Alvin Plantinga Quotes

Reason is the power or capacity whereby we see or detect logical relationships among propositions.

The mere fact that a belief is unpopular at present (or at some other time) is interesting from a sociological point of view but evidentially irrelevant.

Suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would be quite different. [But] the same goes for the pluralist...If the pluralist had been born in [Morocco] he probably wouldn't be a pluralist. Does it follow that...his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process?

there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism.

Faith is not to be contrasted with knowledge: faith (at least in paradigmatic instances) is knowledge, knowledge of a certain special kind.

In religious belief as elsewhere, we must take our chances, recognizing that we could be wrong, dreadfully wrong. There are no guarantees; the religious life is a venture; foolish and debilitating error is a permanent possibility. (If we can be wrong, however, we can also be right.)

Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin concur on the claim that there is a kind of natural knowledge of God (and anything on which Calvin and Aquinas are in accord is something to which we had better pay careful attention).

The Christian philosopher has a perfect right to the point of view and prephilosophical assumptions he brings to philosophic work; the fact that these are not widely shared outside the Christian or theistic community is interesting but fundamentally irrelevant.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Most of us form estimates of our intelligence, wisdom, and moral fiber that are considerably higher than an objective estimate would warrant; no doubt 90 percent of us think ourselves well above average along these lines.

Is it a fact that those who believe in a Heavenly Father do so because or partly because their earthly fathers were inadequate? I doubt it. If it is a fact, however, it is of psychological rather than theological interest. It may help us understand theists, but it tells us nothing at all about the truth of their belief; to that it is simply irrelevant.

The sensus divinitatis is a belief-producing faculty (or power, or mechanism) that under the right conditions produces belief that isn’t evidentially based on other beliefs.

The believer,” says Aquinas, “has sufficient motive for believing, for he is moved by the authority of divine teaching confirmed by miracles and, what is more, by the inward instigation of the divine invitation.”5

De jure objections are arguments of 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.

The existence of God is neither precluded nor rendered improbable by the existence of evil. Of course, suffering and misfortune may nonetheless constitute a problem for the theist; but the problem is not that his beliefs are logically or probabilistically incompatible. The theist may find a religious problem in evil; in the presence of his own suffering or that of someone near to him he may find it difficult to maintain what he takes to be the proper attitude towards God. Faced with great personal suffering or misfortune, he may be tempted to rebel against God, to shake his fist in God's face, or even to give up belief in God altogether. But this is a problem of a different dimension. Such a problem calls, not for philosophical enlightenment, but for pastoral care. The Free Will Defense, however, shows that the existence of God is compatible, both logically and probabilistically, with the existence of evil; thus it solves the main philosophical problem of evil.

One said whatever would be of advantage; the question whether it was true no longer arose.

while there is indeed conflict between science and naturalism (the view that there is no such person as God or anything like God), there is no conflict between science and religion.

And by way of concluding our study of natural atheology: none of the arguments we've examined has prospects for success; all are unacceptable. There are arguments we haven't considered, of course; but so far the indicated conclusion is that natural atheology doesn't work.

Dawkins claims that the living world came to be by way of unguided evolution: “the Evidence of Evolution,” he says, “Reveals a Universe Without Design.” What he actually argues, however, is that there is a Darwinian series for contemporary life forms. As we have seen, this argument is inconclusive; but even if it were air-tight it wouldn’t show, of course, that the living world, let alone the entire universe, is without design. At best it would show, given a couple of assumptions, that it is not astronomically improbable that the living world was produced by unguided evolution and hence without design. But the argument form p is not astronomically improbable therefore p is a bit unprepossessing.

And according to Martin Luther, there are two ways of believing. In the first place I may have faith concerning God. This is the case when I hold to be true what is said concerning God. Such faith is on the same level with the assent I give to statements concerning the Turk, the devil and hell. A faith of this kind should be called knowledge or information rather than faith. In the second place there is faith in. Such faith is mine when I not only hold to be true what is said concerning God, but when I put my trust in him in such a way as to enter into personal relations with him, believing firmly that I shall find him to be and to do as I have been taught. . . . The word in is well chosen and deserving of due attention. We do not say, I believe God the Father or concerning God the Father, but in God the Father, in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.3 Jonathan

To use the biblical imagery, Christian theology must acknowledge itself an impoverished earthen vessel while daring not to diminish the value of the treasure it confesses.

There seem to be two strands to this notion of justification. On the one hand, justification seems to have something to do with evidence: a belief (or the believer) is unjustified if there isn’t any evidence, or enough evidence, for that belief. On the other hand, justification seems to have something to do with duty, or obligation, or moral rightness.

