This entry focuses on two topics, evidentialism and disagreement. Theyare related because one reaction to the latter could be return to theformer. Both are general epistemological topics but seem especiallypertinent to religion, which not merely provides examples butintroduces further considerations: privacy, problematic expertise,moral implications, thesensus divinitatis, religiousexperience, the idea of faith as gift and faith as commitment.

Evidentialism is the initially plausible position that a belief isjustified only if “it is proportioned to the evidence”.For example, suppose a local weather forecaster has noticed that awetter than average Winter has been followed in 85% of cases by ahotter than average Summer. Then, assuming for simplicity that therecords are reliable, the forecaster is justified in believing withless than full confidence that this Winter, which is wetter thanaverage, will be followed by a hotter than average Summer. Butevidentialism implies that it would not be justified to have fullbelief, that is belief with 100% confidence. Again, consider someonewho has ahunch that this Summer will be hotter than averagebut cannot justify that hunch further. Hunches are not consideredevidence, so the belief is not considered justified. If, hunches aboutthe weather have mostly turned out correct then the belief would beconsidered justified. For although hunches are not consideredevidence, memories about them are, as are the observations thatcorroborated past hunches.

Evidentialism implies that full religious belief is justified only ifthere is conclusive evidence for it. It follows that if the argumentsfor there being a God, including any arguments from religiousexperience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified inhaving a full belief that there is a God. And the same holds for otherreligious beliefs, such as the belief that God is not just good in autilitarian fashion but loving, or the belief that there is anafterlife. Likewise it would be unjustified to believe even with lessthan full confidence that, say, Krishna is divine or that Mohammed isthe last and most authoritative of the prophets, unless a good casecan be made for these claims from the evidence.

Evidentialism, then, sets rather high standards for justification,standards that the majority do not, it would seem, meet when it comesto religious beliefs, where many rely on “faith”, which ismore like the hunch about the weather than the argument from pastclimate records. Many others take some body of scripture, such as theBible or the Koran as of special authority, contrary to theevidentialist treatment of these as just like any other books makingvarious claims. Are these standards too high?

This century has seen a turn in the debate, with emphasis on theimplications of disagreement, “How can sincere intelligentpeople disagree? Should you not, therefore, suspend judgement?”Unless, that is, your belief meets evidentialist standard but notthose of the ones with whom you disagree.

• 1. Simplifications
• 2. The Rejection of Enlightenment Evidentialism
• 3. Evidentialism Defended
• 4. Natural theology
• 5. The Relevance of Newman
• 6. Fideism
• 7. Religious Experience, Revelation and Tradition
• 8. Religious Disagreement
• 9. Concluding Remark
• Bibliography
  • Works Cited
  • Other Important Works
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Simplifications

Epistemology is confusing because there are several sorts of items tobe evaluated and several sorts of evaluation. Since the topic of thisarticle is the epistemology of religion not general epistemology itwill be assumed that what is being evaluated is something related tofaith, namely individual religious beliefs, and that the way ofevaluating religious beliefs is as justified or unjustified.

This entry, therefore, concentrates on questions such as, “Is itjustified for Fatima to believe in God?”, “Is it justifiedfor Richard to believe in the Trinity?”, or “Is itjustified for Ramanujan to believe that Krishna is a human incarnationof the divine?” It ignores such questions as whether thesebeliefs count as knowledge or whether these beliefs are scientific. Italso ignores disputes between coherence theorists and foundationalistsand disputes over whether belief is voluntary. Although these havesome implications for the epistemology of religion they are primarilytopics in general epistemology.

Although the topic is religious belief the same questions can be askedabout faith in the absence of belief, where the standards might bemore lax. For example Schellenberg (2009) has argued that it is notjustified to believe in a personal God, not justified to have faith ina personal God , not justified even to believe in something ultimatebut it is justified to have a religious attitude of faith in somethingultimate. Finally, and more controversially, this entry concentrateson Western epistemology of religion, which is not, however, the sameas the epistemology of Western religion. Note, though, thatepistemological disputes between Hindu and Buddhist philosophers overa thousand years ago are much the same as those considered here.

