In May, 2020, I participated in a debate on this question: Are there sufficient reasons to believe in God? My debate partner Sam and I divvied up the labor as follows: I argued that there are sufficient ‘reasons’ (i.e. properly basic grounds) to believe in God. Meanwhile, Sam argued that there are sufficient non-basic reasons […]
foundationalism
Why I Don’t Talk About the Sensus Divinitatis When I Talk About Belief in God
Alvin Plantinga famously appeals to the existence of a sensus divinitatis, a “sense of the divine”, as the cognitive faculty by which one can form justified and rational belief in God apart from evidence. In this video, I explain why I prefer to argue for properly basic belief in God by way of the more […]
God, Morality, and Knowledge: A Conversation with Eric Murphy
This evening, I appeared on the personal YouTube channel for Eric Murphy of “Talk Heathen.” Though the original intent was to talk about moral arguments for God’s existence, we spent the bulk of our time talking about epistemology generally and moderate foundationalism in particular. But hey, that’s fine with me! It was a very enjoyable […]
Justin Schieber’s objections to the proper basicality of theism considered
In my March 8th debate with Justin Schieber I offered three arguments, the first of which was concerned with defending the claim that belief in God can be properly basic. In his rebuttal Justin offered a couple arguments. I’m going to respond briefly to these two arguments here. Universal Sanction Objection Justin’s main rebuttal to my argument […]
67. Justin Schieber on rationality and religious disagreement
On March 7th and 8th of 2015, I had the privilege of taking the stage with atheist debater and broadcaster Justin Schieber for two events, a debate at the University of Alberta and a dialogue at Taylor Seminary. The following morning, March 9th, I drove Justin to the airport in Calgary. The three hour drive provided the rich opportunity for us […]
In defense of rational disagreement
In the discussion thread to “66. Reformed Epistemology: A Conversation with Myron Penner” Mike D objected to Myron Penner’s description of Reformed epistemology because it supported the conclusion that “people who hold starkly antithetical beliefs can both claim to have formed them according to the criteria laid out by Penner.” In other words, two different […]
“Why I Became an Atheist”: A Review (Part 8)
Here begins the eighth installment of my incredibly expanding review of John Loftus’ book Why I Became an Atheist. For part seven click here. In this section I’ve decided to return to some unfinished business on page 44. On this page Loftus endorses a classical foundationalist epistemology. And what is that, exactly? According to foundationalism, […]
“Why I Became an Atheist”: A Review (Part 6)
This is the sixth installment of my meandering review of John Loftus’ book Why I Became an Atheist. For part five click here. In this section I’m going to critique Loftus’ understanding and presentation of Alvin Plantinga’s epistemology in chapter 2. This section begins on page 44. Since I defended Plantinga’s epistemology in my PhD thesis […]
Voodoo and beyond: A response to Tyler Wunder
In this article I offer a response to Tyler Wunder in “A Quick Response to Randal Rauser’s Critique of Universal Sanction (by Tyler Wunder)“. In his quick response Tyler offers two points. In my response I’ll focus on Wunder’s first point since it is, as I see it, the more substantive one. In my original […]
A Second Quick Response to Randal Rauser’s Critique of Universal Sanction (by Tyler Wunder)
Dr. Wunder added some further comments to “Must properly basic beliefs have universal sanction? A reply to James F. Sennett (Part 2)”. Given their length, clarity and quality, I have taken the liberty of adding them here to complement his guest post. It may be a couple days before I respond given the start of the semester tomorrow, […]
A Quick Response to Randal Rauser’s Critique of Universal Sanction (by Tyler Wunder)
In this guest post philosopher Tyler Wunder offers a response to my article “Must properly basic beliefs have universal sanction? A reply to James F. Sennett Part 2“. Dr. Wunder graduated with a PhD in philosophy from Boston University in 2007 with a dissertation on “Warrant and Religious Epistemology: A Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Warrant […]
Must properly basic beliefs have universal sanction? A reply to James F. Sennett (Part 2)
In “Must properly basic beliefs have universal sanction? A Reply to James F. Sennett (Part 1)” I introduced James F. Sennett’s paper “Direct Justification and Universal Sanction” and stated my intention to offer a critique of it. This is that (long overdue) critique. Let me state at the outset that I share a lot of […]
Half-baked evidentialist epistemology
Faithful readers of this blog will probably know that one of my readers, Jeff, has been criticizing my position that testimony can be a properly basic source of justified belief and knowledge (absent defeaters to the truth of the testimony). On Jeff’s view, testimony is always non-basic and is only rationally assented to based on […]
Testimony as properly basic
In my last post I provided a simple way that a person could come to believe “Jesus rose from the dead” in a way that is properly basic. I did so by appealing to a very familiar source of knowledge and rational belief: the testimony of others. Those who are familiar with Alvin Plantinga’s work on this […]