Perhaps God permits my father, or my daughter, or my friend, or me to suffer in the most appalling way. I may then find myself thinking as follows: “No doubt he has all those dandy divine qualities and no doubt he has a fine reason for permitting this abomination — after all, I am no match for him with respect to coming up with reasons, reasons that are utterly beyond me — but what he permits is appalling, and I hate it!” I may want to tell him off face to face: “You may be wonderful, and magnificent, and omniscient and omnipotent (and even wholly good) and all that exalted stuff, but I utterly detest what you are doing!” A problem of this kind is not really an evidential problem at all, and it isn’t a defeater for theism.

Am I really arrogant and egoistic just by virtue of believing something I know others don’t believe, where I can’t show them that I am right? I can’t see how. Of course I must concede that there are a variety of ways in which I can be and have been intellectually arrogant and egoistic; I have certainly fallen into this vice in the past, will no doubt fall into it in the future, and am not free of it now. Still, suppose I think the matter over, consider the objections as carefully as I can, realize that I am finite and furthermore a sinner, certainly no better than those with whom I disagree, and indeed inferior both morally and intellectually to many who do not believe what I do. But suppose it still seems clear to me that the proposition in question is true: am I really immoral in continuing to believe it?

It's hard to say what philosophy is. Somebody, and I forget who, defined it as just thinking exceptionally hard.

True: the existence of the experiences that go with the operation of the sensus divinitatis is compatible with there being no omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good creator of the universe. It doesn’t follow from that, however, that we can’t know — and know, broadly speaking, by experience — that there is such a person.

I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term ‘fundamentalist’. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like ‘son of a bitch’ — more exactly, ‘sonofabitch’, or, perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) ‘sumbitch’. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) But there is a bit more to the meaning of ‘fundamentalist’ (in this widely current use): it isn’t simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like ‘stupid sumbitch’ than ‘sumbitch simpliciter. But it isn’t exactly like that term either, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend upon who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote anyone who accepts traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, on the other hand, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase “considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.” The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use) can be given by something like “stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine.

To recount the essential features of the model: the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit working in concord with God’s teaching in Scripture is a cognitive process or belief-producing mechanism that produces in us the beliefs constituting faith, as well as a host of other beliefs.

The experiences and beliefs involved in the operation of the sensus divinitatis and IIHS serve as occasions for theistic belief, not premises for an argument to it.

Now Kant is by no means easy to understand, which is no doubt part of his charm. If you want to be a really great philosopher, make sure not to say too clearly what you have in mind (well, maybe that’s not quite enough, but it’s a good start);

Now Kant is by no means easy to understand, which is no doubt part of his charm. If you want to be a really great philosopher, make sure not to say too clearly what you have in mind (well, maybe that’s not quite enough, but it’s a good start); if people can just read and understand what you say, there will be no need for commentators on your work, no one will write PhD dissertations on your work to explain your meaning, and there won’t be any controversies about what it was you really meant. Kant must have heeded the above advice, and the fact is there are dozens, maybe hundreds of books written about his philosophy, and endless controversy as to his meaning.

Due to sin, the knowledge of God provided by the sensus divinitatis, prior to faith and regeneration, is both narrowed in scope and partially suppressed. The faculty itself may be diseased and thus partly or wholly disabled. There is such a thing as cognitive disease; there is blindness, deafness, inability to tell right from wrong, insanity; and there are analogues of these conditions with respect to the operation of the sensus divinitatis.

Belief in the existence of God is in the same boat as belief in other minds, the past, and perceptual objects; in each case God has so constructed us that in the right circumstances we form the belief in question.

I greatly appreciate the work of Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. He has observed that many academicians have a disdain for the term popularizer. However, he urges Christian philosophers not to leave their work “buried away in professional journals” but to make it available to the broader Christian community. If they don’t connect their work to the life of the church, then they “neglect a crucial and central part of their task as believing philosophers.

Freud's complaint is that religious belief lacks warrant because it is produced by wishful thinking, which is a cognitive process that is not aimed at the production of true belief; in Freud's words, it is not reality oriented. But even if it were established that wish fulfilment is the source of theistic belief, however, that wouldn't be enough to establish that the latter has no warrant. It must also be established that wish-fulfilment in this particular manifestation is not aimed at true belief. The cognitive design plan of human beings is subtle and complex; a source of belief might be such that in general it isn't aimed at the formation of true belief, but in this special case precisely that is its purpose. Perhaps human beings have been created by God with a deep need to believe in his presence and goodness and love. Perhaps God has designed us that way in order that we come to believe in him and be aware of his presence; perhaps this is how God has arranged for us to come to know him. If so, then the particular bit of the cognitive design plan governing the formation of theistic belief is indeed aimed at true belief, even if the belief in question arises from wish fulfilment.

