Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology
- Cambridge Handbooks in Philosophy
- The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Faith and Rationality
- 1 Natural Theology and Religious Belief
- 2 Evidence and Religious Belief
- 3 Reformed Epistemology
- 4 Rationality and Miracles
- 5 Pragmatic Arguments for Theism
- 6 Skepticism, Fideism, and Religious Epistemology
- 7 The Problem of Faith and Reason
- Part II Religious Traditions
- Part III New Directions
- References
- Index
3 - Reformed Epistemology
from Part I - Faith and Rationality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2023
- The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology
- Cambridge Handbooks in Philosophy
- The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Faith and Rationality
- 1 Natural Theology and Religious Belief
- 2 Evidence and Religious Belief
- 3 Reformed Epistemology
- 4 Rationality and Miracles
- 5 Pragmatic Arguments for Theism
- 6 Skepticism, Fideism, and Religious Epistemology
- 7 The Problem of Faith and Reason
- Part II Religious Traditions
- Part III New Directions
- References
- Index
Summary
The key idea of Reformed Epistemology is that religious beliefs can be rational even if they are held noninferentially, without being based on arguments. The first part of this chapter clarifies in more detail what Reformed Epistemology says and how the view has evolved in three stages over the past forty years. The first stage was concerned with ground-clearing and initially characterizing the view; the second stage included book-length definitive statements of the view by William Alston and Alvin Plantinga. The third stage consists of twenty-first-century developments of the view, connecting it with, among other things, the cognitive science of religion, cognitively impacted experiences, epistemic intuition, and religious testimony. The second part of the chapter briefly presents three important objections to Reformed Epistemology – having to do with the need for independent confirmation, belief in the Great Pumpkin, and religious disagreement – and considers what can be said in response to them.
Keywords
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology , pp. 41 - 55Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023