OBW een paar punten mee op basis van een paar verhalen (lager samengevat)

• relation reality-value (truth-claims, realism / non-realism) and practices
• foundationalism, coherentalism, breath of explanation, simplicity, experience (experience > beliefs OR beliefs > experience?)
• domain of proof(s)? – if so, who has the burden of proof (theist or atheist)? Justification: fideism (no proof needed: conformist or evangelical fideism, exclusivism), evidentialism(Clifford), cumulativism (Mitchell), probabilism (Swinburne), limited-to-language-game (Wittgenstein: justification within the game <> justification of the game), pluralism. Argumentative concepts: necessary (e.g. intentionality, design) and/or contingent (naturalism, evolution, ...)
• rationality-test (e.g. pragmatic arguments [ pragmatic value (benefits) <> truth-value ], theistic and atheistic); intellectual parity of world views?
• exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism (in the face of different religions)
• religion – science (find true and/or empirically adequate theories based on- methodological naturalism, autonomy, incommensurability, ...)
• omniscience, determinism, free will [ cf Origen – recente vertaling van Peri Archoon door Freerk Jan Berghuis (2009), zie origenes.doc ]
• eternity, time, simultaneity
• good and evil, voluntarism ( relation will – what’s good )

Welke mogelijke kenmerken zijn aan te voeren?

• verwijzing (reference with(out) referent, plurality of religious referents, existent or non-existent, ...)
• personal, natural, noumenal (the Sacred (R.Otto), the Real (J.Hick)))
• persoon (wie) >> persoonlijkheids-kenmerken (rechtvaardig, liefdevol, jaloers, wraakzuchtig, ...)
• natuur (wat,het) >> natuurlijkheidskenmerken (het creatieve (en/of destructieve), het ordenende (en/of) chaotische, het ectropische (en/of) entropische, ...)
• free (contingent) or determined (necessary) or determining or ...
• in time or outside time or simultaneous to all times or ...
• good (related to will – voluntarism or related to being or omnipercipience or ...) or bad (problem of evil – if evil necessarely comes out of freedom, is freedom than good or bad? greater good defence...) or beyond good and bad or indifferent or ...

verschil belief (truthclaims > onverdraagzaamheid) en faith (trustclaim > verdraagzaamheid)

belief: op gezag van boven/buiten onkritisch dogma's aanhangen > waarheidsclaims (truthclaims) > onverdraagzaamheid

faith: verlangen/heimwee naar het onmogelijke, onbereikbare, onvoorstelbare (Schleiermacher), numineuzen (Rudolf Otto), een hogere werkelijkheid, iets in jezelf dat 'eeuwig en onveranderlijk is', openheid voor transcententale zaken > vertrouwen als grondhouding (trustclaims) > verbondenheid met anderen

properties of wholes are different from properties of parts

reflexible parts metaphorically project properties of parts onto wholes

Welke relatie(s) [r] zeggen mensen te hebben met [x]?

Welke mogelijk kenmerken van die relatie(s) zijn aan te voeren?

• ervaring van ... (bv in Eite’s quadrant van temperatuur en schikkking)
• betoog over ...
• ... soort ‘werkelijkheid’ van ...
• (ir)rationeel
• intellectueel integer ( of ... )

‘Ik geloof (..)’ – betekenis (semantisch en praktisch) van deze uitdrukking, verschil met bv ‘Ik denk (..)’, ‘Ik vermoed (..)’, ‘Ik weet (..)’

meaningfullness of religious language (RL – ontologically, epistemologically, practically)

• realism ... non-realism
• metaphysical claims (best arguments for e.g. the existence of...)
• positivism: RL is meaningless (1950s, 1960s)
• Wittgenstein vs ‘correspondence theory of truth’ (representation of reality: "God exists" is true if and only if God exists) > meaning in life [ practice ] [ niet één zuivere taal, maar verschillende contextuele taalspelen ] [ from referential meaning > contextual meaning > interactional meaning or > as ‘embedded in’?]
• relation terms – religious reality: 1 univocal (sharing the same sense), 2 equivocal (used in different senses) 3 analogical (sharing an abstraction or structure) [ Aquinas ]
• wordt ‘god’ voor de wereldbeschouwing wat concepten als ‘phlogiston’ (als eigenschap van hitte) en ether (stof waarin electromagnetische straling zich voortplant) nu zijn voor de natuurkunde?
• can non-religious premisses lead to religious beliefs as conclusions? (should everyone agree upon the premisses? cf Plantinga’s selfreferential consistency, 1983)

atheisme:

• de afwezigheid van geloof in één of meerdere goden
• de aanname dat er geen god(en) (kunnen) bestaan

ludiek bord langs de snelwegen in 2009 (Floris van den Berg):

‘Er is waarschijnlijk geen God. Durf zelf te denken en geniet van dit leven!’

Internationaal bekende atheist: Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion, 2006

NL boeken:

Herman Philipse, Atheïstisch manifest, 1995; De onredelijkheid van religie, 2004

(versus HP: G. vd Brink, Er is geen God en Philipse is zijn profeet, 2009 )

discussie Philipse en vdBrink in 2010 :

Philipse: de bijbel bevat te veel onwaarschijnlijkheden om er een moraal aan te ontlenen

vdBrink: als er een objectieve vaststaande moraal is, kan die niet uit evolutie ontstaan (zijn)

Phlipse: voorbeelden uit het OT

vdBrink: ik pleit er ook niet voor om al onze normen uit de bijbel te halen – de objectieve moraal, waarover iedereen het eens is, komt van God

Philipse: bv slavernij – als de (bijbelse?) wetten in de loop van de geschiedenis veranderen, wat is er dan nog tegen een evolutionaire visie op de moraal?

vdBrink: empiricisme leidt tot de opvatting dat God niet bestaat – als je het empiricisme loslaat, kun je legitiem beweren dat God bestaat, ook al kun je hem niet waarnemen.

vdBrink: een norm als gelijkwaardigheid kan nooit evolutionair boven komen drijven

vdBrink: slechte mensen zullen liever atheist dan theist zijn, dan zijn ze immers verlost van de beklemmende gedachte van een komend oordeel [ gesuggereerde implicatie: atheisten zijn slechte(re) mensen ]

[ zo lust ik er nog wel wat: in Zuid-Europa is meer corruptie dan in Noord-Europa. Het percentage atheisten is echter in Noord-Europa groter dan in Zuid-Europa, ergo ... ]

vdBrink: atheistische regimes (Hitler, Stalin, Mao) vermoordden meer mensen dan in 500 jaar christendom. [ klaarblijkelijke kern: een atheistische wereldbeschouwing is moordzuchtiger dan een theistische wereldbeschouwing, echter ... ]

Pascal’s wager-argument – many-gods objection; doxastic voluntarism objection.

reason knows its limits

Is het redelijk om geloofsinhoud tegelijkertijd te beschouwen als ongerijmd en rationeel?

Thought that ‘I’ am or can be connected to ‘the center’ [ of all, of power, of .. ] (modesty and/or hubris?)

No evidence for the survival of species > no evidence for the survival of man.

Fear is a source of lies, existential fear is a source of big lies.

De ‘godhelm’ van Micheal Persinger (neurowetenschapper uit Canada) genereert de ervaring van onmiskenbaar Goddelijke Aanwezigheid. Neuroreductie? Echter het opwekken van een lentegevoel bewijst niet dat ik in de lente wel of niet van de lente genoten heb... (Bert Keizer)

Ger Groot brengt ‘het heilige’ in verband met de grondslagen van onze overtuigingen – dan stoten we al snel op zaken waaraan niet getwijfeld kan en mag worden en die omgeven zijn met de glans van onaantastbaarheid. Bijvoorbeeld de stichtingsmythes van een land of gemeenschap (NL 80-jarige oorlog > WO II als criterium voor zo ongeveer elk moreel en politiek vraagstuk). Het secularisme herhaalt keer op keer ‘Niets is heilig’ (vs tradities of gedachtenloze acceptatie). Echter ook in het beroep op een radicale redelijkheid keert het heilige steeds weer terug, namelijk de redelijkheid zelf als een absoluut, onaantastbaar en ook onweerlegbaar beginpunt. De logica daarvan is dezelfde als die van het ‘heilige taboe’.

Het principiële leerstuk van de vrijheid van meningsuiting miskent dat ook woorden gewelddadig kunnen zijn, zelfs wanneer zij niet direct tot geweld oproepen.

De spot en ontheiliging van het religieuze door het secularisme is niet het grootste probleem van het religieuze ‘kamp’. De secularistische wetenschap berooft de godsdienst van haar vanzelfsprekendheid. Wat blijft er onder de vorsende, kritische en relativerende blik van de wetenschappen nog over van de heiligheid van haar teksten en tradities? GG stelt dat de heiligheid van de teksten niet afhangt van de goddelijk gegeven letterlijkheid ervan. [ OBW er zijn net iets te veel orthodoxe gelovigen die ’t daar niet mee eens zullen zijn... ] GG: wie meent de inzichten van de bilogie, geologie en astronomie naast zich neer te kunnen leggen op grond van een maximale orthodoxie, zal uiteindelijk helemaal niets meer overhouden. Niet het heilige boek is onaanraakbaar, maar wel het mysterie waarnaar dat verwijst, en dat de gelovige ‘het goddelijke’ noemt.

De atheïst staat op even onzekere, ‘heilige’ grond als de gelovige. Het sacrale erkennen als voedingsbodem van de cultuur in plaats van als concurrent. Het ‘heilige’ draagt onze levensvisie en valt niet verder te funderen. Dit is te benaderen met een zeker ontzag, maar ook met een besef van betrekkelijkheid, ironie en humor (‘holy shit’). (Trouw 12.6.2010)

Rudolf Otto ‘Das Heilige’, 1917: datgene wat zowel vrees als fascinatie opwekt

tegenstem: L. Doekes "Der Heilige, Quados und Hagios in der reformierten Theologie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, 1960.

Oliver Sacks, The man who mistook his wife for a hat, 1985

174 The [religious’ visions of Hildegard: dus to hysterical or psychotic ecstasy, the effects of intoxication or an epileptic or ...? Probably migranous manifestations. According to LS Hildegard was indisputable migranous > visual aura’s can be derived from the pictures reconstructing her ‘visions’, e.g. shower of phosphenes transiting the visual fields succeeded by a negative scotoma > interpreted is falling stars of Divine Light, cf the effects of Dostoevski’s ecstatic epileptic aura’s.

cf eliciting an elaborate mental state by electrical stimulation of the seizure-prone points of the cerebral cortex > vivid hallucinations, ‘doubling of the consciousness’ (‘mental diplopia’), vivid memories of a ‘personal physiology’, a physiology of the self’.

Distinguish ‘schematic mode’ (abstract, conceptual, propositional) and ‘narrative mode’ (dramatic, composing and integrating a coherent world of being, music, emotional tone,..). Narrative/symbolic power gives [ or ‘is’ ? ] a sense of the world.

Abstract, categorical, universe – concrete, particular, singular, multiverse. The particular as nature’s road to reality and truth.

204 Don’t pay too much attention to defects. Do not only tests, but observe with a full and sympathetic phenomenological openness – then find mysterious power and depths. E.g. the twins John and Michael didn’t count or calculate, but saw in their memory[scape] numbers, factoring out primes (e.g. 111 matches on the floor as 37,37,37). They also exchanged with pleasure and peace six-figure primes, although they could calculate nothing. OS joined them in this conversation/game, using a book with primes, but J&M overruled him with primes of 11 and 12 figures, which were not in the book of OS... J & M’s numeracy can be seen as ‘iconic’ [ number-contemplators in a numberscape ], hearing the ‘world symphony’ in the form of numbers. cf Mendeleev who saw elements as ‘faces’ > family of faces > system of periodicity. cf our immediate recognition of face (if disturbed: prosopagnosia – lesion in the right occipital cortex [ cf my aura migraine during which started with not being able to read and understand text on the computer screen and evolved to a point that I did not recognize my own face in a mirror ].

Leibniz: music as unconscious mathematics [ mathematics of frequencies ].

Een schooljongen interviewde eens voor zijn schoolkrant de schrijver Gerard Reve. ‘Wat denkt u,’ vroeg hij,’ bestaat God?’ ‘Ach jongen’, zei Reve vriendelijk, ‘bestaan, bestaan, dat heeft God helemaal niet nodig.’

(..)

The philosophical exploration of religious beliefs and practices is evident in the earliest recorded philosophy, east and west. (..) The philosophy of God was simply one component among many interwoven philosophical projects. (..) The first use of the term "philosophy of religion" in English occurs in the 17th century work of Ralph Cudworth. (..)

A significant amount of work on the meaningfulness of religious language was carried out in the medieval period, with major contributions made by Maimonides (1135-1204), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Duns Scotus (1266-1308), and William of Ockham (1285-1347). This work built on the even earlier work on Religious language by Philo (20 BCE-50CE), Clement (150-215) and Origen (185-259) of Alexandria. In the modern era, the greatest concentration on religious language has taken place in response to logical positivism and to the latter work of Wittgenstein (1889-1951). (..)

Logical positivism promoted an empiricist principle of meaning which was deemed lethal for religious belief. (..) A. J. Ayer (1910–89) and others claimed that religious beliefs were meaningless. (..) The field of philosophy of religion in the 1950s and 1960s was largely an intellectual battlefield where the debates centered on whether religious beliefs were meaningful or conceptually absurd.

(..)

With the retreat of positivism in the 1970s, philosophers of religion re-introduced concepts of God, competing views of the sacred, and the like, which were backed by arguments that appealed not to narrow scientific confirmation but to broad considerations of coherence, breadth of explanation, simplicity, religious experience and other factors. (..)

Wittgenstein launched an attack on what has been called the picture theory of meaning, according to which statements may be judged true or false depending upon whether reality matches the picture represented by the belief. This understanding of truth and beliefs—which is similar to the correspondence theory of truth in which the statement "God exists" is true if and only if God exists—seemed to Wittgenstein to be misguided. It gives rise to insoluble philosophical problems and it misses the whole point of having religious beliefs, which is that their meaning is to be found in the life in which they are employed. By shifting attention away from the referential meaning of words to their use [ referential meaning > contextual meaning > interactional meaning ] , Wittgenstein promoted the idea that we should attend to what he called forms of life. As this move was applied to religious matters, a number of philosophers either denied or at least played down the extent to which religious forms of life involve metaphysical claims. (..) , Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume (..) were interested in the best possible arguments for and against God's existence. (..) non-realism (..) it has some credibility based on the sociology of religion. In the practice of religion it appears that we have something more (one might well say something deeper) than "mere" metaphysical theorizing. (..)

A more substantial reply to Wittgensteinian non-realism has been the charge that it does not preserve but instead undermines the very intelligibility of religious practice. (..) While Malcolm has proposed that it makes sense to believe in God without believing that God exists, others have submitted that lack of belief that God exists makes belief in God meaningless. (..)

While non-realism might seem to lay the groundwork for greater tolerance between religions (and between religions and the secular world) because it subverts the battle over which religion has a true picture of the cosmos, critics have lamented the loss of a normative way of choosing between religions (..)

To successfully secure a position somewhere in between extreme non-realism and realism one would need to see the intelligibility of asking both theoretical questions such as "Is there a God?" as well as searching out the meaningful practices of faith, praise and prayer.

4. The Concept of God

4.1 Philosophical Reflection on Divine Attributes

(..)

Terms applied both to God and to any aspect of the world have been classified as either univocal (sharing the same sense), equivocal (used in different senses) or analogical (sharing an abstraction or structure). The most common — and the one assumed here — is that terms are used analogously when their use in different cases (John limps and the argument limps) is based on what is believed to be a resemblance. It seems clear that many terms used to describe God in theistic traditions are used analogously (..)

Omniscience (..)

Various replies to the freedom-foreknowledge debate have been given. Some adopt compatibilism, affirming the compatibility of free will and determinism, and conclude that foreknowledge is no more threatening to freedom than determinism. (..) A second position involves adhering to the libertarian outlook of insisting that freedom involves a radical, indeterminist exercise of power, and concludes that God cannot know future free action. (..) Other philosophers deny the original paradox. They insist that God's foreknowledge is compatible with libertarian freedom and seek to resolve the quandary by claiming that God is not bound in time (God does not so much foreknow the future as God knows what for us is the future from an eternal viewpoint) and by arguing that the unique vantage point of an omniscient God prevents any impingement [ aanslag ] on freedom. (..)

Eternity: (..) Could there be a being that is outside time? (..) thesis that God is everlasting (..) or that God is "simultaneously" at or in all times. This is sometimes called the view that God is eternal as opposed to everlasting.

(..) . If God is simultaneous with the event of Rome burning in 410, and also simultaneous with your reading this entry, then it seems that Rome must be burning at the same time you are reading this entry. (..) . If God is outside of time, can God know what time it is now? (..) it is not clear that an eternal God could be personal.

The goodness of God: (..) Some religions construe the Divine as in some respect beyond our human notions of good and evil. (..) theistic voluntarism (..) is the claim that for something to be good or right simply means that it is willed by God and for something to be evil or wrong means that it is forbidden by God.

(..) several difficulties: moral language seems intelligible without having to be explained in terms of the Divine will. (..) It appears that in calling God "good" the religious believer is saying more than "God wills what God wills." If so, must not the very notion of goodness have some meaning independent of God's will? (..)

By understanding God's goodness in terms of God's being (as opposed to God's will alone), we come close to the non-voluntarist stand. (..) Aquinas and others hold that God is essentially good in virtue of God's very being. (..) the ideal observer theory of ethics. According to this theory, moral judgments can be analyzed in terms of how an ideal observer would judge matters. (..) The theory can be found in work by Hume, Adam Smith, Hare and Firth (1970). (..) omnipercipient (Firth's term for adopting a position of universal affective appreciation of the points of view of all involved parties). (..) If true, it does not follow that there is an ideal observer, but if it is true and moral judgments are coherent, then the idea of an ideal observer is coherent. (..)

4.2 God's Existence

(..) , few philosophers today advance a single argument as a proof (..) advanced with cumulative arguments, a whole range of considerations, and not with a supposed knock-down, single proof.

One reason why the case for and against major, comprehensive philosophies are mostly cumulative is because of discontent in what is often called foundationalism. (..) Many (but not all) philosophers now see justification as more complex and interwoven; the proper object of philosophical inquiry is overall coherence, not a series of distinguishable building operations beginning with a foundation.

(..) It has been argued that the intellectual integrity of a religious world view can be secured if it can be shown to be no less rational than the available alternatives. It need only achieve intellectual parity. (..) John Hick and others emphasize the integrity of religious ways of seeing the world that are holistic, internally coherent, and open to criticism along various external lines. (..) If Hick is right, religious ways of seeing the world are not incompatible with science, but complementary. (..) Plantinga argues that the tendency to believe in God follows natural tendencies of the human mind. This stance comprises what is commonly referred to as Reformed Epistemology because of its leaning on work by the Reformed theologian John Calvin (1509–1564) (..)

Who has the burden of proof in a debate between a theist and an atheist? Antony Flew (1984) thinks it is the theist. (..) Fideism is the view that religious belief does not require evidence and that religious faith is self-vindicating. Karl Barth (1886–1968) advocated a fideistic philosophy. Hick and Plantinga need not be considered fideists because of the high role each gives to experience, coherence and reflection.

(..)

list of some key theistic arguments:

Ontological (..)

Cosmological (..)

Teleological (..)

Design (..)

Miracles (..)

Values—Moral Experience (..)

Argument from Consciousness (..)

Religious Experience (..)

Cognition (..)

Ontological arguments: (..)

The focus of the argument is the thesis that, if there is a God, then God's existence is necessary. (..)

Cosmological arguments: (..)

Some argue that the cosmos had an initial cause outside it, a First Cause in time. Others argue that the cosmos has a necessary, sustaining cause from instant to instant. [ compare the ancient thought that force is needed in order to keep planets moving ] (..) the First Cause was not in time; a position relying on the theory that time is relational rather than absolute. (..) if everything in the cosmos is contingent, it seems just as reasonable to believe that the whole cosmos is contingent as it is to believe that if everything in the cosmos is invisible, the cosmos as a whole would be invisible.

(..) In the end, the theist seems bound to admit that why the First Cause created at all was a contingent matter. If, on the contrary, the theist has to claim that the First Cause had to do what it did, would not the cosmos be necessary rather than contingent?

(..) theists typically reserve some role for the freedom of God and thus seek to retain the idea that the cosmos is contingent. (..)

Teleological arguments

These arguments focus on characteristics of the cosmos that seem to reflect the design or intentionality of God or, more modestly, of one or more powerful, intelligent God-like agents. (..) the negative side contending that there is no need to move beyond a naturalistic account, and the positive side aiming to establish that failing to go beyond naturalism is unreasonable.

(..)

One feature of the teleological argument currently receiving increased attention focuses on epistemology. It has been contended that if we do rely on our cognitive faculties, it is reasonable to believe that these are not brought about by naturalistic forces, forces that are entirely driven by chance or are the outcome of processes not formed by an overriding intelligence. (..) Some theists argue that it would not be reasonable, and that trusting our cognitive faculties requires us to accept that they were formed by an overarching, good, creative agent. (..) Objections to this argument center on naturalistic explanations, especially those friendly to evolution. (..) the next central concern of the philosophy of God.

Problems of evil

If there is a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and completely good, why is there evil? (..) There are two general versions of the problem: the deductive or logical version, which asserts that the existence of any evil at all (regardless of its role in producing good) is incompatible with God's existence; and the probabilistic version, which asserts that given the quantity and severity of evil that actually exists, it is unlikely that God exists. (..)

In part, the magnitude one takes the problem of evil to pose for theism will depend upon one's commitments in other areas of philosophy, especially ethics, epistemology and metaphysics. If in ethics you hold that there should be no preventable suffering for any reason, no matter what the cause or consequence, then the problem of evil will conflict with accepting traditional theism. (..) Exploring different possibilities will be shaped by one's metaphysics. For example, if you do not believe there is free will, then you will not be moved by any appeal to the positive value of free will and its role in bringing about good as offsetting its role in bringing about evil.

(..) a defense and a theodicy often appeal to similar factors, the first and foremost being what many call the Greater Good Defense.

In the Greater Good Defense, it is contended that evil can be understood as either a necessary accompaniment to bringing about greater goods or an integral part of these goods. (..) the Free Will Defense (..) John Hick (1978) (..) be an Irenaean approach to the problem of evil (..) On this approach, it is deemed good that humanity develops the life of virtue gradually, evolving to a life of grace, maturity and love. This contrasts with a theodicy associated with St. Augustine, according to which God created us perfect and then allowed us to fall into perdition, only to be redeemed later by Christ. (..) [ cf Origen’s apokatastasis ]

Afterlife

Is death the annihilation of persons or an event involving a transfiguration to a higher state? (..) The most recent work on the afterlife in philosophy of religion has focused on the compatibility of an individual afterlife with some forms of physicalism. Arguably, a dualist treatment of human persons is more promising. (..)

Religious Experience:

Perhaps the justification most widely offered for religious belief concerns the occurrence of religious experience or the cumulative weight of testimony of those claiming to have had religious experiences. (..)

Objection: Religious experience cannot be experience of God for experience is only sensory and if God is non-physical, God cannot be sensed.

Objection: Testimony to have experienced God is only testimony that one thinks one has experienced God; it is only testimony of a conviction, not evidence.

Objection: Because religious experience is unique, how could one ever determine whether it is reliable? We simply lack the ability to examine the object of religious experience in order to test whether the reported experiences are indeed reliable.

Objection: Reports of religious experience differ radically and the testimony of one religious party neutralizes the testimony of others. (..) Hindus have claimed the experience of God as personal is only one stage in the overall journey of the soul to truth, the highest truth being that Brahman transcends personhood. (..) The holistic, interwoven nature of both theistic and atheistic arguments can be readily illustrated. If you diminish the implications of religious experience and have a high standard regarding the burden of proof for any sort of religious outlook, then it is highly likely that the classical arguments for God's existence will not be persuasive. (..) Hume's case against miracles is most charitably seen as part of his overall case for naturalism (Taliaferro, 2005).

Over many publications and many years, John Hick has moved from a broadly based theistic view of God to what Hick calls "the Real," a noumenal sacred reality. Hick claims that different religions provide us with a glimpse or partial access to the Real. One advantage of Hick's position is that it undermines a rationale for religious conflict. (..) Hick thought the apparent conflict between seeing the Real as the personal or the impersonal reality could be reconciled.

The response to Hick's proposal has been mixed. Some contend that the very concept of "the Real" is incoherent (Plantinga) or not religiously adequate. (..) It has been argued that Hick has secured not the equal acceptability of diverse religions but rather their unacceptability. (..) expansion in terms of methodology (..) a critical understanding of their social and political roots (..)

In A Feminist Philosophy of Religion

Anderson seeks to question respects in which gender enters into traditional conceptions of God and in their moral and political repercussions. (..)

Continental Philosophy of Religion

This movement approaches the themes of this entry (the concept of God, pluralism, religious experience, metaphysics and epistemology) in light of Heidegger, Derrida and other continental philosophers. (..)

(..)

Contemporary epistemology of religion may conveniently be treated as a debate over whether evidentialism applies to the belief-component of religious faith, or whether we should instead adopt a more permissive epistemology. (..) For example, suppose a local weather forecaster has noticed that over the two hundred years since records began a wetter than average Winter is followed in 85% of cases by a hotter than average Summer. (..)

Evidentialism implies that full religious belief is justified only if there is conclusive evidence for it. (..)

Evidentialism, then, sets rather high standards for justification, standards that the majority do not, it would seem, meet when it comes to religious beliefs, where many rely on "faith", which is more like the forecaster's hunch about the weather than the argument from past climate records. Many others take some body of scripture, such as the Blible or the Koran as of special authority, contrary to the evidentialist treatment of these as just like other any other books making various claims. Are these standards too high?

(..)

This entry, therefore, concentrates on questions such as, "Is it justified for Fatima to believe in God?" (..) It ignores such questions as whether these beliefs count as knowledge or whether these beliefs are scientific.It also ignores disputes between coherence theorists and foundationalists and disputes over whether belief is voluntary. (..)

2. The Rejection of Enlightenment Evidentialism

Most contemporary epistemology of religion may be called post modern in the sense of being a reaction to the Enlightenment, in particular to the thesis of the hegemony of evidentialism. (..)

Evidentialism implies that no full religious belief (i.e., a religious belief held with full confidence) is justified unless there is conclusive evidence for it, or it is self-evident. (..) the only way of deciding whether the religious beliefs are justified would be to examine various arguments with the non-religious beliefs as premisses and the religious beliefs as conclusions. (..) famous quotation: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence" (Clifford 1879: 186).

At the other extreme from Clifford is the position of fideism, namely, that if an epistemological theory such as evidentialism conflicts with the holding of religious beliefs then that is so much the worse for the epistemological theory.

The rejection of the hegemony of evidentialism is quite compatible with holding a hegemony thesis for a fragment of epistemology. Such a fragment might, for instance, contain the principle of self-referential consistency, relied upon by Plantinga (1983: 60). This states that it is not justified to have a belief according to which that belief is itself not justified. Consider, for instance, the extreme case of the person who believes that no belief is justified unless 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 of epistemology. That might seem agreeable to fideists. Postmodernism tends, however, to trivialize fideism by obliterating [uitwissen] any contrast between faith in divine revelation and trust in human capacities to discover the truth. (..)

3. Evidentialism Defended

(..) Scriven and Flew are relying on the Ockhamist principle that, in the absence of evidence for the existence of things of kind X, belief in Xs is not reasonable. (..)

4. Natural theology

(..) Does something's being self-evident to you justify your full belief in it even if you know of those of equal or greater intellectual ability to whom it is not self-evident?

(..) probable (..) are Mitchell's cumulative argument (Mitchell 1973) and Swinburne's Bayesian reliance on probability (Swinburne 1979) (..) common theme is that there is evidence for theism but evidence of a probable rather than a conclusive kind, justifying belief but not full belief.

5. The Relevance of Newman

(..) . His procedure was to examine how in fact people made up their minds on non-religious issues and argue that by the same standards religious beliefs were justified. (..)

6. Wittgensteinian Fideism

(..) the thesis that there are various different "language games", and that while it is appropriate to ask questions about justification within a language game it is a mistake to ask about the justification of "playing" the game in question. In this way epistemology is relativised to language games, themselves related to forms of life, and the one used for assessing religious claims is less stringent than evidentialism. (..) Here there seems to be both an autonomy thesis and an incommensurability thesis. The autonomy thesis tells us that religious utterances are only to be judged as justified or otherwise by the standards implicit in the religious form of life, and this may be further restricted to Christianity or Hinduism, or any other religion (Malcolm 1992). The incommensurability thesis tells us that religious utterances are unlike scientific or metaphysical claims and so we are confusing different uses of language if we judge religious utterances by the standards of science or metaphysics (Phillips 1992). (..) Wittgensteinian fideism is only appropriate for such religions as Zen Buddhism and for some, relatively recent, liberal strands of Judaism and Christianity which have rejected the traditional metaphysical commitment (as in Cupitt 1984).

(..)

7. Reformed Epistemology

An influential contemporary rejection of evidentialism is reformed epistemology, due to Wolterstorff (1976) and Plantinga (1983). (..) Plantinga has proposed an account of warrant as proper functioning. This account seems to entail that S's belief that p is grounded in event E if (a) in the circumstances E caused S to believe that p, and (b) S's coming to believe that p was a case of proper functioning (Plantinga 1993b). It should be noted that the term "warrant" used elsewhere in philosophy as a synonym for "justified" (as in "warranted assertibility") is used by Plantinga to mean that which has to be adjoined to a true belief for it to be knowledge. (See Plantinga 1993a). (..) Accordingly the most pressing criticism of Plantinga's recent position is that it largely ignores the question of justification, or reasonableness which, as Swinburne explicates it (Swinburne 2001) amounts to whether the religious beliefs are probable relative to total evidence.

(..)

One difference between reformed epistemology and fideism is that the former requires defence against known objections, such as the Argument from Evil, whereas the latter might dismiss such objections as either irrelevant or, worse, intellectual temptations.

A difference between reformed epistemology and Wittgensteinian fideism is that the former proposes a universal relaxation of the stringent conditions of evidentialism while the latter only proposes a relaxation for the case of religious beliefs.

Reformed epistemology could be correct and yet far less significant than its proponents take it to be. That would occur if in fact rather few religious beliefs are grounded in the sorts of ordinary religious experiences most believers have. For it may well be that the beliefs are part of the cause of the experience rather than the other way round (Katz 1978).

8. Religious Experience, Revelation and Tradition

(..)

9. Religious Disagreement

(..) how can sincere intelligent people disagree? (..) Richard Feldman criticises the relativist solution to the problem along with unargued dismissal, and reaches the conclusion that in situations of epistemic parity disputants should suspend judgement. (..) Many, however, agree with Peter van Inwagen who, in his autobiographical ‘Quam Delicta’ (1994), implies that it is justified for both parties in a dispute to appeal to what is privately available to them. Such private assertions of epistemic superiority are often expressed by saying that someone "just does not get the point". Typically, not getting the point requires a cognitive blind-spot. It is not that you know there is a point you cannot grasp, which reasonably requires some deference to those who claim to grasp it. You fail to see there is a point.

(..)

(..) Theistic pragmatic arguments are not arguments for the proposition that God exists; they are arguments that believing that God exists is rational. The most famous theistic pragmatic argument is Pascal's Wager. (..) William James, J.S. Mill, and James Beattie (..)

1. Pragmatic Arguments

As with so much in philosophy, the first recorded employment of a pragmatic argument is found in Plato. At Meno 86b-c, Socrates tells Meno that believing in the value of inquiry is justified because of the positive impact upon one's character (..)

1. Doing α brings about, or contributes in bringing about, β, and

3. you have reason to do α.

(..)

As presented this is a particular kind of pragmatic argument, a prudential argument. Prudential pragmatic arguments are predicated upon one's preferences or goals or self-interest. (..)

Pragmatic arguments are relevant to belief-formation, since inculcating a belief is an action. There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of pragmatic arguments that have to do with belief-formation.

The first is an argument that recommends taking steps to believe a proposition because, if it should turn out to be true, the benefits gained from believing that proposition will be impressive. (..) Expectation Rule: whenever both probability and utility values are known, one should choose to do an act which has the greatest expected utility. Pascal: Among the various versions of his wager argument, Pascal employs this Rule in a version which states that no matter how small the probability that God exists, as long as it is a positive, non-zero probability, the expected utility of theistic belief will dominate the expected utility of disbelief. (..)

The second kind of pragmatic argument, which can be called a "truth-independent" pragmatic argument, or more conveniently, an "independent-argument," is one which recommends taking steps to believe a certain proposition simply because of the benefits gained by believing it, whether or not the believed proposition is true. (..)

Unlike independent pragmatic arguments, dependent ones are, in an important sense, truth-sensitive. (..) Independent-arguments, we might say, are belief-dependent and not truth-dependent.

2. Moral Arguments as Pragmatic Arguments

Pragmatic arguments in support of theistic belief can either be predicated on prudence or on morality. (..)

5. It is morally desirable that β. So,

6. It is prima facie morally desirable to do α.

(..) the idea of a Russellian world, a universe in which mental events are products of non-mental events, and in which there's no human post-mortem survival, and extinction is the final end of every biological species. A Russellian world implies atheism. (..)

Two recent examples of pragmatic moral arguments are Adams (1979) and Zagzebski (1987). (..) Adam's argument is that it is demoralizing not to believe that there is a moral order in the universe, and demoralization is morally undesirable. (..)

Zagzebski builds her argument upon the ideas of moral skepticism and moral efficacy (..) Since it is rational to try to be moral, it is rational to believe that there is moral order in the universe (..)

Theistic moral pragmatic arguments may face an objection similar to the many-gods objection to Pascal's wager. The many-gods objection contends that the betting options of the wager are not limited to Christianity and atheism alone, since one could formulate a Pascalian Wager for Islam, certain sects of Buddhism, or for any of the competing sects found within Christianity itself. (..) think that theistic belief alone is necessary for morality, or that theistic belief best facilitates moral practice. But it's far from clear that theistic belief exceeds its competitors in facilitating moral practice. (..)

3. William James's Will to Believe Argument

(..) by William James (1842–1910) in his 1896 essay, "The Will to Believe" (..) its attack on the agnostic imperative (..) The foil of James's essay was W.K. Clifford (1845–79). (..) Clifford presented evidentialism as a rule of morality: "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence" (..) James's primary concern in the "Will To Believe" essay is to argue that Clifford's Rule is irrational. As James put it: "a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule." (James 1896: 28)

7 Two alternative intellectual strategies:

* Strategy A: Risk a loss of truth and a loss of a vital good for the certainty of avoiding error.

* Strategy B: Risk error for a chance at truth and a vital good.

8. Clifford's Rule embodies Strategy A. But,

9. Strategy B is preferable to Strategy A because Strategy A would deny us access to certain possible kinds of truth. And,

10. Any intellectual strategy that denies access to possible truths is an inadequate strategy. Therefore,

11. Clifford's Rule is unacceptable.

Of course, accepting proposition (11), and advancing an alternative strategy of seeking truth by any available means, even at the risk of error, does not entail that anything goes. (..)

James asserts that there are two affirmations of religion. By affirmation James means something like an abstract claim, devoid of much doctrinal content, and found in the major religions. The first affirmation is that the best things are the more eternal things, while the second is that we are better off even now if we believe the first affirmation. (..) "the more perfect and more eternal aspect of the universe is represented in our religions as having personal form. The universe is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou" (James 1896, 26). (..) . There are possible truths, James claims, belief of which is a necessary condition of obtaining evidence for them. Let's call the class of propositions whose evidence is restricted to those who first believe "restricted propositions." Dependent propositions and restricted propositions are James's counterexamples to Clifford's Rule. (..) James suggests that religious belief produces certain psychological benefits (..)

An objection commonly leveled against James's argument is that "it constitutes an unrestricted license for wishful thinking… (..)