According to the extended A/C model, we human beings typically have at least some knowledge of God. This is so even in the state of sin apart from regeneration. The condition of sin involves damage to the sensus divinitatis, but not obliteration; it remains partially functional. We therefore typically have some grasp god's presence and properties and demands, but this knowledge is covered over, impeded, suppressed. We are prone to hate God but, confusingly, in some way also inclined to love and seek him.

If we can't think about God, then we can't think about him; and therefore can't make statements about him, including statements to the effect that we can't think about him. The statement that we can't think about God-the statement that God is such that we can't think about him- is obviously a statement about God; if we can't think about God, then we can't say about him what we can't think about him.

If you have evidence for every proposition you believe, then you will believe infinitely many propositions. So presumably some propositions can properly be believed and accepted without evidence. Well, why not belief in God? Why is it not entirely acceptable, desirable, right, proper, and rational to accept belief in God without any argument or evidence?

Argument is not needed for rational justification. The believer is entirely within his epistemic right in believing, for example, that God has created the world, even if he has no argument at all for that conclusion..

The Reformed epistemologist may concur with Calvin in holding that God has implanted in us a natural tendency to see his hand in the world around us; the same cannot be said for the Great Pumpkin, there being no Great Pumpkin and no natural tendency to accept beliefs about the Great Pumpkin.

Accordingly, criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below rather than above; they should not be presented ex cathedra but argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples.

Defeaters of course, are themselves prima facie defeaters, for the defeater can be defeated. Perhaps I spot a fallacy in the initially convincing argument; perhaps I discover a convincing argument for the denial of one of its premises; perhaps I learn on reliable authority that someone else has done one of those things. Then the defeater is defeated, and I am once again within my rights in accepting p. Of course a similar remark must be made about defeater-defeaters: they are subject to defeat by defeater-defeater-defeaters and so on.

The existence of God is neither precluded nor rendered improbable by the existence of evil. Of course, suffering and misfortune may nonetheless constitute a problem for the theist; but the problem is not that his beliefs are logically or probabilistically incompatible. The theist may find a religious problem in evil; in the presence of his own suffering or that of someone near to him he may find it difficult to maintain what he takes to be the proper attitude towards God. Faced with great personal suffering or misfortune, he may be tempted to rebel against God, to shake his fist in God's face, or even to give up belief in God altogether. But this is a problem of a different dimension. Such a problem calls, not for philosophical enlightenment, but for pastoral care.

If my belief in other minds is rational, so is my belief in God.

God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so.

My whole account of positive epistemic status, not just this example, owes much to Thomas Reid with his talk of faculties and their functions and his rejection of the notion (one he attributes to Hume and his predecessors) that self-evident propositions and propositions about one's own immediate experience are the only properly basic propositions.

My whole account of positive epistemic status owes much to Thomas Reid with his talk of faculties and their functions and his rejection of the notion (one he attributes to Hume and his predecessors) that self-evident propositions and propositions about one's own immediate experience are the only properly basic propositions.

Contemporary theologians and others sometimes complain that contemporary philosophers of religion often write as if they have never read their Kant. Perhaps the reason they write that way, however, is not that they have never read their Kant but rather that they have read him and remain unconvinced. They may be unconvinced that Kant actually claimed that our concepts do not apply to God. Alternatively, they may concede that Kant did claim this, but remain unconvinced that he was right; after all, it is not just a given of the intellectual life that Kant is right. Either way, they don't think Kant gives us reason to hold that we cannot think about God.

Kant holds that the Dinge stand in causal or interactive relationship with us, taken as transcendental ego(s); and he also says that they are not in space and time. But on the radical subpicture, Kant (at least if his intellectual equipment is like that of the rest of us) should not be able to refer to the Dinge at all, or even speculate that there might be such things. He certainly shouldn't be able to refer to them and attribute to them properties of being atemporal and aspatial, or the property of affecting the transcendental ego(s), thereby producing experience in them He shouldn't be able to refer to us (i.e., as transcendental egos), claiming that we don't have the sort of godlike intellectual intuition into reality that would be required if we were to have synthetic a priori knowledge of the world as it is in itself. (On this picture, we might say, Kant's thought founders on the fact that the picture requires that he have knowledge the picture denies him.) If this picture were really correct, the noumena would have to drop out altogether, so that all that there is is what has been structured or made by us.

One who states and proposes this scheme makes several claims about the Dinge: that they are not in space and time, for example, and more poignantly, that our concepts don't apply to them (applying only to the phenomena), so that we cannot refer to or think about them. But if we really can't think the Dinge, then we can't think about them (and can't whistle them either); if we can't think about them, we can't so much as entertain the thought that there are such things. The incoherence is patent.

Kant holds that the Dinge stand in causal or interactive relationship with us, taken as transcendental ego(s); and he also says that they are not in space and time. But on the radical subpicture, Kant (at least if his intellectual equipment is like that of the rest of us) should not be able to refer to the Dinge at all, or even speculate that there might be such things. He certainly shouldn't be able to refer to them and attribute to them properties of being atemporal and aspatial, or the property of affecting the transcendental ego(s), thereby producing experience in them He shouldn't be able to refer to us (i.e., as transcendental egos), claiming that we don't have the sort of godlike intellectual intuition into reality that would be required if we were to have synthetic a priori knowledge of the world as it is in itself. (On this picture, we might say, Kant's thought founders on the fact that the picture requires that he have knowledge the picture denies him.) If this picture were really correct, the noumena would have to drop out altogether, so that all that there is is what has been structured or made by us.

The natural theologian does not, typically, offer his arguments in order to convince people of God’s existence; and in fact few who accept theistic belief do so because they find such an argument compelling. Instead the typical function of natural theology has been to show that religious belief is rationally acceptable.

Now Kant apparently intends these antinomies to constitute an essential part of the argument for his transcendental idealism, the doctrine that things we deal with (stars and planets, trees, animals and other people) are transcendentally ideal (depend upon us for their reality and structure), even if empirically real. We fall into the problem posed by antinomies, says Kant, only because we take ourselves to be thinking about things in themselves as opposed to the things for us, noumena as opposed to mere appearances...We solve the problem by recognizing our limitations, realizing that we can't think, or can't think of any real purpose, about the Dinge...I want to turn to the fatal objection. That is just that all the antinomical arguments are not at all compelling. Here I will argue this only for the premises of the first antinomy, exactly similar comments would apply to the others. In the first antinomy, there is an argument for the conclusion that 'The world had a beginning in time and is also limited as regards to space' (A426, B454); this is the thesis. There is also an argument for the antithesis: 'The world had no beginning, and no limits in space; it is infinite as regards both time and space' (A426, B454). And the idea...is that if we can think about and refer to the Dinge, then both of these would be true or would have overwhelming intuitive support...(Regarding the antitheis) In an empty time (a time at which nothing exists) nothing could come to be, because there would be no more reason for it to come to be at one part of that empty time than at any other part of it...The objection is that there would have been no more reason for God to create the world at one moment than at any other; hence he wouldn't or couldn't have created it at any moment at all. Again, why believe this?...This argument is like those arguments that start from the premise that God, if he created the world, he would have created the best world he could have; and they go on to add that for every world God could have created (weakly actualized, say) there is an even better world he could have created or weakly actualized; therefore, they conclude, he would have weakly actualized any world at all, and the actual world has not been weakly actualized by God. Again, there seems no reason to believe the first premise. If there were only finitely many worlds among which God was obliged to choose, the perhaps he would have been obliged somehow, to choose the best (although even this is at best dubious). But if there is no best world at all among those he could have chosen (if for every world he could have chosen, there is a better world he could have chosen), why think a world failing to be the best is sufficient for God's being unable to actualize it? Suppose a man had the benefit of immortality and had a bottle of wine that would improve every day, no matter now long he waits to drink it. Would he be rationally obligated never to drink it, on the ground that for any time he might be tempted to, it would be better yet the next day? Suppose a donkey were stranded exactly midway between two bales of hay: would it be rationally obliged to stay there and starve to death because there is no more reason to move the one bale than the other?

The conclusion that we were misled by our senses clearly involves several faculties: memory, induction…and sense perception itself

Indeed, the Christian tradition is so consistent on this matter that it is difficult to understand where Dawkins has got the idea of faith as “blind trust” from. Even a superficial reading of the works of leading Christian philosophers such as Richard Swinburne (Oxford University), Nicolas Wolterstorff (Yale University), and Alvin Plantinga (University of Notre Dame), or even popular writers such as C. S. Lewis,43 would reveal their passionate commitment to the question of how one can make “warranted,” “evidenced,” or “coherent” statements concerning God.44 There is no question of “blind trust.

The tree is in the yard beyond my window” (perception). “I had Cheerios for breakfast this morning” (memory). “2 + 2 = 4” (insight). “I’m thinking about philosophy right now” (introspection). “Abraham Lincoln was assassinated” (testimony). “Since 2 + 2 = 4, therefore 2 + 2 ≠ 5” (deductive inference). “Since the sun has always risen in the past, it will probably rise tomorrow” (inductive inference). By way of contrast, faith is a way of knowing that utilizes two cognitive capacities over and above those just named: a sense of the divine (what Calvin calls the sensus divinitatis in his Institutes, 1.3.1, first sentence), and a capacity to repose trust in divine testimony. Since the following beliefs would be acquired by using such capacities, these beliefs are acquired by faith: “God is an awesome Creator” (sensus divinitatis, said while contemplating a mountain). “God is displeased with what I did” (divine testimony, said while reading the Sermon on the Mount).

God is displeased with what I did” (divine testimony, said while reading the Sermon on the Mount).

God has ...created us with cognitive faculties designed to enable us to achieve true beliefs with respect to a wide variety of propositions - propositions about our immediate environment, about our own interior lives, about the thoughts and experiences of other persons, about our universe at large, about right and wrong, about the whole realm of abstracta - numbers, properties, propositions - ... and about himself.

If the collecting or thinking together had to be done by human thinkers, or any finite thinkers, there wouldn't be nearly enough sets - not nearly as many as we think in fact there are. From a theistic point of view, the natural conclusion is that sets owe their existence to God's thinking things together

Many think of sets as displaying the following characteristics (among others): (1) no set is a member of itself; (2) sets (unlike properties) have their extensions essentially; hence sets are contingent beings and no set could have existed if one of its members had not; (3) sets form an iterated structure: at the first level, sets whose members are nonsets, at the second, sets whose members are nonsets or first level sets, etc. Many (Cantor) also inclined to think of sets as collections--i.e., things whose existence depends upon a certain sort of intellectual activity--a collecting or 'thinking together' (Cantor). If sets were collections, that would explain their having the first three features. But of course there are far to many sets for them to be a product of human thinking together; there are many sets such that no human being has ever thought their members together, many that are such that their members have not been thought together by any human being. That requires an infinite mind--one like God's.

Many think of sets as displaying the following characteristics : 1. no set is a member of itself; 2. sets unlike properties have their extensions essentially; hence sets are contingent beings and no set could have existed if one of its members had not; 3. sets form an iterated structure: at the first level, sets whose members are nonsets, at the second, sets whose members are nonsets or first level sets, etc. Many (Cantor) also inclined to think of sets as collections--i.e., things whose existence depends upon a certain sort of intellectual activity--a collecting or 'thinking together' (Cantor). If sets were collections, that would explain their having the first three features. But of course there are far to many sets for them to be a product of human thinking together; there are many sets such that no human being has ever thought their members together, many that are such that their members have not been thought together by any human being. That requires an infinite mind--one like God's.

Many think of sets as displaying the following characteristics : 1. no set is a member of itself; 2. sets unlike properties have their extensions essentially; hence sets are contingent beings and no set could have existed if one of its members had not; 3. sets form an iterated structure: at the first level, sets whose members are nonsets, at the second, sets whose members are nonsets or first level sets, etc. Many (Cantor) also inclined to think of sets as collections--i.e., things whose existence depends upon a certain sort of intellectual activity--a collecting or 'thinking together' (Cantor). If sets were collections, that would explain their having the first three features. But of course there are far too many sets for them to be a product of human thinking together; there are many sets such that no human being has ever thought their members together, many that are such that their members have not been thought together by any human being. That requires an infinite mind--one like God's.

There are too many of numbers for them to arise as a result of human intellectual activity. Consider, for example, the following series of functions: 2 lambda n is two to the second to the second .... to the second n times. The second member is ##2 (n); the third 3#2(n), etc.

There are properties, one wants to say, that have never been entertained by any human being; and it also seems wrong to think that properties do not exist before human beings conceive them.

Perhaps a way to think together all the members of a set is to attend to a certain property and then consider all the things that have that property: e.g., all the natural numbers. Then many infinite sets are sets that could have been collected by human beings; but not nearly all--not, e.g., arbitrary collections of real numbers. (axiom of choice)

Consider propositions: the things that are true or false, that are capable of being believed, and that stand in logical relations to one another. They also have another property: aboutness or intentionality. Propositions represent reality or some part of it as being thus and so. This crucially connected with their being true or false. Many have thought it incredible that propositions should exist apart from the activity of minds. How could they just be there, if never thought of? Representing things as being thus and so, being about something or other--this seems to be a property or activity of minds or perhaps thoughts . It is extremely tempting to think of propositions as ontologically dependent upon mental or intellectual activity in such a way that either they just are thoughts, or else at any rate couldn't exist if not thought of. (According to the idealistic tradition beginning with Kant, propositions are essentially judgments.) But if we are thinking of human thinkers, then there are far too many propositions: at least, for example, one for every real number that is distinct from the Taj Mahal. On the other hand, if they were divine thoughts, no problem here. So perhaps we should think of propositions as divine thoughts. Then in our thinking we would literally be thinking God's thoughts after him.

Perhaps a way to think together all the members of a set is to attend to a certain property and then consider all the things that have that property: e.g., all the natural numbers. Then many infinite sets are sets that could have been collected by human beings; but not nearly all--not, e.g., arbitrary collections of real numbers, e.g., : perhaps a way to think together all the members of a set is to attend to a certain property and then consider all the things that have that property: e.g., all the natural numbers. Then many infinite sets are sets that could have been collected by human beings; but not nearly all--not, e.g., arbitrary collections of real numbers.

Many think of sets as displaying the following characteristics (among others): 1. no set is a member of itself; 2. sets unlike properties have their extensions essentially; hence sets are contingent beings and no set could have existed if one of its members had not; (3) sets form an iterated structure: at the first level, sets whose members are nonsets, at the second, sets whose members are nonsets or first level sets, etc. Many (Cantor) also inclined to think of sets as collections--i.e., things whose existence depends upon a certain sort of intellectual activity--a collecting or 'thinking together' (Cantor). If sets were collections, that would explain their having the first three features. But of course there are far to many sets for them to be a product of human thinking together; there are many sets such that no human being has ever thought their members together, many that are such that their members have not been thought together by any human being. That requires an infinite mind--one like God's.

Consider propositions: the things that are true or false, that are capable of being believed, and that stand in logical relations to one another. They also have another property: aboutness or intentionality. Propositions represent reality or some part of it as being thus and so. This crucially connected with their being true or false. Many have thought it incredible that propositions should exist apart from the activity of minds. How could they just be there, if never thought of? (Frege, that alleged arch-Platonist, referred to propositions as gedanken, connected with intentionality.) Representing things as being thus and so, being about something or other--this seems to be a property or activity of minds or perhaps thoughts . It is extremely tempting to think of propositions as ontologically dependent upon mental or intellectual = activity in such a way that either they just are thoughts, or else at any rate couldn't exist if not thought of. (According to the idealistic tradition beginning with Kant, propositions are essentially judgments.) But if we are thinking of human thinkers, then there are far to many propositions: at least, for example, one for every real number that is distinct from the Taj Mahal. On the other hand, if they were divine thoughts, no problem here. So perhaps we should think of propositions as divine thoughts. Then in our thinking we would literally be thinking God's thoughts after him.

Consider propositions: the things that are true or false, that are capable of being believed, and that stand in logical relations to one another. They also have another property: aboutness or intentionality. Propositions represent reality or some part of it as being thus and so. This crucially connected with their being true or false. Many have thought it incredible that propositions should exist apart from the activity of minds. How could they just be there, if never thought of? Representing things as being thus and so, being about something or other--this seems to be a property or activity of minds or perhaps thoughts . It is extremely tempting to think of propositions as ontologically dependent upon mental or intellectual = activity in such a way that either they just are thoughts, or else at any rate couldn't exist if not thought of. (According to the idealistic tradition beginning with Kant, propositions are essentially judgments.) But if we are thinking of human thinkers, then there are far to many propositions: at least, for example, one for every real number that is distinct from the Taj Mahal. On the other hand, if they were divine thoughts, no problem here. So perhaps we should think of propositions as divine thoughts. Then in our thinking we would literally be thinking God's thoughts after him.

He first considers belief in God by way of the sensus divinitatis (way 8), articulating an Aquinas/Calvin (A/C) model of theistic belief. According to the A/C model, God has given us a faculty for perceiving God that is analogous to sense perception (way 1). If the sensus divinitatis gives us true beliefs, and it is functioning properly in an appropriate environment according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth, then it gives us knowledge of God. Like perception, this would be a basic belief (not based on argument), but it would still be knowledge.

The Journey to Warranted Christian Belief Warrant: The Current Debate and Warrant and Proper Function (1993) The Reformed epistemology of 1983 had a rather narrow focus when it came to the nature and scope of knowledge. By merely defending the rationality of belief in God, Plantinga was assuming that rationality was important and perhaps even central to the nature of knowledge. But perhaps it’s not. And perhaps justification isn’t crucial either, if by that we mean some feature of our beliefs that we can just see, and that gives us the right to hold our beliefs. Rather, what might be really important for knowledge is proper function. And by merely defending the rationality of belief in God, the Reformed epistemology project had a very narrow scope. What about the rest of knowledge and belief? How should

These questions that philosophers confront have to be reconfronted in every generation. The problems of philosophy reoccur in different forms.

The philosopher Alvin Plantinga said it like this: Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live. . . . A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort . . . and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (. . . and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful . . . argument [for the reality of God].7 In short, the problem of tragedy, suffering and injustice is a problem for everyone. It is at least as big a problem for non-belief in God as for belief. It is therefore a mistake, though an understandable one, to think that if you abandon belief in God it somehow makes the problem of evil easier to handle. A woman in my church once confronted me about sermon illustrations in which evil events turned out for the good. She had lost a husband in an act of violence during a robbery. She also had several children with severe mental and emotional problems. She insisted that for every one story in which evil turns out for good there are one hundred in which there is no conceivable silver lining. In the same way, much of the discussion so far in this chapter may sound cold and irrelevant to a real-life sufferer. ‘So what if suffering and evil doesn’t logically disprove God?’ such a person might say. ‘I’m still angry. All this philosophising does not get the Christian God “off the hook” for the world’s evil and suffering!’ In response the philosopher Peter Kreeft points out that the Christian God came to earth to deliberately put himself on the hook of human suffering. In Jesus Christ, God experienced the greatest depths of pain. Therefore, though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair.

