luvluv

Maybe I am misunderstanding the cases that are being made, but I thought Kenny and Kuyper's point was that the evidence upon which the theist believes is sufficient for warrant if God exists. I don't see that it follows that this would be the case if there was no evidence.

K

Nightshade:

How does the formal debate area work? I'm asking more out of a general curiosity than an actual interest in investing the time to seriously debate anything at the moment.

K

luvluv:

No, Kenny has argued that there are certain beliefs which, by their very nature, are rational despite a complete lack of evidence. He has also argued that theim is among these beliefs. Kuyper has concurred.

I don't think either has claimed that there is no evidence for theism - only that the evidence isn't necessary for the belief to be rational.

KnightWhoSaysNi

As I understand it, when two contenders agree to debate an issue in the debate/discussion forum, they need to contact Dr Rick (the debate forum mod) and ask that they be permitted to post in a formal debate. The two debators will be set up so that only they can post on their thread.

I'll page DrRick. He can probably explain it better in more detail.

The last debate in there was between GeoTheo and Scigirl on homosexuality.

bd-from-kg

K:

That's basically correct. Kenny, for example, has argued that belief in God can be "properly basic". A properly basic belief, by definition, is one which it is "permissible" or "intellectually proper" to believe without evidence - i.e., one which a person is within his "epistemic rights" to hold. In this case "evidence" is usually taken to include convincing arguments; otherwise one would have to say that even very complex, subtle tautologies, such as the independence of the continuum hypothesis, are "properly basic".

As I understand it, Kenny's position basically is that it's rational to believe in God without evidence if God exists. In a way this qualification is meaningless (for Kenny), because (as I understand it) he also holds that God necessarily exists, so that there is no possible world in which it is not rational to believe in Him without evidence.

So yes, luvluv, there really are people who hold not only that it is perfectly rational to believe in God, but that it would (or at least could) be perfectly rational even if there were no evidence at all of His existence. Plantinga is perhaps the leading exponent of this position today. There are even those. like van Til, who hold that it would be irrational not to believe in God even if there were no evidence whatever of His existence.

HRG

We should not forget that Gödel's theorem is about mathematical proofs in the strictest sense (i.e. finitary ones). A relaxation of this requirement makes Gödel's famous example of a true, but unprovable statement - the consistency of arithmetics - provable; this is a result of Gerhard Gentzen.

And I would still call Gentzen's proof a "proof beyond reasonable doubt" - which, IMHO, is the standard we should use for statements about the real world. The "100% proofs" that Gödel dealt with are appropriate for formal systems - like mathematics.

Regards,
HRG.

Kenny

Actually, there is nothing peculiar about the manner in which Plantinga has defined the notion of ‘warrant.’ Plantinga is operating in the same externalist tradition of “naturalized epistemology” that was basically started by the likes of Goldman and Quine. I don’t know about Goldman, but Quine is a committed metaphysical naturalist. In fact, there are many philosophers in this general tradition who are committed metaphysical naturalists, and many of the systems of these philosophers would be just as congenial to a properly basic defense of the rationality of theism as Plantinga’s system (some of them, in fact, would actually be more congenial).

I’m not ignoring it. I intend to deal with that issue when I give you my response to your rebuttal of my last long response. Before I do that, however, I am waiting for the rest of your response to come in.

Well, I’ve been operating under the presupposition that warrant entails rational justification, just as you seem to have been; we just disagree about what rational justification entails.

No, I’m not saying that, exactly. There is a significant technical point involved here. In order for a belief to have properly basic warrant, there must be a lack of sufficient defeaters for it. Among potential defeaters for a belief are what would be classified as undermining defeaters which would be positive reasons for concluding that a belief is false. It can be shown that the very absence of such defeaters, in and of itself, constitutes a sort of positive set of evidence for a belief by virtue of the fact that such an absence actually serves to raise the probability such a particular belief is true:

Proof:

Assume: 0< P(h/k)<1 and 0<P(e/k)<1

Suppose also that: P(h/e&k) < P(h/k) (i.e. e counts as undermining evidence for h)

Since Bayes’ Theorem stipulates: P(h/e&k) = P(h/k) * P(e/h&k)/P(e/k), it follows that:

1.) P(e/h&k)/P(e/k) < 1
2.) P(e/h&k) < P(e/k)
3.) 1 - P(~e/h&k) < 1 - P(~e/k)
4.) P(~e/h&k) > P(~e/k)
5.) P(h/~e&k) > P(h/k) (By Bayes’ Theorem and 4)

Since the absence of sufficient undermining defeaters for a belief are required for a belief to maintain its rationality, and since such an absence in and of itself constitutes a sort of positive evidence for the belief in question, it is not the case that a properly basic belief can maintain its rational status in the absence of any positive evidence. However, because it is properly basic, such a belief can be considered rational without its having been inferred from any evidence.

This is essentially the Great Pumpkin objection, to which I have already responded (see my first two posts to SRB).

God Bless,
Kenny

Kenny

Actually, I am saying that theistic belief is of such a nature that if it were true then there is a high probability that it is warranted for its adherents in a properly basic manner. If theism is warranted in a properly basic manner for its adherents, then it need not be inferred from evidence in order to be considered rational.

However, there is some technically murky ground here. The very fact that one finds oneself with a strong inclination to believe in God itself would constitute a sort of positive evidence that theism is true (albeit, not necessarily very compelling evidence) because the hypothesis that God exists raises the probability that one would have such an inclination. So, there is some positive evidence involved in the very process by which one comes to believe in God, but the point is that belief in God need not be inferred from such evidence. It’s not as if the theist reasons something like:

1.) I have a strong inclination to believe in God
2.) If God exists, it is likely that I would have such an inclination

Therefore, (probably) God exists.

Such a probabilistic inference would not be a valid one. Rather the theist just finds herself believing in God because of a strong internal predisposition to do so. Whether this belief is warranted depends on the source and nature of the predisposition that caused it.

Also, see my last post to Bd where I talk about the absence of sufficient undermining defeaters (if there is such a lack – I realize that this is also a contested point on this forum) as a form of positive evidence for theism.

Furthermore, I am not claiming that the believer has no evidence for theism. I see evidences of the presence of God in my life and in the lives of others everyday. Of course, the manner in which I interpret my experiences and frame my beliefs about the events in my life already transpires in a network of beliefs that already includes God, so the meaning and significance I attach to those evidences is already informed by belief in God (this would be along the lines of what philosophers of science might call the “theory ladeness” of data). However, my belief in God does not rest on such evidences.

Finally, I think strong arguments and strong cases can be made for theism. Just because such is not necessary, does not mean that such does not exist. Those are separate issues.

God Bless,
Kenny

Kenny

Not quite. It is true that I believe that God necessarily exists. However, it may be that there are possible worlds in which God, for whatever reason, has created rational beings without designing their cognitive faculties in such a way as to make them predisposed to believe in God and has chosen not to reveal Himself to these beings. But, I would argue that on the hypothesis that the sort of God worshiped by the three main monotheistic religions exists, one Who is deeply concerned with the affairs of His creation at every level, and one Who desires to make Himself known to other rational beings, then there is a reasonably high objective probability that God designed our cognitive faculties in such a way as to make belief in Him properly basic. That is sufficient for my argument.

God Bless,
Kenny

rainbow walking

ya but, Kenny, what evidence is there that our cognitive faculties were designed rather than developed naturally? I can see ample reason why our cognitive faculties would design a belief system but no good reason why an omnimax being would want or need to design cognitive faculties to believe some things without evidence and to gain knowledge of many other things via evidence in the same framework.