A more significant objection contends that James's argument fails "to show that one can have a sufficient moral reason for self-inducing an epistemically unsupported belief" (Gale 1990, 283). (..) , as intellectual beings, we have the dual goal of maximizing our stock of (significant) true beliefs and minimizing our stock of false ones. Clifford's Rule derives its moral validity, one might contend, from that intellectual goal. (..) let's employ what we might call the "ET" thought experiment. Suppose Clifford is abducted by very powerful and very smart extraterrestrials, which offer him a single chance of salvation for humankind—that he acquire and maintain belief in a proposition that lacks adequate evidential support, otherwise the destruction of humankind will result. Clifford adroitly points out that no one can just will belief. The ETs, devilish in their anticipation as well as their technology, provide Clifford with a supply of doxastic-producing pills, which when ingested produce the requisite belief for 24 hours. It's obvious that Clifford would do no wrong by swallowing the pills and bringing about a belief lacking adequate evidential support.[6] Moreover, since one is never irrational in doing one's moral duty, not only would Clifford not be immoral, he would not even be irrational in bringing about and maintaining belief in a proposition lacking adequate evidential support. As we mentioned earlier, given the distinction between (A) having reason to think a certain proposition is true, and (B) having reason to induce a belief in that proposition, it may be that a particular proposition lacks sufficient evidential support, but that forming a belief in that proposition is the rational action to perform. [ ?? the goal of the ETs was to destroy humankind – why trust their assertion that taking a pill would prevent this from happening – it would probably be a suicide-pill – how rational would it be to take a pill which probably would be a suicide-pill? ]

(..) . Any rule whatever that restricts belief in any way might conceivably shut us off from some truths. (Wood 2002, 24)

Every epistemic principle that divides beliefs into those that are permissible and those that are not runs the risk of shutting off access to certain possible kinds of truth. (..) Since James's argument specifies the irrationality of Clifford's Rule's exclusion of dependent and restricted propositions, and not just the abstract possibility of some kind of true belief or other being excluded, it escapes this objection.

Reason is capable of knowing God on the basis of evidence—but only when one's cognitive faculties are rightly disposed. (Wainwright 1995, 3).

James's Will to Believe argument spans the gulf between the pragmatic and the epistemic. (..)

4. J.S. Mill's License to Hope

(..) the principle that where probabilities fail, hope can properly flourish. (..)

Since we do not know that granting postmortem existence to humans is beyond the capability of the creator, hope is possible. (..) claim that "any one who feels it conducive either to his satisfaction or to his usefulness to hope for a future state as a possibility, there is no hindrance to his indulging that hope" (Mill 1874, 210). (..)

5. James Beattie's Consolation Argument

(..) response to Hume (..) unfair in many respects to Hume (..) Beattie believed that Christian belief provided consolation, especially to those suffering or oppressed. (..)

6. The Ethics of Belief

(..) Evidentialism as the thesis that:

E. For all persons S and propositions p and times t, S ought to believe that p at t if and only if believing p fits S's evidence at t.

If James is correct, then (E) should be replaced with:

E′. For all persons S and propositions p and times t, if believing p fits S's evidence at t, then S ought to believe that p at t.

An employer of theistic pragmatic arguments can conform to Weak Evidentialism, but not Strong Evidentialism.

Overall rationality, or all-things-considered rationality (ATC rationality), is, in W.D. Ross's terms, one's actual duty in the particular circumstances, even if one has other conflicting prima facie duties. (..) the Basic Argument assumes that if in doing something one is not ATC irrational, then it follows that one is ATC rational in doing it. (..)

7. Atheistic Pragmatic Arguments

Perhaps the earliest proponent of an atheistic pragmatic argument was David Hume (1711–1776). (..) But not only does theistic belief harm individual morality, according to Hume, it also harms public morality. (..) leads to intolerance and persecution.

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) contends in The Future of an Illusion (1927) that religious belief perpetuates psychological immaturity among individuals, and cultural immaturity on the social level. (..) . The religious illusion now, Freud asserted, inhibits scientific progress, and causes psychological neuroses, among its other pernicious effects.

Richard Dawkins's contends that religious belief is a "virus of the mind" (Dawkins 1993).

Alvin Plantinga - Religion and Science, SEP, 2007

Perhaps the most salient question is whether the relation between religion and science is characterized by conflict or by concord. (..)

1. The Nature of Science and the Nature of Religion

1.1 Science

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a given inquiry or theory or claim to be scientific, a part of science? This is far from easy to say. (..) Some say the aim of science is explanation (whether or not this is put in the service of truth). Some (realists) say the aim of science is to produce true theories; others say the aim of science is to produce empirically adequate theories, whether or not they are true (van Fraassen 1980). (..) science can deal only with what is repeatable (..) that scientific theories must be falsifiable (..) science is constrained by ‘methodological naturalism’ (MN) (..) scientific explanations are to be in terms of natural (not supernatural) entities and processes (..) . Some empiricists (in particular, Bas van Fraassen) argue that there aren't any natural laws (but only regularities) (..) many philosophers of science have given up on the "demarcation problem," the problem of proposing such conditions (Laudan 1988) (..) Perhaps the best we can do is point to paradigmatic examples of science and paradigmatic examples of non-science. (..) But is MN just part of the very nature of science as such? (..)

Perhaps we should think of the concept of science as one of those cluster concepts called to our attention by Thomas Aquinas and Ludwig Wittgenstein. (..) the term ‘science’ applies to any activity that is (1) a systematic and disciplined enterprise aimed at finding out truth about our world,[1] and (2) has significant empirical involvement. (..)

1.2 Religion

What characteristics are necessary and sufficient for something's being a religion? The notion of a religious belief: what does a belief have to be like to be religious?

(..) a belief isn't religious just in itself. (..) To be a religious belief, the belief in question would have to be appropriately connected with characteristically religious attitudes on the part of the believer, such attitudes as worship, love, commitment, awe, and the like.

2. Epistemology and Science and Religion

Evidence for a theory seldom entails the theory, in which case there will be several empirically equivalent theories (..) the "pessimistic induction" according to which nearly all past scientific theories have been later rejected; should that reduce our confidence in present scientific theories? (..) the epistemology of science is really the epistemology of the main human cognitive faculties: memory, perception, rational intuition (logic and mathematics), testimony, perhaps Reid's sympathy, induction, and the like. What is characteristic of science is that these faculties are employed in a particularly disciplined and systematic way, and that there is particular emphasis upon perceptual experience.

With respect to religious belief, there are also several sorts of epistemological questions. Are there good arguments for the existence of God? If there aren't, does it matter? Is the existence of evil, in all the horrifying forms it displays, evidence against theistic belief? Does it constitute a defeater for theistic belief? What about the question of pluralism (..) . According to Jean Bodin, "each is refuted by all" (Bodin 1975, 256) (..) ‘leap of faith’, or ‘blind faith’ (..) , perhaps the main epistemological question is this: what is the source of rationality, or warrant, or positive epistemic status, if any, enjoyed by religious belief? (..) . According to ‘evidentialism’, the source of positive epistemic status for religious belief, if indeed it has such status, is just reason (..) . This view goes back at least to John Locke (1689) (..) Here the most prominent contemporary spokesperson would be Richard Swinburne (..)

The other main view, one adopted by, for example, both Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae) and John Calvin (1559), is that belief in God in the first place, and in the distinctive teachings of Christianity in the second, can be rationally accepted even if there are no cogent arguments for them from the deliverances of reason (..) On this view, religion and faith have a source of properly rational belief independent of reason and science; it would therefore be possible for religion and faith to correct as well as be corrected by science and reason.

3. Conflict and Concord

3.1 Concord

the ability to form beliefs and to acquire knowledge. (..) divine creation is contingent.

It is this doctrine of the contingency of divine creation that underwrites the empirical character of modern Western science (Ratzsch, forthcoming). For the realm of the necessary is (for the most part) the realm of a priori knowledge; here we have mathematics and logic and much philosophy. What is contingent, on the other hand, is the domain or realm of a posteriori knowledge, the sort of knowledge produced by perception, memory, and the empirical methods of science. This relationship between the contingency of creation and the importance of the empirical was recognized very early. (..) theistic belief supports modern science (..) sometimes claimed that science supports theistic belief. (..) arguments that have historically fallen into two basic types: biological and cosmological. An example of the first type is the argument proposed by Michael Behe (Behe, 1996), according to which some structures at the molecular level exhibit "irreducible complexity." (..)

A second type of argument for theism starts from the apparent fine-tuning of several of the physical parameters. (..) A particularly informed and technically detailed account of some of these fine-tunings is to be found in Robin Collins's "Evidence for Fine-Tuning" (Collins 2003). (..) the fine-tuning argument is ineffective: the probability of fine-tuning on the many worlds suggestion together with atheism is at least as large as the probability of fine-tuning on theism. (..) there is no consensus as to whether these fine-tuning arguments are successful.

3.2 Conflict?

Many Christian fundamentalists accept a literal interpretation of the creation account in the first two chapters of Genesis; they therefore find incompatibility between the contemporary Darwinian evolutionary accounts of our origins and the Christian faith, at least as they understand it. Many Darwinian fundamentalists (as the late Stephen J. Gould called them) second that motion: they too claim there is conflict between Darwinian evolution and classical Christian or theistic belief. Contemporaries who champion this conflict view would include, for example, Richard Dawkins (1986, 2003), and Daniel Dennett (1995). (..) random genetic mutation (..) it is perfectly compatible with that theory that God causes the random genetic mutations that are winnowed [uitgezift] by natural selection. (..) The claim that evolution demonstrates that human beings and other living creatures have not, contrary to appearances, been designed, is not part of or a consequence of the scientific theory, but a metaphysical or theological add-on (van Inwagen 2003) (..)

