord with virtue - you crash tested your view by scouting out those defeaters, whenever that view becomes relevant to solidify and defend for the sake of overall virtue (to be a legit, good person in your relationships)? Clearly we need PF warrant, and the conditional nature of it (if God exists then our faculties are functioning properly when we believe in him) helps leverage an argument against naturalism (if only capricious nature exists, then it is questionable whether our faculties are aimed at truth, even if they're working properly), together with the traditionalist's argument against the Enlightenment liberal views (the Enlightenment or liberalism is itself a particular tradition, which it says it is against for the sake of universal man) is a powerful defense. But we also need justification and not just a hypothetical one, and the phenomenal conservative, fallibilist, so-far-undefeated, seeming-based, pro tanto justification is helpful here. But both PF and PC alone will allow a sort of static subject, who can have a sort of fragile knowledge, as long as they remain within their bubble.
I would suggest that to have a defeater means that you have a defeater if you would have found one if you had been living properly. E.g. you won't be justified in your belief even if no defeater is consciously available to you, if you should have been engaged in some field or fields (disciplines) with a healthy personality profile (involving some degree of open mindedness and focus), and you would have then found it had you engaged, but you didn't engage and so didn't find it. Otherwise, you are more likely justified the more you are sheltered. And here I don't subscribe to falsificationism (the view that for a thesis to be part of science it has to be able to be falsified), but rather informed choice, a choice that is informed by the relative net advantages one sees in one's theory over others. To be mature men (I am speaking in terms of an honor culture now which could be jarring to academics) should not be unarmed and unexperienced in information warfare, as long as we are given the aptitude for it, though we need more than intellectual virtue.
July 21, 2022
Debating the knowledge and understanding of the knowledge and understanding of a concrete concept is not easy for a septuagenarian - let alone this discussion of something as nebulous as faith.
The first stumbling block is arguing knowledge about something that is not knowledge. Faith is not knowledge and knowledge is not faith, although it is possible to know something through faith. Still it is difficult to argue such a concept to someone who hasn't experienced faith -- which is different than religion.
Maybe the only answer is credo ut intelligam, and maybe it's the best critique I can offer.
Docholidavid
The first stumbling block is arguing knowledge about something that is not knowledge. Faith is not knowledge and knowledge is not faith, although it is possible to know something through faith. Still it is difficult to argue such a concept to someone who hasn't experienced faith -- which is different than religion.
Maybe the only answer is credo ut intelligam, and maybe it's the best critique I can offer.
Docholidavid
January 7, 2022
Great book. As a graduate student in theology some of the content was unfamiliar to me, but felt this was written in an approachable style. One drawback was that four sections were clearly written by philosophers while a fifth was more theological in nature. While epistemology is generally a philosophical endeavor, it would be nice to see more dialogue between philosophers and theologians in a book like this. Some of the major questions discussed in each section like natural theology have great importance in theology as well as philosophy. Would highly recommend.
July 25, 2022
Good book on different perspectives on epistemology which allow for warranted religious beliefs. Coming away from the book though I am less certain of my epistemology than before. Each writer makes a coherent case for their theory. A worthwhile book on the subject of epistemology.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews