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| Joshua Cockayne |
Firstly, I’d like thank Anna, Jon and Gary for their insightful comments and for raising some interesting areas to follow up. I will try to respond to these as best as possible.
First, I will respond to the question concerning religious diversity: the worry raised was that my defence of theistic belief would allow us to defend the rationality of incompatible beliefs such as beliefs in Hinduism and Christianity.
First, I will respond to the question concerning religious diversity: the worry raised was that my defence of theistic belief would allow us to defend the rationality of incompatible beliefs such as beliefs in Hinduism and Christianity.
I should clarify that the kinds of experience I had in mind, which provide immediate justification for theistic belief would be experiences of God as a person but not necessarily of the God of Christianity or Islam, for example. The kinds of experience I am interested in are much more basic in nature, such as ‘I am having an experience of a loving God’. This issue should be kept separate from the issue of which religion is closer to the truth, but it is interesting to note that my account will only apply to religions that rely on a personal relationship to God as a person. Admittedly each religion will interpret experience of God in light of their own tradition, but my focus is specifically on theistic belief rather than religious belief in general. In this sense, the kinds of beliefs that are interesting are very basic in nature and my account does not amount to a defence of fully fledged religious belief, only basic theistic belief. My example of Christian religious experience was perhaps misleading, but I merely used this example as it is the tradition with which I am most familiar.
To reply to Anna’s questions concerning whether theistic believers have any propositional beliefs about God; I do not claim that believers only have non-propositional beliefs but rather that belief in God requires experiencing God as a person. I can believe lots of things about God, which are entirely propositional, and these are theistic beliefs. A person can have only propositional theistic beliefs; arguably, an atheist has only propositional theistic beliefs, just negative beliefs. The contrast I attempted to draw was between beliefs about God (which can be entirely propositional) and beliefs in God (which require a non-propositional element), but I do not claim that theistic believers only have non propositional beliefs. In fact, much like when Mary (in Stump’s version of the story) leaves the room for the first time, what she learns is something essentially non-propositional about her mother, but it does not then follow that Mary has no propositional knowledge of her mother. Mary would come to believe that all of the things that she had learnt about her mother whilst in the room are now true of this person that she experiences for the first time. Mary could have beliefs about her mother prior to leaving the room but she could not truly be said to know her mother. Similarly, I claim that belief in God requires experiencing God as a person and not just having certain beliefs about God. Therefore, I think believers are justified in believing in God even without publically demonstrable evidence. However, it does not follow that religious believers have no propositional beliefs.
Secondly, I turn to the worry raised by Anna and Gary as to whether ‘theistic seemings’ can provide justification for belief and whether these are defeated by the possibility of illusion or drug use. In my original post, with reference to James Pryor, I claimed that theistic believers are justified in believing P, iff P seems to be the case and there is no defeating evidence for P. Therefore, to respond to a question that Jon raised, if there are strong arguments against theistic belief which cannot be responded to then these would act as rebutting defeaters to theistic beliefs. The kind of worry raised by Anna or Gary, as I understand it, is that the possibility of illusion or that my experience might be caused by hallucinogenic drugs would function as an undercutting defeater to my belief in God.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on these issues and I apologise for anything I have overlooked.
To reply to Anna’s questions concerning whether theistic believers have any propositional beliefs about God; I do not claim that believers only have non-propositional beliefs but rather that belief in God requires experiencing God as a person. I can believe lots of things about God, which are entirely propositional, and these are theistic beliefs. A person can have only propositional theistic beliefs; arguably, an atheist has only propositional theistic beliefs, just negative beliefs. The contrast I attempted to draw was between beliefs about God (which can be entirely propositional) and beliefs in God (which require a non-propositional element), but I do not claim that theistic believers only have non propositional beliefs. In fact, much like when Mary (in Stump’s version of the story) leaves the room for the first time, what she learns is something essentially non-propositional about her mother, but it does not then follow that Mary has no propositional knowledge of her mother. Mary would come to believe that all of the things that she had learnt about her mother whilst in the room are now true of this person that she experiences for the first time. Mary could have beliefs about her mother prior to leaving the room but she could not truly be said to know her mother. Similarly, I claim that belief in God requires experiencing God as a person and not just having certain beliefs about God. Therefore, I think believers are justified in believing in God even without publically demonstrable evidence. However, it does not follow that religious believers have no propositional beliefs.
Secondly, I turn to the worry raised by Anna and Gary as to whether ‘theistic seemings’ can provide justification for belief and whether these are defeated by the possibility of illusion or drug use. In my original post, with reference to James Pryor, I claimed that theistic believers are justified in believing P, iff P seems to be the case and there is no defeating evidence for P. Therefore, to respond to a question that Jon raised, if there are strong arguments against theistic belief which cannot be responded to then these would act as rebutting defeaters to theistic beliefs. The kind of worry raised by Anna or Gary, as I understand it, is that the possibility of illusion or that my experience might be caused by hallucinogenic drugs would function as an undercutting defeater to my belief in God.
The most promising reply to undercutting defeaters of this kind is to consider how we might respond to the external world sceptic who asks whether our experiences of the world might all be the result of some evil demon. Michael Bergmann suggests that certain higher order seemings about the felt veridicality of perceptual experiences deflect the sceptical hypothesis that we are merely brains in vats (for more detail on this reply, see my post on the Workshop on Defeat and Religious Epistemology). The same can be extended to theistic beliefs; the possibility of illusion does not provide an undercutting defeater for belief so long as the higher order seeming about the veridicality of belief is stronger than my seeming about the possibility of illusion.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on these issues and I apologise for anything I have overlooked.