Joshua C. Thurow

This chapter discusses whether scientific attempts to explain religious beliefs cast doubt on theistic belief. Five different ways of ‘casting doubt’ are distinguished, and it is argued that work in the cognitive science of religion (CSR) does not cast doubt on theistic belief in two of these ways. However, some work in CSR does cast doubt to some extent by way of undermining at least one argument for theism, namely, C.S. Lewis’s Argument from Desire. However, it is also argued that CSR does not undermine the cosmological and design arguments. Although CSR does cast some degree of doubt on theistic belief, it by no means follows that theistic belief is unjustified, or that it is not highly justified.

In recent years philosophers have begun to reflect more deeply on the significance of disagreement between equally rational and well-informed peers. Many, including Richard Feldman, have argued that disagreement between such peers requires that both suspend judgement. Applying this to the religious domain and given widespread religious disagreement, Feldman’s view results in religious scepticism. This chapter questions Feldman’s view by first explaining more fully the equal weight view about disagreement, and secondly arguing that there are cases of disagreement where equal weight would result in agreement. In such cases, the belief structure and the precise location of the disagreement within it explains why agreement is rationally mandated by equal weight. Thirdly, the chapter argues that religious disagreements could be examples of such cases. Equal weight could end up rationally requiring agreement that God exists (or not, depending on the details of the disagreement).

Any modern, moderately intellectually mature (MMIM) believer in God faces a variety of epistemic defeaters of their belief in God. Epistemic defeaters challenge the rationality of a belief. After explaining the notion of a defeater and discussing various ways and targets of defeat, this Element categorizes the many defeaters of belief in God into four classes: rebutting, undercutting, base defeaters, and competence defeaters. Then, several general defeaters of theistic belief are examined in some detail: the superfluity argument, the problem of unpossessed evidence, various forms of debunking arguments, and a cumulative case competence defeater. The typical MMIM believer, it is argued, has resources to resist these defeaters, although the cumulative case competence defeater has some force. The strength of its force depends on the strength of grounds for theistic belief and of various defeaters and deflectors of the competence defeater. No easy general defeater of theistic belief is found.

William Lane Craig has put a lot of clever work into trying to remodel and restore the penal substitution view of atonement. I argue, however, that Craig has fallen into a money pit. His penal substitutionary view is vulnerable to two versions of the justice worry. And his case for his view is methodologically flawed; it assumes biblical Mooreanism, which I argue does not apply in theorizing about atonement. I present a better, inference to the best explanation, theological methodology and suggest that on it other atonement theories fare better than penal substitution.

For much of the past two millennia philosophers have embraced a priori knowledge and have thought that the a priori plays an important role in philosophy itself. Philosophers from Plato to Descartes, Kant to Kripke, all endorse the a priori and engage in a priori reasoning in their philosophical discussions. Recent work in epistemology and experimental philosophy, however, has raised questions about both the existence of a priori knowledge and the centrality of the a priori for philosophy. This collection of essays aims to advance the discussion of the a priori and its role in philosophy. The contributors include a mix of young and established philosophers, including some of the most prominent voices in philosophy today.

In his book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, John Pittard presents and critiques what he calls the “master argument for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism.” This argument purports to show, using only higher-order reasoning and facts about religious disagreement, that nobody’s religious outlook is justified (at least, nobody aware of the argument). The master argument presupposes that any attempt to vindicate one’s religious outlook must employ dispute-independent reasons. Pittard objects to this assumption and argues, instead, for rationalist weak conciliationism: the view that partisan justification can be had when (and only when) one has rational insight into the claim in question. In this paper, I raise a challenge for rationalist weak conciliationism; in short, it is difficult to explain why only rational insight provides partisan justification while maintaining that a wide range of beliefs, including religious beliefs, can be justified in a partisan way.

On the face of it, much of what philosophers do is a priori. Many philosophical views are defended using intuitions that seem a priori justified. However, the a priori faces two challenges: 1) it is unclear how a priori beliefs could be formed reliably, and 2) the results of experimental philosophy seem to cast doubt on the reliability of a priori intuitions. This chapter aims to respond to both of these challenges by developing a theory—the Implicit Conception and Intuition (ICI) Theory—of how a priori beliefs can be reliably produced. This theory explains how there can be a reliable connection between intuitions and implicit conceptions for relevant concept, and also a reliable connection between one’s implicit conceptions and truths involving the relevant concepts. The theory developed has several virtues: it is 1) consistent with the notion that a priori justification is fallible, 2) incorporable into both internalist and externalist theories of justification and knowledge, and 3) consistent with internalism and externalism about content. Furthermore, it is argued that according to this theory, an extreme restrictionist view of the epistemic value of the a priori is not warranted, but that experimental philosophy can in principle be useful for 1) developing a better understanding of many concepts (and their objects) that philosophers study, and 2) identifying ways in which our intuitions can be distorted.

According to Paul Draper and Ryan Nichols the practice of philosophy of religion—and especially its theistically committed practitioners—regularly violate norms of rationality, objectivity, and impartiality in the review, assessment, and weighing of evidence. (Draper and Nichols, 2013). We consider the charge of epistemic partisanship and show that the observational data does not illustrate a norm-violating form of inquiry. The major oversight in the charge of epistemic partiality is the epistemically central role of prior probabilities in determining the significance of incongruent evidence. We argue that reasonably divergent views on the likelihood of theism on incongruent evidence can also account for differences in significance. We conclude that it is an epistemic requirement that committed theists regard incongruent evils as much less significant evidence against theism than do lukewarm theists, agnostics, or atheists. Differences in the significance of evidence quite properly reflect differences in commitments to theism.

How does Jesus’s death atone for human sin? Traditional answers to this question face a challenge: explain how Jesus’s death plays an important and distinctive role in atoning for human sin without employing problematic philosophical or moral assumptions. I present a new answer that meets the challenge. In the context of the Jewish sacrificial background, the blood of a pure victim can communicate the washing away of sins. Jesus’s death atones because through it his blood, and then his resurrection, can communicate the washing away of sins and thus that God has accepted his work of atonement.

In Atonement, Eleonore Stump develops a novel and compelling Thomistic account of the atonement and argues that Anselmian interpretations must be rejected. In this review essay, after summarizing her account, we raise worries about some aspects of it. First, we respond to her primary objection to Anselmian interpretations by arguing that, contrary to Stump, love does not require unilateral and unconditional forgiveness. Second, we suggest that the heart of Anselmian interpretations—that reconciliation with God requires reparation/restitution/satisfaction—is plausible and well-supported by some of her own arguments. Third, we raise doubts about her views of the role of surrender in justification and the nature of justification itself. Finally, we question whether Stump’s account can successfully explain how the atonement deals with pre-justification sin. A central theme of our comments is that Stump’s Thomistic interpretation can be entwined with Anselmian interpretations to make a stronger account of the atonement.

According to the most recent articulation of her view, Marilyn Adams’s reply to the problem of horrendous evils states that God offers compensation to those who experience horrendous evils. This compensation includes the good of the incarnation of God and the good of identification with God in virtue of suffering horrendous evils. Andrew Gleeson has raised a series of objections to Adams’s recent articulation. I argue that all of Gleeson’s arguments fail or fail to pose a distinct challenge. I then present a different challenge: that her view provides insufficient compensation for horrendous evils. I conclude by suggesting a development of her view.

One of the contentious philosophical issues surrounding the cognitive science of religion (CSR) is whether well-confirmed CSR theories would debunk religious beliefs. These debates have been contentious in part because of criticisms of epistemic principles used in debunking arguments. In this paper I use Ernest Sosa’s respected theory of knowledge as fully apt belief—which avoids objections that have been leveled against sensitivity and safety principles often used in debunking arguments—to construct a plausible debunking argument for religious belief on the assumption that religious belief is formed simply through processes theorized by CSR. But, in fact, most believers also rely on arguments of various sorts, and their beliefs are not debunked.

I argue that ensouled animalism—the view that we are identical to animals that have immaterial souls as parts—has a pair of advantages over its two nearest rivals, materialistic animalism and pure dualism. Contra pure dualism, ensouled animalism can explain how physical predications can be literally true of us. Contra materialistic animalism, ensouled animalism can explain how animals can survive death. Furthermore, ensouled animalism has these advantages without creating any problems beyond those already faced by animalism and by belief in souls. However, some animalists, including Eric Olson, think that animals cannot have immaterial parts. I present a sufficient condition for animal parthood that implies animals can have immaterial parts. Ensouled animalism is not only possible, but also doubly attractive.

Anselm’s argument in Cur Deus Homo commits him to the existence of collective sin and to Jesus’s offering recompense for the human race’s collective sin. By “collective sin” I mean sin of a collective entity—in this case, the human race. In the bulk of this paper I argue that one of Anselm’s defenses of a crucial assumption of his argument—what I call Anselm’s Principle—can succeed only on the assumption that Jesus offers recompense for the collective sin of the human race. At the end of the paper’s final section I briefly present a second argument that another, quite separate, aspect of Anselm’s argument—regarding the conditions for blessed happiness—also implies that Jesus offers recompense for the collective sin of the human race.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has developed and progressively refined an argument against moral intuitionism—the view on which some moral beliefs enjoy non-inferential justification. He has stated his argument in a few different forms, but the basic idea is straightforward. To start with, Sinnott-Armstrong highlights facts relevant to the truth of moral beliefs: such beliefs are sometimes biased, influenced by various irrelevant factors, and often subject to disagreement. Given these facts, Sinnott-Armstrong infers that many moral beliefs are false. What then shall we think of our own moral beliefs? Either we have reason to think some of our moral beliefs are reliably formed or we have no such reason. If the latter, our moral beliefs are unjustified. If we have reason to think some moral beliefs are reliably formed, then those beliefs are not non-inferentially justified, because then we’ll have reason to accept something—namely, that they are reliably formed—that entails or supports those beliefs. But then, either way, our moral beliefs are not non-inferentially justified, and so moral intuitionism is false. This paper takes issue with Sinnott-Armstrong’s interesting and widely discussed argument, which we here call the Empirical Defeat Argument (EDA). According to us, the EDA does not defeat moral intuitionism. In section 1, we will set out the argument, briefly reviewing the rationale Sinnott-Armstrong offers for the premises. Then, in section 2, we identify a critical but dubious epistemological assumption concerning the nature of defeat that undergirds the argument. Finally, in section 3, we will defend our challenge to the EDA by answering two objections.

One of Laurence BonJour’s main arguments for the existence of the a priori is an argument that a priori justification is indispensable for making inferences from experience to conclusions that go beyond experience. This argument has recently come under heavy fire from Albert Casullo, who has dubbed BonJour’s argument, “The Generality Argument.” In this paper I (i) defend the Generality Argument against Casullo’s criticisms, and (ii) develop a new, more plausible, version of the Generality Argument in response to some other objections of my own. Two of these objections stem out of BonJour’s failing to fully consider the importance of the distinction between being justified in believing that an inference is good and being justified in making an inference. The final version of the argument that I develop sees the Generality Argument as one part of a cumulative case argument for the existence of a priori justification, rather than as a stand-alone knock-down argument.

In his recent book Albert Casullo rejects the claim that if a belief is defeasible by non-experiential evidence then it is defeasible by experiential evidence. This claim is a crucial premise in a simple argument for the experiential defeasibility of a priori justification. I defend the premise against Casullo's objection, the main problem with which is that he does not take into account the evidential role of multiple corroborating sources of testimony. I conclude that the crucial premise is true and that the simple argument is sound; thus many of our a priori justified beliefs are experientially defeasible