A second area of alleged conflict has to do with divine action in the world. (..) beyond creation and conservation. There are the miracles (..) determinism: the thought that the laws of nature together with the state of the universe at any time, entail the state of the universe at any other time. Here the classical source is Pierre Laplace (..) however, that determinism and the Laplacian world-picture don't follow from classical science. That is because the great conservation laws deduced from Newton's Laws are stated for closed or isolated systems. (..) But it is no part of Newtonian mechanics or classical science generally to declare that the material universe is indeed a closed system. (..) quantum mechanics (..) a distribution of probabilities for the many possible outcomes (..) miracles (..) are not incompatible with these assignments. (..) , on collapse interpretations such as those of Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber, there is plenty of room for divine activity (..)

In science, the dominant epistemic attitude (so the claim goes) is one of critical empirical investigation, issuing in theories which are held tentatively and provisionally; one is always prepared to give up a theory in favor of a more satisfactory successor. In religious (e.g., Christian) belief, the epistemic attitude of faith plays an important role, an attitude which differs both in the source of the belief in question, and in the readiness to give it up.

(..) To get a conflict, we must add that the scientific epistemic attitude is the only one appropriate to any area of cognitive endeavor. That claim, however, is not itself part of the scientific attitude; it is an epistemological declaration for which substantial argument is required (but not so far in evidence). (..)

4. Where there is conflict?

(..) growing discipline of evolutionary psychology (..) Herbert Simon attempts to explain altruism from an evolutionary perspective in terms of two mechanisms, docility and limited rationality (..)

Another example from this area is provided by the many theories of religion and religious belief. According to some of these theories, religious belief is false but adaptive; according to others it is false and maladaptive. (..) Freud claims that theistic belief is illusion. (..) Wilson's view is like Freud's, then, in that he too proposes that theistic belief is produced by cognitive faculties that are not reality oriented. Whereas Freud takes a dim view of theistic belief, Wilson is much more appreciative (..)

Although Wilson has kind words for religion, his claim that religious belief is not aimed at the truth is incompatible with theistic religious belief. (..) . According to methodological naturalism (MN), in doing science one must proceed "as if God is not given", to use the words of Hugo Grotius. (..)

A rather different area with the same dialectic: historical biblical criticism (HBC). HBC is to be contrasted with traditional biblical commentary. (..) Just as with evolutionary psychology, therefore, one who works at HBC might in fact accept theistic religion of one sort or another, but in his work as a practitioner of HBC, come to conclusions incompatible with his religious belief. (..) coming up with theories incompatible with Christian belief doesn't automatically produce such a defeater. Everything depends on the particular evidence adduced in the case in question, and the bearing of that evidence given the believer's total evidence base. (..) defeat is not impossible; it sometimes happens that one does acquire a defeater for a belief B, by learning that B is improbable with respect to some proper subset of one's evidence base. (..) Why is there a defeater in some cases, but not in others? What makes the difference?

(..) the suggestion — call it ‘the reduction test for defeat’ — is that A is a defeater for B just if B is appropriately improbable with respect to the conjunction of A with EBS−B.

(..) The answer, I should think, is that B is not improbable with respect to that conjunction. For EBS−B includes the empirical evidence, whatever exactly it is, appealed to by Simon, but also the proposition that we human beings have been created by God and created in his image, along with the rest of the main lines of the Christian story. [ OBW only drop one B from a coherent set of B’s won’t do the trick...] With respect to the conjunction of A with that body of propositions, it is not likely that if Mother Teresa had been more rational, smarter, she would have acted so as to increase her reproductive fitness rather than live altruistically. Hence, on the proposed reduction test, the fact that Simon's theory is good science and is more likely than not with respect to the scientific evidence base—that fact does not give S a defeater for what she thinks about Mother Teresa.

Consider, on the other hand, the belief B* that the earth has corners and edges and the photographic evidence against that belief: here, plausibly, the reduction test gives the result that the latter is a defeater for B*. (..) strength of the intrinsic warrant enjoyed by P, and, on the other, the strength of the evidence against P from EByou−P. Very often the intrinsic warrant will be the stronger.

The same will go for religious beliefs, if they do in fact have intrinsic warrant. (..) the reduction test (..) is also sufficient only if religious beliefs don't have warrant or positive epistemic status in the basic way, and only if they don't acquire warrant or positive epistemic status from a source other than those that confer that status on scientific beliefs. (..)

5. Naturalism and Science

There is no such person as the God of theism, or anything like God (see, e.g., Beilby 2002). Call this ‘naturalism1’ (..) ‘scientific naturalism’ would be the claim that there are no entities in addition to those endorsed by contemporary science (Kornblith 1994). (..) ‘epistemological naturalism’, according to which, roughly speaking, the methods of science are the only proper epistemic methods (Krikorian 1944) (..)

Naturalism (..) can be said to perform the cognitive function of a religion. (..) of deep human questions to which a religion typically provides an answer (..) : for example, is it mind first, or matter (non-mind) first? What is most real and basic in it, and what kinds of entities does it display? What is the place of human beings in the universe (..) Like a typical religion, naturalism gives a set of answers to these and similar questions (..) , and hence can sensibly be thought of as a quasi-religion.

(..) potentially worrisome implication of evolutionary theory. (..) random genetic mutation and natural selection (..) Donald Sloan Wilson puts it, "the well-adapted mind is ultimately an organ of survival and reproduction" (Wilson 2002, 228). What our minds are for (if anything) is not the production of true beliefs, but the production of adaptive behavior (..) because our behavior could perfectly well be adaptive, but our beliefs false as often as true. (..)

We can briefly state Darwin's doubt as follows. Let R be the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable, N the proposition that naturalism is true and E the proposition that we and our cognitive faculties have come to be by way of the processes to which contemporary evolutionary theory points us: what is the conditional probability of R on N&E? I.e., what is P(R | N&E)? Darwin fears it may be rather low. [ OBW low, based on which measurements? ]

So it is unguided evolution, and metaphysical beliefs that entail unguided evolution, that prompt this worry about the reliability of our cognitive faculties. Now naturalism entails that evolution, if it occurs, is indeed unguided. But then, so the suggestion goes, it is unlikely that our cognitive faculties are reliable, [ OBW in general, or specifically related to e.g. metaphysics? ] given the conjunction of naturalism with the proposition that we and our cognitive faculties have come to be by way of natural selection winnowing random genetic variation. [ OBW one could expect that this process would yield improvement of cognitive faculties due to its adaptive value – so what is in this context the meaning of ‘unreliable cognitive faculties’? ] If so, one who believes that conjunction will have a defeater for the proposition that our faculties are reliable [ OBW ? this step is not clear to me ] — but if that's true, she will also have a defeater for any belief produced by her cognitive faculties—including, of course, the conjunction of naturalism with evolution. That conjunction is thus seen to be self-refuting. If so, however, this conjunction cannot rationally be accepted, in which case there is conflict between naturalism and evolution, and hence between naturalism and science. [ eeh... ]

We can state the argument schematically as follows:

1. P(R | N&E) is low.

2. Anyone who accepts N&E and sees that (1) is true has a defeater for R.

3. Anyone who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any other belief she holds, including N&E itself.

Therefore

4. Anyone who accepts N&E and sees that (1) is true has a defeater for N&E; hence N&E can't be rationally accepted.

[ OBW falling apart if (1) isn’t true ]

What is the relation between NP properties, on the one hand, and content properties—such properties as having the proposition that naturalism is all the rage these days as content—on the other? Perhaps the most popular position here is "nonreductive materialism" (NRM): content properties are distinct from but supervene on (see the entry on supervenience) NP properties (..) Supervenience can be either broadly logical or nomic. In the latter case, there would be psychophysical laws relating NP properties to content properties: laws of the sort any structure with such and such NP properties will have such and such content. These laws presumably will be contingent (in the broadly logical or metaphysical sense). In the former case, there will also be such laws, but they will be necessary rather than contingent.

(..) what is the (epistemic) probability that B is true, given N&E and nonreductive materialism—what is P(B | N&E&NRM)? (..) What counts for adaptivity are the NP properties and the behavior they cause; it doesn't matter whether the supervening content is true. (..) , if naturalism is true: P(B | N&E&NRM) specified to us is equally low. (..) . According to the second premise, one who sees this and also accepts N&E has a defeater for R, a reason to give it up, to cease believing it. (..) one who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any belief she takes to be a product of her cognitive faculties—which is, of course, all of her beliefs. She therefore has a defeater for N&E itself; so one who accepts N&E (and sees that P(R | N&E) is low) has a defeater for N&E [ eeeh.... ]

The argument concludes that the conjunction of naturalism with the theory of evolution cannot rationally be accepted—at any rate by someone who is apprised of this argument and sees the connection between N&E and R.

As one might expect, this argument has been controversial; a number of objections have been raised against it. (Beilby 1997; Ginet 1995, 403; O'Connor 1994, 527; Ross 1997; Fitelson and Sober 1998; Robbins 1994; Fales 1996; Lehrer 1996; Nathan 1997; Levin 1997; Fodor 1998) (..)

[ why no discussion about the objections? ]

[ AP tries to shoot a hole in the naturalism-science conjunction in order to make room for theism as ‘Lückenbüßer’ ]

Gert Korthof (mailtje 23.3.2010)

Hallo Otto,

leuke theïstische redenering !

