Imagine a strong agnostic, Steve, contemplating a Christian, Dave. Steve says 'Dave doesn't know whether Christianity is true or false'. But then, looking in a Bible, Steve sees that it claims that people can know that it is true. Steve could then conclude that the Bible is false, and so that (at least evangelical) Christianity is false. He could go so far as to say 'I know Christianity is false,' thus refuting himself, for he believes that nobody knows whether Christianity is true or not.
It is just such an inconsistency that Alvin Plantinga points at in the book 'Warranted Christian Belief'. However, he goes further. After all, faced with the above argument, Steve is more likely to conclude that Christianity is false than that it is possible for people to know that Christianity is true. To escape this possibility, Plantinga sets up a model of how Christian belief could have warrant (for a discussion of warrant, see my previous post). He claims that none of the current arguments for strong agnosticism exclude his proposed model, so they don't show that nobody knows Christianity is true.
Of course, it wouldn't be inconsistent for Steve to say 'You propose that Christian belief is warranted in the following way. Although I don't know whether Christian beliefs are true or not, I do know that your account is flawed. I have an argument showing that Christian belief does not get warrant in the way you suggest.' The cunning argument above would not apply in this case, unless it could be shown that if Plantinga's account is incorrect, so is Christianity. Plantinga makes a claim of this kind ('if Christian belief is true, then the model in question or one very like it is also true'), but he provides little justification for this claim.
If Plantinga's account were to turn out to be fundamentally incoherent, Christians would be more likely to jettison Plantinga (together with his claim that if his argument falls so does the whole of Christianity) than to abandon Christianity itself. Indeed, this is true of any account of warrant. Dave would not be too worried if Steve were to show that any particular account of how Christian beliefs get warrant fails. He could just abandon that account, which is after all not fundamental to Christianity.
Surely, however, a similar thing would happen if Steve were to come up with an absolutely watertight argument showing that Christian belief, irrespective of whether it is true, cannot have warrant. Dave, forced to accept the argument, would not abandon Christianity itself. He would instead reinterpret the claim that Christians can know that their beliefs are true. Perhaps he would say 'This knowledge is not the petty kind that philosophers are able to tie up with words and play around with. This is a higher, a deeper kind of knowledge; in a sense it is more real, rather than less.'
Most strong agnostics are aware of this ploy; it has been used throughout history when part of Christian belief has been demonstrated to be false. The damaged part is abandoned, and the related claims are reinterpreted. This awareness means that they can't claim a proof that nobody knows Christianity is true as a proof that Christianity is false. For this reason, strong agnostics are not guilty of the inconsistency cited above. The argument is neat, but fails to take into account the realities of human nature.
Of course, this by no means shows that strong agnostics are justified in their claims. Indeed, Plantinga's model was constructed to show that they are not. Using the model, and other arguments, Plantinga considers several arguments for the strong agnostic conclusion, and finds them all wanting. Here Plantinga shows his skill as a philosopher: If the arguments are as he reports then they fail.
How does the model work? Well, Plantinga has defined warrant in terms of proper function. For example, it is through the proper function of my visual system that my beliefs about what I see have warrant. He claims that, similarly, there is a system (the sensus divinitatis) the proper function of which is to give us true beliefs about God. Accordingly, when we get beliefs about God in this way (such as that He exists, is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good), those beliefs have warrant.
A typical case of the operation of this sensus would be the arising of the belief, in a person looking up at the stars, that they must have had a majestic creator. It is also intended to include more specific religious experience, as well as the 'sense of the presence of God'. The claim is not that these experiences are evidence for Christian belief, but that the fact that they arise from a properly functioning cognitive system aimed at producing true beliefs gives them warrant.
It is therefore necessary to examine the idea of proper function. I believe that the principal system whereby I am able to know about my past, namely memory, is functioning properly and is aimed at giving me true beliefs. This is the case even though I have hardly any idea how it works. I would believe that my visual system functions properly and is aimed at giving me true beliefs even if I didn't have the slightly greater, but still extremely weak, grasp of how it works that I do have.
Why is that? Well, when I see something red, and I talk to other people, they also say it is red. Where I see a tree, others also claim that they see a tree. In much more complex systems, involving complicated interactions with other people or other senses, my visual system is vindicated time and again. This vindication is not the same thing as proper function, but it is certainly evidence of it. Accordingly, I have a second-level model of the world in which I model myself as seeing things via a visual system which gives me true beliefs about the world (for a discussion of this kind of model, see this post).
This higher-level model does not justify my visual beliefs; they do that for themselves. It explains them, and explains them in such a way that I believe that they have warrant. The model does not give the beliefs warrant (it is the proper function of the visual cortex which does that). Instead, the model justifies my belief that my visual beliefs have warrant: That they constitute knowledge.