Naturalism could, in fact, render naturalism itself irrational, as Alvin Plantinga argues, and as C. S. Lewis thought. Plantinga devotes chapter 12 of his work Warrant and Proper Function to this point.7 He writes in one place that “if metaphysical naturalism and this evolutionary account are both true, then our cognitive faculties will have resulted from blind mechanisms like natural selection. . . . Evolution is interested, not in true belief, but in survival or fitness. It is therefore unlikely that our cognitive faculties have the production of true belief as a proximate or any other function, and the probability of our faculties being reliable (given naturalistic evolution) would be fairly low.”8 If, then, naturalism negates knowing, then theism fosters it. Our native human capacity to know, Plantinga claims, “flourishes best in the context of supernaturalism in metaphysics.”9 I agree. So did C. S. Lewis.10 From this, we see why God must underwrite a credible epistemology.

I ascribe to others a wide variety of mental states, making fine and subtle discriminations between rather similar states, often ascribing to them states I have seldom if ever experienced myself; how could I do this on the basis of simple analogical reasoning from correlations between behavior and mental states in my own case? As a matter of fact, much of the relevant behavior is such that I can't observe it in my own case: facial expression, for example, is extremely important, and I typically can't observe what sort of facial expressions I am presenting to the world. Of course we have mirrors: but our ancestors, prior to the advent of mirrors, no doubt sometimes knew that someone else was angry or in pain. And we ourselves form these beliefs without adverting to mirrors; who among us carries one with him, or (when in the grip of strong emotion) remembers to consult it in order to establish correlations between his mental states and his facial expressions?...Indeed, tiny babies, presumably at an age at which they form little by way of beliefs of any sort, respond to human-face-like figures differently than to figures made of the same parts but scrambled. Fantz notes that 'It also appears that some of the capacity to establish spatial relations is manifested by the visual system from a very early age. For example, infants of 1-15 weeks of age are reported to respond preferentially to schematic face-like figures, and to prefer normally arranged face figures over 'scrambled' face patterns.

What makes it right to form belief in that inductive manner is just the fact that that is how a properly functioning human being forms beliefs; and what makes projectable properties projectable is just the fact that properly functioning human beings project them. But given that these projections and beliefs meet the other conditions for warrant (given that these beliefs and projections are formed in an appropriate cognitive environment and that the modules of the design plan governing their production are successfully aimed at truth), that is sufficient for warrant. And given that the beliefs in question are held sufficiently firmly, it is also sufficient (along with truth) for knowledge.

How do I know, prior to my knowing anything by way of memory, that these present phenomena have an explanation? By way of my knowledge that most phenomena (or most similar phenomena?) do? But so to think is to rely upon memory.

When afflicted with pain, human beings cry out, or moan, or whine, or stoically grit their teeth; but no doubt we could have been so constructed that we would instead smile, or do a little dance, or stand on our heads. So suppose first that these correlations had in fact been quite different. Now of course properly functioning human beings find themselves inclined, when aware of B, to make the S ascription; but suppose further that we had been so constructed that (when functioning properly) we did not find ourselves inclined to make the S ascription upon being aware of B. Then, surely (under those conditions), it would not have been the case that someone who was aware of B had evidence for S. So it isn't necessary that anyone who is aware of B has evidence for S.

Descartes observed that for any but the simplest kinds of argument, one must rely upon memory for knowledge of the conclusion. You clearly and distinctly see that the present step follows from earlier steps; but you have only your memory to testify to such facts as that earlier on you were able to see that S4—Sn themselves followed from prior steps. This dependence upon Exploring the Design Plan memory holds even for such simple arithmetical calculations as that 24 x 32 = 768. (Of course you can record the steps of the argument in your notebook; but then you will rely on memory for the belief that it was you who wrote them down and that you intended them to be an accurate written record of the argument.) And the same goes here for this purported argument to the best explanation. It isn't possible (for most of us, anyway) to hold in mind at one time the relevant phenomena to be explained, the most salient half dozen or so alternative explanations, the reasons (if any) why these explanations aren't as good as the favored candidate, the reasons (if any) for thinking that there must be (or probably is) a good explanation of those phenomena, and finally the inference from the alleged bestness of the explanation in question to the truth of the memory beliefs in question.

