Evelina Edfors

In this thesis I argue that epistemic trust in religious authorities is different from epistemic trust in other kinds of authorities because God disturbs the two-party relationship between trustee and truster. I reach this conclusion by first examining the nature of epistemic trust in authorities and how it is justifiable to practice this kind of trust. I then compare these findings to the nature of epistemic trust in religious authorities and see that the general justification for epistemic trust in authorities is not sufficient, instead, God’s relationship with the trusting party, the layperson, needs to be taken into consideration in order to justify epistemic trust in religious authorities.