2. The Rejection of Enlightenment Evidentialism

Most contemporary epistemology of religion may be calledpostmodern in the sense of being a reaction to the Enlightenment, inparticular to the thesis of thehegemony of evidentialism.(Compare Vanhoozer 2003.) Hegemony is discussed below, but firstconsider evidentialism. This is the initially plausible position thata belief is justified only if “it is proportioned to theevidence”. Here several sorts of evidence are allowed. Oneconsists of beliefs in that which is “evident to thesenses”, that is, beliefs directly due to sense-experience.Another sort of evidence is that which is “self-evident”,that is, obvious once you think about it. Evidence may also includethe beliefs directly due to memory and introspection. Again moralconvictions might count as evidence, even if not treated asself-evident. But in order to state the sort of evidentialismcharacteristic of Enlightenment thought, it is stipulated that nobeliefs asserting the content of religious or mystical experiencescount as evidence. For example, if Fatima had an experience that shewould describe as of the presence of God she should not treat Godspresence to her as a piece of evidence. That does not prevent theclaim that someone has had a religious experience with a certaincontent from counting as evidence. For example, the fact that Fatimahad an experience as if of God’s presence would be a piece ofevidence. Likewise the fact that various people report miracles countsas evidence.

Evidentialism implies that no full religious belief (i.e. a religiousbelief held with full confidence) is justified unless there isconclusive evidence for it, or it is self-evident. The content ofreligious experience has been stipulated not to count as evidence.Even if, as Descartes held, the existence of God is self-evident,beliefs such as Richard’s in the Trinity and Ramanujan’sin the divinity of Krishna are not. So the only available evidence forthese beliefs would seem to be non-religious premises, from which thereligious beliefs are inferred. Therefore, the only way of decidingwhether the religious beliefs are justified would be to examinevarious arguments with the non-religious beliefs as premises and thereligious beliefs as conclusions.

According to evidentialism it follows that if the arguments for therebeing a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are atbest probable ones, and if, as most hold, God’s existence is notself-evident then no one would be justified in having full belief thatthere is a God. And the same holds for other religious beliefs.Likewise, it would not be justified to believe even partially (i.e.with less than full confidence) if there is not a balance of evidencefor belief.

In fact it seems that many religious believers combine full beliefwith “doubts” in the sense of some reasons for doubting,or they combine partial belief with what they take to be weightyreasons for disbelief. According to evidentialism this is notjustified. Other believers consider that, on reflection, they havelittle reason for doubting but that they have almost no positiveevidence for their religious beliefs. According to evidentialism thistoo is unjustified. This raises the question, how can we adjudicatebetween an epistemological thesis which might otherwise be believedand a religious belief which that thesis implies is unjustified? TheEnlightenment assumed two related, hegemony theses, those ofepistemology and of evidentialism. The hegemony of epistemology statesthat (a) human beings can discover the correct epistemology inisolation from discovering actual human tendencies to form beliefs,and so (b) there is an overriding reason to use the correctepistemology (once discovered) to correct the above-mentionedtendencies. The hegemony of evidentialism adds to the hegemony ofepistemology the further thesis that (c) evidentialism is the correctepistemology. If, according to evidentialism, full or even partialreligious beliefs are unjustified, then, given the hegemony ofevidentialism there is an overriding reason to reject those beliefs.Perhaps the clearest exponent of this position is Clifford whose useof moral vocabulary conveys well the overriding character of thereasons epistemology is said to provide. His position is summed up inthe famous quotation: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and foranyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence”(Clifford 1879: 186).

At the other extreme from Clifford is the position offideism, namely, that if an epistemological theory such asevidentialism conflicts with the holding of religious beliefs thenthat is so much the worse for the epistemological theory.

The rejection of the hegemony of epistemology is quite compatible withholding a hegemony thesis for a fragment of epistemology. Such afragment might, for instance, contain the principle ofself-referential consistency, relied upon by Plantinga (1983: 60).This states that it is not justified to have a belief according towhich that belief is itself not justified. Consider, for instance, theextreme case of the person who believes that no belief is justifiedunless it can be proven from premises everyone agrees upon.

Postmodernism implies more than being post modern in the above sense.For it is the rejection of the hegemony of even a fragment ofepistemology. That might seem agreeable to fideists. Postmodernismtends, however, to trivialize fideism by obliterating any contrastbetween faith in divine revelation and trust in human capacities todiscover the truth. (For a discussion of fideism and postmodernism seeStiver 2003.)

Much contemporary epistemology of religion seeks to avoid the extremesboth of the Enlightenment thesis of the hegemony of evidentialism andof fideism. It is thus post modern without necessarily beingpostmodernist. Call the injunction to avoid these extremes theproblematic of contemporary epistemology of religion.

3. Evidentialism Defended

One response to the problematic is to separate evidentialism from thehegemony of epistemology. Evidentialism may then be defended by notinghow we implicitly rely upon evidentialist principles in many differentareas of enquiry, or by noting which principles generalise variousparticular examples of justified and unjustified reasoning. Such adefence of evidentialism is part of the project of some contemporaryphilosophers who seek to attack theism in favour of agnosticism and/oratheism. This defence may well be implicit in Flew’s famous“The Presumption of Atheism” (1972). It is more explicitin Scriven’sPrimary Philosophy (1966, ch 4). Scrivenand Flew are relying on the Ockhamist principle that, in the absenceof evidence for the existence of things of kindX, belief inXs is not reasonable. This they can defend by means ofexamples in which non-Ockhamist thinking is judged not to bejustified. So even if the whole of evidentialism is not defended, theOckhamist fragment of it may be.

Not surprisingly the reliance of non-theist philosophers onevidentialism has been criticised. First there is an ad hominem.Shalkowski (1989) has pointed out that these defenders ofevidentialism tend in fact to be atheists not agnostics, yet a carefulexamination, he says, of the examples used to support Ockham’sRazor show that either they are ones in which there is independentevidence for denying the existence ofXs or ones in whichsuspense of judgement seems to be the appropriate response, notdenial. This shows critics of religious belief are not intellectualsuperiors correcting the mistakes of their inferiors, butdisputants.

Another criticism is Plantinga’s claim that evidentialism isself-referentially inconsistent for there is no evidence forevidentialism (Plantinga 1983: 60). This might be met in either of twoways. First, it could be said that all that is being defended is theOckhamist fragment of evidentialism and that this is not itselfvulnerable to Ockham’s Razor. Or it could be argued thatderiving an epistemology from a wide range of examples is evidence forit. To be sure this is far from conclusive evidence. But even a lessthan full belief in an epistemological thesis which showed theism tobe unjustified would be damaging. This may be illustrated using anexample with artificial numerical precision: 80% confidence in anepistemology which showed that no degree of belief in theism greaterthan 60% was justified is incompatible with a degree of belief intheism greater than 68%. The person in question could have a degree ofbelief of in the conjunction of theism and the (80% likely)epistemology of no greater than 48% (80% of 60%) and a degree ofbelief in the conjunction of theism and the denial of thatepistemology of no greater than 20% (since that epistemology has aprobability of 80%).

4. Natural theology

Theistic philosophers may grant evidentialism and even grant itshegemony, but defend their religious convictions by providing the casewhich evidentialists demand. Here the details of the arguments are notwithin the scope of an article on epistemology. What is of interest isthekind of argument put forward. For a start there is theproject ofdemonstrating God’s existence. (See Craig1979, Braine 1988, Miller 1991.) To show the justifiability of fullbelief that there is a God it is sufficient (a) to have a deductivelyvalid argument from premises which are themselves justifiably heldwith full belief unless defeated by an objection and (b) to haveconsidered and defeated all available objections to either thepremises, the conclusion or any intermediate steps. Some of thepremises of these arguments are said to be self-evident, that is,obvious once you think about it. (E.g., the denial of the explanatorypower of an infinite causal regress, or the principle that theexistence of any composite thing needs to be explained). And thatconnects with the problem of disagreement: Does somethings beingself-evident to you justify your full belief in it even if you know ofthose of equal or greater intellectual ability to whom it is notself-evident? The affirmative answer is tenable provided wedistinguish genuine self-evidence from plausible intuition.

Many natural theologians have, however, abandoned the search fordemonstrative arguments, appealing instead to ones which are probable,either in the sense of having weight but being inconclusive or in thesense of having a mathematical probability assigned to them. Notablein this regard are Mitchell’s cumulative argument (Mitchell1973) and Swinburne’s Bayesian reliance on probability(Swinburne 1979). In a popular exposition of his argument Swinburneappeals instead to an inference to the best explanation (Swinburne1995; see also Forrest 1996, 2025). While there are differences ofapproach, the common theme is that there is evidence for theism butevidence of a probable rather than a conclusive kind, justifyingbelief but not full belief.

5. The Relevance of Newman

Although pre-dating the current debate, Newman’s rejection ofLocke’s and Paley’s evidentialism is relevant to theproblematic of contemporary epistemology of religion. First he quiteclearly rejected the hegemony of epistemology. His procedure was toexamine how in fact people made up their minds on non-religious issuesand argue that by the same standards religious beliefs were justified.As a result he qualified evidentialism by insisting that animplicit andcumulative argument could lead tojustified certainty. (See Mitchell 1990.)

Newman’s position has two interpretations. One, which differslittle from Swinburne’s probabilistic approach to naturaltheology, asserts that the consilience of a number of independentpieces of probable reasoning can result in a probability so high as tobe negligibly different from certainty. If, to use an example Newmanwould not have liked, Aquinas’s five ways were independent andeach had probability 75% then taken together their probability isabout 99.9%. One difficulty with this interpretation is that even ahighly probable argument differs from a demonstration in that theformer is vulnerable to probabilistic counter-arguments. Thus aprobabilistic version of the Argument from Evil might subsequentlyreduce the probability from 99.9% down to 75% again.

The other interpretation of Newman’s position is to say thatevidentialism falsely presupposes that there are fine gradations on ascale from full belief through partial belief to partial disbelief tofull disbelief. Newman claims that human beings are not like that whenit comes to those beliefs which form part of religious faith. In suchcases the only available states are those of full belief and fulldisbelief or, perhaps, full belief, and lack of full belief. Of coursesomeone can believe that theism has a probability between 90% and 60%,say, but that could be interpreted as believing that relative to theevidence theism has a probability between 90% and 60%, which, in turn,is a comment on the strength of the case for theism not the expressionof a merely partial belief.

If Newman is right in this regard then evidentialism is slightlywrong. Instead of requiring belief to be proportioned to the evidence,full belief is justified if the case for it holds “on thebalance of probabilities”. Hence a natural theology consistingof merely probable arguments, such as Swinburne’s, can stillshow full religious belief to be justified.

Aquino (2012), however, provides a more nuanced reading of Newman,advocating an ïntegrated theoretical and practical wisdom as thejustification for non-inferential beliefs.

