Glorygirl

I have another question about another article. This article is "Theism, Theism, and Rationality"? have anyone have any idea about this article?
1. Alvin Plantiga believes it is rational to believe in God, but what arguments from others does he list that claim belief in God is NOT rational?
2. What arguments does Plantinga offer to prove that believe in God is Rational?
If anyone can help me with this, i'll be very happy

ex-xian

Can you post a link to where the article can be found? I searched google, but found nothing.

Glorygirl

i posted wrong is supposed to be "Theism, atheism, and rationality"
you can go to this site and check this out
http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth02.html
sorry about that

Bilbo

Glorygirl writes:

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I have another question about another article. This article is "Theism, Theism, and Rationality"? have anyone have any idea about this article?
1. Alvin Plantiga believes it is rational to believe in God, but what arguments from others does he list that claim belief in God is NOT rational?
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Plantinga provides a very general survey of the so called "evidential" objection to theistic belief. Plantinga cites writers such as John Locke, David Hume, C.K. Clifford, William James, Bertrand Russell, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx.

The gist of the evidential objection should be clear from the citations that Plantinga provides; namely, that God-belief apart from evidence is in some sense irrational. Plantinga adduces that the *reason* that unevidenced God-belief is irrational can be boiled down to one of two general theses:

[a] that the theist is somehow derelict in his epistemic responsibilities regarding his God-belief (classical deontologism)

or

[b] that the theist suffers cognitive dysfunction of some sort.

Needless to say, Plantinga finds both theses vague, uncompelling, and underdeveloped (as he understands them); being subject to straightforward and intuitively plausible counterexamples and counterarguments.

In some of his earlier work, Plantinga draws from the failure of evidentialism the implication that belief in God is on (epistemic) par with other commonsensical beliefs, such as belief in other minds. As a corrolary, Plantinga believes that there aren't good *evidential* criteria either for or against such beliefs, and that the rationality of those beliefs turn on other considerations.

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2. What arguments does Plantinga offer to prove that belief in God is Rational? If anyone can help me with this, i'll be very happy
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Plantinga contends (in part, due to the percieved failure of evidentialism) that rationality is a relative notion, - relative to certain cognitive structures and metaphysical views. What is *rational* for a person to believe will depend in some important respects on what one takes a person to *be*.

In this respect, Plantinga has attempted to set the agenda for contemporary epistemology with the thesis of Proper Functionalism.

A comprehensive and rigorous treatment of these and related issues issues can be found in the first and second installments of the warrant trilogy.


Cheers,

Bilbo.