Things do not always turn out so well. When I look at the systems that give me my beliefs, I sometimes find that they are not reliable, so that they either don't function properly or aren't aimed at producing true beliefs. Suppose, for example, that I have a particularly malignant kind of cancer. I may find that I nevertheless believe that I will survive. Careful study may show that this belief is common amongst those with terminal illness, and that it is as commonly false. I would have to conclude that the belief doesn't have warrant for me. The system that produced it is aimed at survival, rather than truth.
Of course, no system is perfect. Careful study of a system should allow us to discover under what circumstances a belief produced by it will have warrant for us. The idea that we can have beliefs, but believe that those very beliefs don't have warrant for us may seem odd, but it is a natural concept and one that we express using the words 'as if'. It looks as if the pattern is in motion, but I know that it's just an illusion. It feels as if there must be something I can do to contact my spouse, who is dead, but there is nothing.
Whatever system it is that philosophers use to come to their philosophical beliefs, it can't normally be functioning properly. This can be seen by considering the notorious and extensive disagreements amongst philosophers over the most basic things. Accordingly, you should take all philosophical ideas I present on this blog with a large pinch of salt (particularly since I'm not very good at philosophy).
What about the sensus divinitatis? Does study of the beliefs this system produces suggest that it is functioning properly? Frankly, no. The main reason is that it does not produce consistent results. Jews and Muslims believe on the basis of this sense that there is just one god. Christians believe something similar, though they are led to believe that that god consists of three persons. Hindus believe that there are very many gods, in just the same way. For still others, this sensus seems to give no more than the belief that the universe is a deeply mysterious, beautiful and awesome place.
Of course, Plantinga is aware of this problem, and is able to circumvent it. According to him, in anybody who is not a Christian the sensus divinitatus is malfunctioning as a result of the fall. Only in Christians is it functioning properly. This miraculous proper function is achieved through the proper function of yet another process (faith), which acts in Christians although it is not part of their native cognitive equipment. Since this second process is only given to Christians on the basis of grace, we should not expect to find it operating in non-Christians.
How does this secondary system work? First, there is the existence of the Bible, of which God is the principal author. When a Christian reads the Bible, a system called the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit (IIHS) kicks in, which when functioning properly gives the Christian the belief that what they are reading is true. This belief, coming as it does from a properly functioning system, has warrant. In such a circumstance, we say that the Christian knows by faith.
So now, it is necessary to ask, is faith (described in these terms) a properly functioning cognitive system aimed at the truth? Again, we must answer no. The first reason is once more the inconsistency of the beliefs produced in this way. The history of the Church is full of schisms and disagreements, some over substantial points of Christian doctrine, in which both sides claimed that they believed what they did by faith through the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit revealing to them the truth of scripture.
The second reason is one of inaccuracy. Some passages of the Bible suggest, on a naive reading, that God will answer any prayer whatsoever. Scientific studies have shown that this is false; in all circumstances that have been tested, God answers no more prayers than you would expect to be answered by chance if there were no God. You may not be so naive as to believe that the passages about prayer should be interpreted in a literalistic way, but others have been. They would have said that they believed God answers prayer, if not always, at least in such a way as to be distinguishable from coincidence, and that they believed this by faith through the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit revealing to them the truth of scripture.
Very well, the Christian may say, not everybody who says they believe something by faith is right. Nevertheless, in my case, faith is functioning properly, and so my beliefs have warrant. Even if this were true, the Christian surely does not have good reason to believe it. After careful consideration of the people with whom she disagrees, she concludes that people may have similar experiences to her and may be misled into false beliefs on the basis of those experiences. So she can't conclude with certainty that the same experiences in her are the operation of a properly functioning system. Nor can she claim that she knows by faith that her particular beliefs have warrant. On this model, only truths revealed in the Bible are known by faith, and claims about her particular beliefs aren't there. The best she can say is 'It feels to me as if these things are true'.
Even worse, faith can lead people to believe things in the face of strong contrary evidence. For, faced with strong evidence in favour of evolution, the Christian may reason thus: 'If my cognitive faculties were working perfectly, I would believe what the Bible says, and I would see its truth so clearly that this evidence would pale into insignificance. What's more, my belief would be warranted. So I can be perfectly warranted in believing this. Accordingly, I won't believe the theory of evolution by natural selection on the basis of this evidence'. This may seem like an extreme exaggeration of Plantinga's view, like a disfigured straw man. But in fact, it is precisely this sort of argument which Plantinga gives in response to the problem of evil in the last chapter of his book.
Plantinga's definition of faith, then, draws dangerously close to the caricature suggested by Richard Dawkins:
Faith ... means blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence.Then again, as Plantinga himself says,
What is supposed to be bad about believing in the absence of evidence?
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