6. Fideism

Another reaction to the problematic is religious fideism, the thesisthat religious faith is an exception to ordinary epistemologicalconstraints, perhaps because the believers think of themselves aschosen by God with their faith as a gift. That version merely shiftsthe epistemological problem, although Kierkegaard’s position(1983) is more sophisticated, as is Wittgensteinian fideism (Phillips1992). This asserts thesis that there are various different“language games”, and that while it is appropriate to askquestions about justification within a language game it is a mistaketo ask about the justification of “playing” the game inquestion. In this way epistemology is relativised to language games,themselves related to forms of life, and the one used for assessingreligious claims is less stringent than evidentialism. Here thereseems to be both an autonomy thesis and an incommensurability thesis.The autonomy thesis tells us that religious utterances are only to bejudged as justified or otherwise by the standards implicit in thereligious form of life, and this may be further restricted toChristianity or Hinduism, or any other religion (Malcolm 1992). Theincommensurability thesis tells us that religious utterances areunlike scientific or metaphysical claims and so we are confusingdifferent uses of language if we judge religious utterances by thestandards of science or metaphysics (Phillips 1992). Stress on theautonomy thesis brings Wittgensteinian fideism close to the fideism ofmany religious conservatives, but stress on the incommensurabilitythesis brings it close to the extreme liberal position of Braithwaite(1955), namely that religion is about attitudes not facts, whichwould, of course, be rejected by religious conservatives.

Perhaps the most obvious criticism of Wittgensteinian fideism is thateven if the underlying theory of forms of life and language games isgranted, it is an historical fact, itself justified by the criteria ofthe “game” of history, that the tradition to which themajority of Jews, Christians and Muslims belong to is a form of lifewith heavy metaphysical commitments, and in which such utterances as“There is a God” are intended as much like “There isa star ten times more massive than the Sun” as like “Thereis hope”. So Wittgensteinian fideism is only appropriate forsuch religions as Zen Buddhism and for some, relatively recent,liberal strands of Judaism and Christianity which have rejected thetraditional metaphysical commitment (as in Cupitt 1984).

The Wittgensteinian position could be modified to allow a metaphysical“language game” with its own criteria for justificationetc, and in which natural theology should be pursued. Then theJudeo-Christian-Islamic “language game” would be part ofthis larger, autonomous metaphysical “language game”. Thatmodified account would cohere with the historical fact of themetaphysical commitment of that religious tradition. In that case,though, it would seem that, not just the Judeo-Christian-Islamic“language game”, but all serious intellectual enquiryshould also be treated as parts of the one “game”, withone set of rules. Thus Wittgensteinian fideism would have beenqualified out of existence.

Even if you reject Wittgensteinian fideism you might still take alesson from it. For it must surely be granted that religiousutterances are not made in a purely intellectual way. Theirentanglement with commitment to a way of life and their emotionalcharge might help to explain the fact, if it is one, that those whotake religion seriously, whether believers or not, do not in fact havea continuous range of degrees of confidence but operate instead withfull belief or full disbelief. For, normally, emotionally chargedbeliefs are either full on or full off, and in abnormal cases tend tobe divided rather than partial. Thus, confronted with conflictingevidence about whether your affection is reciprocated you are far lesslikely to suspend judgement than to oscillate between full belief andfull disbelief. Likewise it seems more normal to oscillate betweenfull belief in God in moments of crisis and full disbelief when thingsgo well than to suspend judgement at all times. This ties in with theNewmanian modification of evidentialism, mentioned above.

Recently, Pritchard (2017) has distinguished religious fideism fromquasifideism, which Mackie would have called a“companions in guilt” thesis (1977:39), that accepts afideist position but without any religious exceptionalism. He baseshis epistemology on Wittgenstein’s idea of a “hingecommitment”, an arational presupposition of rational belief. Amore restricted quasi-fidesim is advoated by Bishop (2007) in hisdefense of Jamesian “passional choices” in situations of“evidential ambiguity” and by Forrest (2019) who defendscommitment in the face of intellectual dilemmas.

