Disagreement and the rationality of religious belief
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Date
30/06/2015Author
Scott, Kyle Irwin Andrew
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Abstract
Concerning religious matters there are a wide variety of views held that are often
contradictory. This observation creates a problem when it comes to thinking about the
rationality of religious belief. Can religious belief be rational for those who are aware of
this widespread disagreement?
This is a problem for a view in religious epistemology known as reformed
epistemology. Alvin Plantinga, one of the leading defenders of this view, has argued that
there is no successful argument to show that religious belief is irrational or in any other
way epistemically unacceptable – he calls these arguments de jure arguments. I respond
to this claim by seeking to develop two new versions of de jure argument that Plantinga
has not dealt with. The first of these I call the return of the Great Pumpkin; and the
second, the problem of religious disagreement.
The return of the Great Pumpkin is an objection that develops an earlier objection
that Plantinga has considered called, simply, the Great Pumpkin objection. This
objection is that Plantinga’s methodology for defending the rationality of religious belief
could be adopted by anyone, no matter how strange their beliefs – even someone who
believed in the Great Pumpkin could use it. I develop this objection further by showing
that it would be possible for a person with clearly absurd beliefs to find themselves in
the same situation as the hypothetical Christian whom Plantinga is seeking to defend.
There is, however, a response available to Plantinga, which involves showing how the
historical and sociological context in which the person finds themselves makes a
difference to the rationality of some of the beliefs that they hold. This discussion naturally leads into the second version of the de jure argument
which asks whether knowledge of several religious communities who hold incompatible
beliefs undermines the rationality of religious belief. This discussion engages with work
in religious epistemology, but also more widely with the literature on the epistemology
of disagreement. I consider whether, and in what circumstances, finding out that others
disagree with you could ever rationally require you to give up one or more of your
beliefs. This issue involves discussion of epistemic peers and defeaters.
One of the arguments I consider is that if a religious believer continues to hold on
to her religious beliefs in the face of disagreement then that will give her a reason to
think that she is epistemically superior, which will lead to dogmatism, and a sort of
epistemic arrogance. I respond to such an argument by showing that there is a problem
with the inference involved in this argument.