What counts for warrant is whether memory beliefs typically result from the proper function of our cognitive faculties in an appropriate environment, whether the function of memory is to give us true belief about the past, and whether the design plan in this area is a good one. But the fact is (as we all believe) these conditions are all fulfilled. Memory beliefs, therefore, have warrant.

To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him.

Hume pointed out that human beings are inclined to accept inductive forms of reasoning and thus to take it for granted, in a way, that the future will relevantly resemble the past. As Hume also pointed out, however, it is hard to think of a good (noncircular) reason for believing that indeed the future will relevantly be like the past. Theisim, however, provides a reason: God has created us and our noetic capacities and has created the world; he has also created the former in such a way as to be adapted by the latter. It is likely, then, that he has created the world in such a way that indeed the future will indeed resemble the past in the relevant way.

Hume pointed out that human beings are inclined to accept inductive forms of reasoning and thus to take it for granted, in a way, that the future will relevantly resemble the past. As Hume also pointed out, however, it is hard to think of a good (noncircular) reason for believing that indeed the future will relevantly be like the past. Theisim, however, provides a reason: God has created us and our noetic capacities and has created the world; he has also created the former in such a way as to be adapted by the latter. It is likely, then, that he has created the world in such a way that indeed the future will indeed resemble the past in the relevant way. And thus perhaps we do indeed have a priori knowledge of contingent truth; perhaps we know a priori that the future will resemble the past.

Perhaps a way to think together all the members of a set is to attend to a certain property and then consider all the things that have that property: e.g., all the natural numbers. Then many infinite sets are sets that could have been collected by human beings; but not nearly all--not, e.g., arbitrary collections of real numbers. (axiom of choice)

Consider propositions: the things that are true or false, that are capable of being believed, and that stand in logical relations to one another. They also have another property: aboutness or intentionality. Propositions represent reality or some part of it as being thus and so. This crucially connected with their being true or false. Many have thought it incredible that propositions should exist apart from the activity of minds. How could they just be there, if never thought of? (Frege, that alleged arch-Platonist, referred to propositions as gedanken, connected with intentionality.) Representing things as being thus and so, being about something or other--this seems to be a property or activity of minds or perhaps thoughts . It is extremely tempting to think of propositions as ontologically dependent upon mental or intellectual activity in such a way that either they just are thoughts, or else at any rate couldn't exist if not thought of. (According to the idealistic tradition beginning with Kant, propositions are essentially judgments.) But if we are thinking of human thinkers, then there are far to many propositions: at least, for example, one for every real number that is distinct from the Taj Mahal. On the other hand, if they were divine thoughts, no problem here. So perhaps we should think of propositions as divine thoughts. Then in our thinking we would literally be thinking God's thoughts after him.

How could there be truths totally independent of minds or persons?... How could the things that are in fact true or false—propositions, let’s say—exist in serene and majestic independence of persons and their means of apprehension? How could there be propositions no one has ever so much as grasped or thought of?

How could there be truths totally independent of minds or persons?... How could the things that are in fact true or false—propositions, let’s say—exist in serene and majestic independence of persons and their means of apprehension? How could there be propositions no one has ever so much as grasped or thought of?...Even if there were no human intellects, there could be truths because of their relation to the divine intellect. But if, per impossible, there were no intellects at all, but things continued to exist, then there would be no such reality as truth. The thesis, then, is that truth cannot be independent of noetic activity on the part of persons. The antithesis is that it must be independent of our noetic activity. And the synthesis is that truth is independent of our intellectual activity but not of God's.

faith is the belief in the great things of the gospel that results from the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit.

This argument is like those arguments that start from the premise that God, if he created the world, he would have created the best world he could have; and they go on to add that for every world God could have created (weakly actualized, say) there is an even better world he could have created or weakly actualized; therefore, they conclude, he would have weakly actualized any world at all, and the actual world has not been weakly actualized by God. Again, there seems no reason to believe the first premise. If there were only finitely many worlds among which God was obliged to choose, the perhaps he would have been obliged somehow, to choose the best (although even this is at best dubious). But if there is no best world at all among those he could have chosen (if for every world he could have chosen, there is a better world he could have chosen), why think a world failing to be the best is sufficient for God's being unable to actualize it? Suppose a man had the benefit of immortality and had a bottle of wine that would improve every day, no matter now long he waits to drink it. Would he be rationally obligated never to drink it, on the ground that for any time he might be tempted to, it would be better yet the next day? Suppose a donkey were stranded exactly midway between two bales of hay: would it be rationally obliged to stay there and starve to death because there is no more reason to move the one bale than the other?

God could guide the course of evolutionary history by causing the right mutations to arise at the right time and preserving the forms of life that lead to the results he intends.