"our behavior could perfectly well be adaptive, but our beliefs false as often as true"

als ons gedrag adaptief is, dan denk ik: OK, als (de meeste) mensen zich

adaptief gedragen*) dan moet ik mijn /beliefs/

in overeenstemming brengen met dat gedrag.

Dan werkt het toch? Dan heb ik toch betrouwbare /beliefs/?

Alle /beliefs/ die geen positief effect hebben op survival moeten we dan

verwerpen.

Wat dacht je van een grootschalig onderzoek naar de levensduur en/of

kinderaantal van atheisten versus theïsten?

Merkwaardige strategie:

een redenering opzetten /veronderstelt/ sowieso dat we geldige

redeneringen op kunnen stellen.

Dat geldt ook voor AP. Toch?

groeten,

Gert

*) alles doen om in leven te blijven en je evt voortplanten. Zelfmoord,

onthouding, celibaat zijn dan niet adaptief.

Richard Amesbury – Fideism (SEP, 2009)

"Fideism" is the name given to that school of thought (..) which answers that faith is in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason. (..) reason is unnecessary and inappropriate for the exercise and justification of religious belief.

2. A Brief History of "Fideism"

2.1 Sin, Skepticism, and Kant: Theological and Philosophical Roots

Tertullian is frequently cited in this connection as a textbook fideist. (..) Tertullian insisted that the truth of Christianity could be disclosed only by revelation, and that it must necessarily remain opaque to unregenerate philosophical reason (..) what Tertullian said is not credo quia absurdum but credible est quia ineptum est. (..) . His quarrel was not with reason per se, but with philosophical hubris. (..) ). Tertullian, Osborne concludes, was a "most improbable fideist" (..) one's rational faculties can be damaged by sin (..) Protestant theologians (..) affirmed the priority of faith not only to "works" but also to natural theology (..) the Roman Catholic Magisterium has repeatedly condemned fideism (..) More recently, in the 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio (..) John Paul II warned of "a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God" (..) and in Caritas In Veritate (2009 (..) Benedict XVI writes, "Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space" (..) The Protestant Reformation coincided with the re-discovery in Europe of the ancient skeptical arguments (..) , these arguments were quickly appropriated by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Catholic philosophers and theologians (..) ] Their contention was simple, if something of an ignoratio elenchi: since skepticism undermines any reason for becoming a Protestant, one should remain a Catholic on the basis of faith alone (Popkin 1992, 122–123).

According to the reformed view, by contrast, the domain of faith is characterized by fervor and passionate commitment: skepticism thus ultimately gives way to certainty and religious assurance of a kind unassailable by philosophical doubt. In his book God and Skepticism, Terence Penelhum calls the latter view "evangelical fideism," and he distinguishes it from the "conformist fideism" that identifies faith with loyalty to a tradition (15–16).

For Kant, God's existence was a postulate of practical—rather than pure—reason. Accordingly, Kant rejected the traditional "proofs" of God's existence—the cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments—in favor of a moral argument.

The earliest documented uses of the term "fideism" are to be found in French theology. Thomas D. Carroll has located references to fidéisme from as early as 1854. As Carroll observes, the projection of the term "fideism" ahistorically—onto thinkers as removed from the context in which it originated as Tertullian—is potentially the source of much confusion, given that the meanings of key terms like "faith" and "reason" vary dramatically from one context to another. (..)

2.2 The Usual Suspects

Today the term "fideism" is perhaps most commonly associated with four philosophers: Pascal, Kierkegaard, James, and Wittgenstein. (..)

2.2.1 Pascal

conviction that belief in God cannot be defended by means of the usual apologetic arguments. (..)

The most the philosophical arguments could prove, Pascal suggests, is the "god of the philosophers"—not the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

Pascal insists that faith can nevertheless be rational in the absence of proof—i.e., that it is rational in a prudential rather than an epistemic sense. It is here that he introduces his celebrated "Wager" arguments. (..) a cost-benefit analysis of the relative merits of "wagering" for or against God's existence (..) assessed in terms of what is known within contemporary decision theory as the Expected Value Principle (EVP). (..) Pascal's critics (..) to justify faith entirely in such crassly prudential terms is necessarily impious or improper. (..) precisely what Pascal denies—namely, that there are epistemic reasons on which one's decision might more appropriately be made to rest. (..) Pascal's argument seems to presuppose a problematic version of doxastic voluntarism, the view that believing is subject to the will. (..) indirect doxastic voluntarism—the view that a person can indirectly control his or her beliefs by directly controlling his or her epistemic situation. (..) Pascal's argument depends upon an overly narrow construal of one's religious options. (..)

Jordan follows Pascal in treating religious belief as a necessary prerequisite for eternal happiness. However, some critics have questioned this assumption. (..) it is worth noting that Pascal and his intellectual heirs, though frequently characterized as fideists, are not antagonistic to reason tout court. (..) it is reasonable to acknowledge limits to reason. "Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it" (..)

2.2.2 Kierkegaard

(..) , the whole of Kierkegaard's work "is related to Christianity, to the problem ‘of becoming a Christian,’ with a direct or indirect polemic against the monstrous illusion we call Christendom, or against the illusion that in such a land as ours all are Christians of a sort" (..) combating confusion, including illusions about faith, was central to his work.[ (..) Kierkegaard suggests that speculative philosophy contributes to this confusion by transforming Christianity into a sort of philosophical theory or system. (..)

It is perhaps tempting to imagine that the relation between evidence and belief is purely epistemological, a question of justification. (..)

Within the sphere of the "intellectual" — e.g., within scientific or historical scholarship — inquiry is conceived in terms of a process of "approximation" to reality. When it comes to religion, however, what matters, according to Kierkegaard, is not the "object to which the knower relates himself" but the relationship itself: the accent falls not on "what is said" but on "how it is said" (..) faith is characterized by passionate commitment and thus requires a decision or "qualitative leap" (1846, 384). (..) ). Religion, for Kierkegaard, is a matter of what one does with one's life, a matter of "inwardness." (..) Kierkegaard has done little to show that a leap in the direction of Christianity is a better bet than any of its alternatives, and that a wiser tack—as Hume counseled in connection with alleged miracles—would be to proportion belief (and passion) to the available evidence. (..) Kierkegaard held that faith and reason are not mutually incompatible, and that philosophy — when practiced with respect for the "conditions of existence" within which human beings necessarily do their thinking — can ultimately help to clarify the nature of Christian commitment. For Kierkegaard, faith is incomprehensible, in the sense that it demands a willingness to venture [wagen] beyond the purview [gebied] of philosophical reason, but it is not unreasonable or irrational. (..) philosophy thus plays a self-critical role: mindful of its own limits, it allows religion to be itself.

2.2.3 James

(..) by W.K. Clifford, who famously declared that "[i]t is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence" (..) James (1842–1910) delineates a set of conditions under which, he argues, it can be reasonable to believe in the absence of proof.

(..) "genuine option"—i.e., a choice between two (or more) "hypotheses" (or candidates for belief) which is "live," "forced," and "momentous"—and that option cannot be decided on intellectual grounds. (..) James argues that the scientific method is oriented around the goal of avoiding error, but that in other aspects of life, the avoidance of error is inadequate. (..) . Religion, he says, teaches two things: (1) that "the best things are the more eternal things" and (2) that we are better off now if we believe (..) As in the social example, the religious hypothesis must, as it were, be met half-way.

Like Pascal, James insists that when it comes to religion, we cannot avoid taking sides and incurring risks. (..) James's argument differs from Pascal's insofar as it purports to show, not that religious belief is more rational, but only that in the absence of definitive evidence it is not less rational, than unbelief or agnosticism (..) John Hick has claimed that James's conclusion "constitutes an unrestriced license for wishful thinking (..) Faith, on James's account, is not a matter of believing against the evidence; the "will to believe" is justified only when the option is genuine and the evidence is inconclusive. (..) , he is comparing the relative merits of rival epistemic strategies (oriented respectively toward the goals of avoiding error and believing truth). (..) that James is not disparaging reason in favor of faith, but attempting rather to carve out a sphere for faith within what is rationally respectable.

2.2.4 Wittgenstein

The speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life (..) language-games "have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,—but that they are related to one another in many different ways" (..) Wittgenstein's later thought (..) lends itself to fideistic interpretation. According to this interpretation, religion is a self-contained and primarily expressive enterprise, governed by its own internal logic or "grammar." This view—commonly called Wittgensteinian Fideism (..) distinct (but arguably inter-related) theses: (1) that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; (2) that religious discourse is essentially self-referential and does not allow us to talk about reality; (3) that religious beliefs can be understood only by religious believers; and (4) that religion cannot be criticized (..)

It is highly doubtful, however, whether Wittgenstein would have endorsed any of these claims, let alone all four of them. (..) Whereas Nielsen treats Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion as essentially an apologetic strategy meant to shield religion from critical assessment, Phillips contended that "it casts a liberating light on both belief and atheism. Both are rescued from philosophical distortion" (2005, 75). (..)

3. Tendentious Terminology

(..) the opposition to reason said to characterize fideism is perhaps better conceived as a rejection of a particular account of reason—one the so-called fideist regards as overly narrow and restrictive—or of the applicability to religion of a particular way of reasoning. (..)

