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.

Religious disagreement describes the fact that religious and secular beliefs exhibit massive variety and cannot all be perfectly accurate. It yields a problem and an opportunity. The problem is that, especially given the apparent epistemic parity of many who hold other beliefs, you cannot suppose that your beliefs are accurate. This arguably puts pressure on you to weaken or abandon your beliefs. Responses include denying the parity of those who disagree or denying that religious disagreement speaks strongly against your beliefs. This chapter criticizes these responses and defends an alternative epistemology to those employed by both the problem and the responses. The epistemological view defended finds a middle ground between them and positions us to benefit from the opportunity that religious disagreement offers to improve our beliefs. Finally, some objections are addressed: that the opportunity mentality is unnecessary if God supports our beliefs, that it risks our (true) beliefs, and that it is disloyal to God.

The author first rejects interpretations of Aquinas, which he calls “Lockean” because, in the footsteps of Locke, they focus on faith and reason without taking into consideration what seems to be specific to faith, that is, the divine grace because of which the faithful believe. Then, the author concentrates on the theological standpoint from which Aquinas looks at the matter. Finally, he considers the consequences of Aquinas’s view as to the inconclusiveness that often affects debates, especially the religious ones.

The author argues that the firmness of faith championed by outstanding representatives of the Christian tradition is incompatible with the view that one should always prefer beliefs supported by more evidence to beliefs supported by less evidence. The author considers and refutes some perspectives that more or less implicitly minimize this incompatibility. He argues that the Christian faith offers an opportunity to rethink the nature and purpose of debates and to develop a more comprehensive and fruitful epistemological view.