Reformed epistemologists, such as Wolterstorff (1976) and Plantinga(1983) reject evidentialism , arguing that beliefs arewarranted without Enlightenment-approved evidence providedthey are (a) grounded, and (b) defended against known objections. Suchbeliefs may then themselves be used as evidence for other beliefs.What grounding amounts is, however, contestable: Plantinga proposesthatS’s belief thatp is grounded in eventE if (a) in the circumstancesE causedS tobelieve thatp, and (b)S’s coming to believethatp was a case of proper functioning (Plantinga 1993b). Itshould be noted that the term “warrant” used elsewhere inphilosophy as a synonym for “justified” (as in“warranted assertibility”) is used by Plantinga to meanthat which has to be adjoined to a true belief for it to be knowledge.(See Plantinga 1993a). Accordingly the most pressing criticism ofPlantinga’s later position is that it largely ignores thequestion of justification, or reasonableness which, as Swinburneexplicates it (Swinburne 2001) amounts to whether the religiousbeliefs are probable relative to total evidence. Here it should benoted however that this requirement does not imply that we are awareof our evidence. Moreover, the evidence can be of a rather privatekind that is hard to articulate even for academic philosopher, and thereasoning from that evidence implicit. (See van Inwagen 1994). Itcould happen then religious believers are mistaken in thinkingreligious experience grounds their beliefs, because those beliefs,based on implicit reasoning from evidence they cannot articulate, arepart of the cause of the experience rather than the other way round(Katz 1978).

Reformed Epistemology results in a stand-off between theists andde-bunkers of religion: if atheist naturalism is correct then theismwould not be the result of proper functioning, but if God exist it is.As Moon has pointed out, however, we may draw the conclusion that thede-bunker has failed to undercut religious belief (2016:21–22).

While the details of grounding might be controversial it may beassumed that reformed epistemologists assert that ordinary religiousexperiences of awe, gratitude, contrition, etc., ground the beliefsimplied by the believer’s sincere reports of such experiences,provided they can be said to cause those beliefs. Such groundedbeliefs are warranted provided they can be defended against knownobjections. They can then be used as evidence for further religiousbeliefs. Thus if religious experience grounds the belief that God hasforgiven you for doing what is wrong to other humans beings, then thatis evidence for a personal God who acts in a morally upright fashion.For, it can be argued, only such a God would find anything to forgivein the wrongs you do to your fellow human beings.

Jerome Gellman (1992, 2017) draws our attention to the experience ofgodlessness. This is occasioned by, but not inferred from, the evilsthat surround us. If Reformed Epistemology is correct this would seemto ground atheism in the same way that the experience of forgivenesscan ground theism.

One difference between reformed epistemology and fideism is that theformer requires defence against known objections, whereas the lattermight dismiss such objections as either irrelevant or, worse,temptations. Included in the objections are not only those such as theArgument from Evil that seek to rebut, but arguments from sociologyand, more recently, cognitive science that seek to undermine byproposing a naturalistic cause for basic religious beliefs. Forinstance, Barrett (2004) posits a HADD (hyperactive/hypersensitiveagency detection device), suggesting that a sensitive agency detectiondevice functions properly if the goal is survival but ishypersensitive if the goal is truth. This hypersensitivity thenexplains the human tendency towards supernatural beliefs, underminingthe proper basicality of those beliefs. Clark and Barrett (2011)suggest that this hypersensitivity could itself be part of the divineplan. An alternative, Bayesian, theistic response would be that HADDexaggerates a properly basic probability for theism that is neitherhigh nor too low prior to further evidence. This justifies a partevidentialist, part reformed, program of assessing theall-things-considered probability resulting from the effect ofevidence on this basic probability.

7. Religious Experience, Revelation and Tradition

Reformed epistemology might be thought of as a modification ofevidentialism in which the permissible kinds of evidence are expanded.Notable in this context is Alston’s work arguing that certainkinds of religious experience can be assimilated to perception (1991).The difference is that religious experience is more private, personal,emotionally charged and variable than paradigmatic cases ofperception. Consider a world in which the majority are tone deaf andthe minority who are not are divided between lovers of just one ofGregorian chant, Wagner or Ravi Shankar,and who deride the others asmere noise. Perception has privileged epistemic status. Hence, it isnot just a verbal dispute as to whether religious experience isperception or, because God is not the right sort of thing to beperceived, merely somewhat analogous to perception. (See So 2015;Netland 2022; Perrine 2025). Moser’s treatment is not open tothat objection. For he draws our attention to the experience of beingguided about how we are to live and in our search for meaning(2019).