To generalize, what the thinkers labeled "fideists" have tended to find objectionable is not reason per se, but evidentialism—i.e., the doctrine (expressed forcefully by Clifford) that beliefs can be rational only if they are supported by evidence. (..) the believer can be rationally justified—or at least cannot be shown to be behaving irrationally—in holding certain beliefs, even if these beliefs themselves are not supported by evidence. (..)

4. A Rational Fideism?

Stephen Evans's book Faith Beyond Reason (..) faith can appropriately take over where reason leaves matters of ultimate concern unresolved. (..) , he does not reject reason altogether. In his preferred terminology, faith is not so much against as beyond reason, since it is ultimately compatible, in his view, with a duly self-critical intellect.

John Bishop's (..) Believing by Faith: An Essay in the Epistemology and Ethics of Religious Belief. (..) builds on James's argument (..) The brand of fideism for which Bishop argues is thus ‘supra-evidential’ in the sense that it defends the permissibility of reasoning on the basis of commitments that outrun what is warranted on purely evidential grounds. (..) Arguably for premodern thinkers there was no question of "isolating" belief in God from any "wider, generally prevailing, evidential practice," and thus no existential "choice" to be made about which standards to employ. If this is right, it provides additional support for the claim that it is anachronistic to describe someone like Tertullian as a fideist. (..)

David Basinger - Religious Diversity (Pluralism) (SEP, 2010)

How pervasive is religious diversity? Does the reality of this diversity require a response? Can a person who acknowledges religious diversity remain justified in claiming just one perspective to be correct? If so, is it morally justifiable to attempt to convert others to a different perspective? Can it justifiably be claimed that only one religion offers a path into the eternal presence of God? (..)

1. The Pervasiveness of Religious Diversity

(..)

2. Possible Responses to Religious Diversity

One obvious response to religious diversity is to maintain that since there exists no divine reality — since the referent in all religious truth claims related to the divine is nonexistent — all such claims are false. Another possible response, put forth by religious relativists, is that there is no one truth when considering mutually incompatible religious claims about reality; more than one of the conflicting sets of specific truth-claims can be correct (Runzo 1988, 351–357). However, most current discussions of religious diversity presuppose a realist theory of truth — that there is a truth to the matter.

(..) discussions of religious truth claims on three basic categories: religious exclusivism, religious nonexclusivism, and religious pluralism. (..)

3. Religious Diversity and Epistemic Obligation

(..) the exclusivist is obligated at the very least to assess the evidence for and against the beliefs in question and to try to "get a sense of the appeal and of the concern of those who advocate them" (McKim 2001, 146).

However, Plantinga denies that the Christian exclusivist need ever acknowledge that he is facing true epistemic parity — need ever admit that he actually is differing with true epistemic peers. (..)

The strength of this line of reasoning depends in part on the debatable issue of who shoulders the burden of proof on the question of equal epistemic footing. (..) Jerome Gellman (..) states that rock bottom beliefs (..) are the epistemic givens in a religious belief system — the assumed, foundational truths upon which all else is built. (..) Gellman's contention that we need only assess those basic, rock bottom beliefs in which we have lost confidence. (..)

4. Religious Diversity and Justified Belief

(..) what if we assume that while the consideration of criteria such as self-consistency and comprehensiveness can rule out certain options, there exists no set of criteria that will allow us to resolve most religious epistemic disputes (..)

The answer, as some see it, is that the exclusivist can no longer justifiably maintain that her exclusivistic beliefs are true. (..) , as Schellenberg states this conclusion in another context, we must conclude that in the absence of objective, nonquestion-begging justification, none of the disputants in religious conflicts "has justification for supposing the others' claims false" (Schellenberg 2000, 213).

Others (..) arguing rather that while the exclusivist need not abandon religious belief in the face of unresolved conflict, she should hold her exclusive religious beliefs tentatively. (..) Moreover, argues McKim, such tentativeness in the face of diversity has an important payoff. It can lead to deep tolerance: the allowance "that those with whom you disagree are people whom it is worthwhile to approach with rational arguments" (McKim 2001, 178) (..) as Alston sees it, given the absence of common ground for resolving disputes, the proponent of any self-consistent religious perspective can justifiably continue to believe this perspective to be true "despite not being able to show that it is epistemically superior to the competition" (Alston 1988, 443–446).

Philip Quinn (..) . To have a Kantian understanding of religious belief is to assume that although there is a literal noumenal reality, our understanding of this reality (and thus our truth claims about this reality) will of necessity be relative to the cultural/social/psychological grids through which our conceptualization of this noumenal reality is processed. (..) more recently, many Christians have taken a more Kantian approach. (..) They have, in Quinn's terms, thinned their core theologies in a way that reconciles the divergent perspectives.

Everyone realizes, though, that moving toward a thinner theology and thicker phenomenology can resolve the epistemic tension produced by religious diversity only to a certain extent. (..)

5. Religious Diversity and Apologetics

Let us assume that the exclusivist can justifiably defend the epistemic right to retain her exclusivity in the face of such diversity. Ought she stop there or can she justifiably go further? Can she justifiably try to convince others that she is right — can she justifiably try to convert others to her perspective? And if so, is she in any sense obligated to do so?

With very few exceptions, philosophers deny that exclusivists are under any general obligation to proselytize, regardless of whether the exclusivistic system in question demands or encourages such proselytization. (..)

6. Religious Diversity and Religious Tolerance

The main argument supporting the claim that acknowledged diversity can foster tolerance was proposed by the late Philip Quinn (Quinn, 2001, 57–80; 2002, 533–537; 2005a, 136–139). He maintained that (1) serious reflection on the undeniable reality of religious diversity will necessarily weaken an individual's justification for believing that her religious perspective is superior to the perspectives of others and that (2) this weakened justification can, and hopefully will for some, lead to greater religious tolerance — for example, will lead to a more accepting, less confrontational attitude toward others.

Both of Quinn's contentions have been challenged. (..) the reality of religious diversity reduces their justified confidence in their beliefs feel threatened and thus, in an attempt to "stand up for the truth," become even more intolerant of those with other perspectives (Hasker, 2007) (..)

7. Religious Diversity and the Eternal Destiny of Humankind

Those who are religious exclusivists on this question claim that those, and only those, who have met the criteria set forth by one religious perspective can spend eternity in God's presence. (..) not only Christians are salvific exclusivists (..) There are Muslims, for example, who hold that only those who commit themselves to Allah can spend eternity with the Divine. Also important to note is that differing, sometimes even conflicting, exclusivistic claims can exist within the same world religion. (..) religious inclusivists allow that some adherents of other religions can be saved (..)

Probably the best known Christian proponent of this inclusivist perspective is Karl Rahner.

Salvific pluralists, however, find such reasoning no more convincing than that offered by exclusivists. (..) There is no one true religion and, therefore, no one, and only one, path to eternal existence with God.

According to Hick, the most influential proponent of pluralism, three factors make a pluralistic perspective the only plausible option. First, and foremost, he argues, is the reality of transformation parity. (..) the transformation from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness (..) And all the evidence we have, Hick maintains, shows that many religions are equally transformational (..)

Others have argued that focusing on transformational parity can also be used as an argument against salvific pluralism. (..) it is just as plausible to assume that all religious transformational parity is the result of some form of internal conceptual realignment than the result of some form of connection with an external divine reality (..) in the great majority of cases — say 98 to 99 percent — the religion in which a person believes and to which he adheres depends upon where he was born" (Hick 1980, 44). (..)

Finally, Hick argues, a credible religious hypothesis must account for the fact, of which "we have become irreversibly aware in the present century, as the result of anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies and the work of philosophy of language," that there is no one universal and invariable pattern for the interpretation of human experience, but rather a range of significantly different patterns or conceptual schemes "which have developed within the major cultural streams." And when considered in this light, a "pluralistic theory becomes inevitable" (Hick 1984, 232).

Nevertheless it isn't clear to all exclusivists that Hick's hypothesis is so strong that it renders implausible the whole set of basic background beliefs out of which the exclusivist's response to the profound shaping influence of culture on religious belief arises. (..)

Hick argues for salvific pluralism on what might best be called metaphysical or epistemological grounds. Other philosophers, however, have attempted to make a moral case for salvific pluralism (or at least against salvific exclusivism.) (..) recent sociological, psychological, and anthropological studies have confirmed that while one's basic religious beliefs are not inevitable, they are quite often to a significant extent "beyond the direct volitional control of the believer" (Himma 2002, 18). So we must conclude, argues Himma, that it would not be morally just for the Christian God to deny salvation to devout people of other faiths.

Not surprisingly, many nonexclusivists and pluralists will find this basic line of reasoning persuasive. However, some (although not all) exclusivists reject the basic moral assumption on which Himma's argument is based (..) Hick, himself, favors what might be called a selective pluralism that centers on the world's great religions. (..) unlike "Satanism, Nazism, the Order of the Solar Temple, etc.," the world's great religions offer paths that lead us away from "hatred, misery, aggression, unkindness, impatience, violence, and lack of self-control" to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Hick 1997b, 164). (..)

S. Mark Heim, for instance, argues that pluralists such as Hick are really inclusivists in disguise in that they advocate only one path to salvation — the transformation from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness — and thus in essence deny that diverse religions have real, fundamental salvific differences. (..) claim that many distinct paths, while remaining distinct, can lead to salvation (Heim 1995).