The difference between reformed epistemology and Enlightenment-styleevidentialism is also shown by a consideration of revelation andinspiration. An evidentialist will consider arguments from the premissthat it is said such and such was revealed or the premiss that so andso claimed to be inspired by God, but a reformed epistemologist mightallow as warranted those religious beliefs grounded in the event ofrevelation or inspiration. Thus Mavrodes has argued that any beliefdue to a genuine revelation is warranted, and has discussed severalmodes of revelation (Mavrodes 1988). Zagzebski argues that this wouldhave the unacceptable consequence that warrant, and hence knowledge,becomestotally inaccessible either to the person concernedor the community (Zagzebski 1993a: 204–205). For instance,Mavrodes would probably not consider Ramanujan’s belief thatKrishna is divine as warranted, but even if Mavrodes is correctRamanujan would have no access to this truth about the unwarrantedcharacter of his own beliefs. A similar criticism could be made ofbeliefs grounded in religious experience. In both cases, the questionof whether a belief is genuinely grounded in religious experience oris genuinely grounded in inspiration is one that several religioustraditions have paid attention to, with such theories as that ofdiscernment of spirits (Murphy, 1990, ch 5).

In what may be called “counter-reformed epistemology” itcould be allowed that a belief can be warranted if grounded in areligious tradition. (See Zagzebski 1993b.) Such a belief would haveto be caused in the right sort of way by the right sort of tradition.As in the previous cases we might note that such grounding should bepartially accessible to the believer. Rather little work has been doneon this extension of reformed epistemology, but the social dimensionof warrant has been noted (Zagzebski 1993a).

More recently Plantinga (2000) has defended a rather different accountof divine inspiration, which he calls the Aquinas/Calvin model. Thisrelies upon the doctrine of “original sin” claiming thatmost humans suffer from a cognitive-affective disorder, but that as aresult of Redemption the Holy Spirit heals us so that we are able tofunction properly, and come to believe the Christian revelation in animmediate, non-inferential manner. In this way the Aquinas/Calvinmodel supports the Christian metaphysics, which in turn supports theAquinas/Calvin model. Presumably it will be granted that theprobability,y, of the Aquinas/Calvin model given Christianmetaphysics is significantly less than 100%, because there are rivalChristian models. As a consequence, the probability of Christianmetaphysics is less thanx/(1−y) wherex is the probability of Christian metaphysics given thefalsity of the Aquinas/Calvin model. Hence Plantinga’s proposalcan succeed only if eithery is near 100% orx isnot too small.

8. Religious Disagreement

How can sincere intelligent people disagree? Should not bothdisputants suspend judgement? To be sure, sometimes those who disagreewith you are your intellectual inferiors in some respect. Consider,for instance, someone who insisted that π was precisely 22/7. Thosewho know of and can follow a proof that π is an irrational numbermay justifiably dismiss that person as a mathematical ignoramus. Thecase of interest, however, is that in which no such inferiority is onpublic display. This is referred to as a situation ofpublicepistemic parity. Feldman (2007) criticizes the relativistsolution to the problem, namely that there is not always a uniquereasonable doxastic attitude to a given proposition in a givenepistemic situation. He also rejects unargued dismissal, and reachesthe conclusion that in situations of epistemic parity disputantsshould suspend judgement. Many, however, agree with van Inwagen who,in his autobiographical “Quam Delicta” (1994), impliesthat it is justified for both parties in a dispute to appeal to whatis privately available to them. Such private assertions of epistemicsuperiority are often expressed by saying that someone “justdoes not get the point”. Typically, not getting the pointrequires a cognitive blind-spot. It is not that you know there is apoint you cannot grasp, which reasonably requires some deference tothose who claim to grasp it; you fail to see there is a point. Asomewhat different response to Feldman is that of Forrest (2019), whoargues that when the cases for and against a thesis are of differentkinds we may sometimescommit to the thesis, becausenon-comparability is not the same as epistemic parity.

Even when not restricted to religion the problem is often motivated byreligious disagreement. See for instance Schellenberg’s moderateskepticism (2007), Pittard’s reply (2019), and Buchak’sargument that sometimes beliefs are rationally maintained in the faceof disagreements that would have prevented any initial rationalacceptance (2021).

I call the thesis that the general case for suspense of judgementfails to apply to religious faithreligious exceptionalism.First, suppose we reject it. Then, because conciliationists modifytheir own initial beliefs when they encounter peers who disagree, theyshould re-consider the widely rejectedconsensus gentiumargument for theism (and maybe for an afterlife), perhaps like Netland(2020: 240–41) restricting it to the experience of the divine.Concilationists will, however, grant greater weight to those, dead oralive, whom they regard as experts. Presumably the experts on religionare not philosophers, among whom we may include scientists whenphilosophizing. For their expertise is only in laying out the variousarguments as clearly as they can, which is a preliminary to theassessment of those who disagree. The only possible religious expertsare the authorities that represent a tradition or the authors ofscriptures held to be authoritative. If we disagree about who ifanyone is a religious expert appeal to expertise is circular. (ComparePittard 2021.)

One reason for religious exceptionalism might be the appeal to divineinspiration, as a source of private epistemic superiority, as inPlantinga’s “Aquinas/Calvin” model (Plantinga 2000).It is hard to see, though, how this could apply to disputes betweentwo religions that both rely on the role of divine inspiration. Morerecent discussion is contained in the anthologyReligiousDisagreement and Pluralism (Benton and Kvanvig (2021): Callahan(Ch 2) and Blanchard and Paul (Ch 6) argue that the embedding ofreligious beliefs in our understanding of ourselves and the worldaround us is a reason for not deferring to others (Compare Moser2019); Goldberg (Ch 3) points out that even if, accepting ReformedEpistemology as the general theory of justified or warranted belief,we permit unargued grounds for religious faith, these might bedefeated by disagreement;King (Ch 7) warns against theintellectual arrogance seemingly displayed by apologists; Domandy (Ch10) implicitly replies to King that apologists display loyalty notarrogance, but argues that this loyalty is often misplaced; Pittard(Ch 8) argues that conciliationism is circular unless we can recognizepeers, and I would add experts, independently of what we believe onthe topic in question; Kvanvig (Ch 9) argues that faith is notprimarily intellectual (Again compare Moser 2019); Finally, Choi (Ch11) argues against reliance on majority opinion in religiousdisputes.

9. Concluding Remark

Recent epistemology of religion may be interpreted as the rejection ofthe hegemony of epistemology in favor of the Just More Argumentthesis, namely that any attempt impartially to judge philosophicaldebate on a contested topic merely results in further contributions tothat debate.

Bibliography

Works Cited

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Other Important Works

• Audi, Robert and William J. Wainwright (eds.), 1986,Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment, Ithaca:Cornell University Press.
• Dougherty, Trent and Tweedt, Chris, 2015, “ReligiousEpistemology”,Philosophy Compass, 10:547–59.
• Feldman, Richard and Ted Warfield (eds.), 2011,Disagreement, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Geivett, Douglas R. and Brendan Sweetman (eds.), 1992,Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
• Howard-Snyder, Daniel (ed.), 1996,The Evidential Argumentfrom Evil, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Plantinga, Alvin, 1998, “Religion and Epistemology” inE. Craig (ed.),Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Volume8), London: Routledge.

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