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Bible Study
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Title: Epistemic Certainty and Belief in God
Source: Triablogue
URL Source: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009 ... rtainty-and-belief-in-god.html
Published: May 27, 2009
Author: Dr. Michael Sudduth
Post Date: 2015-01-21 16:16:23 by redleghunter
Keywords: None
Views: 23282
Comments: 66

Many theists maintain that they are certain of the truth of various theological propositions, among them being the proposition that God exists. I want to argue that for at least one important sense of certainty this position is false.

The relevant sense of certainty here is what is called epistemic certainty, a species of certainty distinguished from so-called psychological certainty. The latter is merely descriptive and refers to a cognizer having maximal conviction or assurance of the truth of some proposition.

While many theists are psychologically certain of God’s existence, this is epistemologically uninteresting. People have psychological certainty regarding all sorts of false propositions (e.g., Santa Claus exists, the world is flat, Elvis is alive). By contrast, a belief that is epistemically certain has some epistemic merit or credential, an epistemic merit or credential that is in some respect unsurpassed by other beliefs. I’ll argue that theistic belief (and belief in other theological propositions) is not epistemically certain...............

******************************************************************************** One might suppose, though, that a different answer can be drawn from Plantinga’s epistemology. On Plantinga’s view, a person whose relevant cognitive faculties are functioning properly will hold a firm theistic belief that has a high degree of warrant. In fact, on Plantinga’s view, theistic belief is indefeasible for all fully rational persons. No proposition a fully rational person entertains could serve as a defeater for theistic belief. That’s a pretty substantial epistemic credential.

Of course, defeaters against theistic belief exist according to Plantinga, but only because the epistemic integrity of some other aspect of our cognitive establishment (perhaps the sensus divinitatis) has been compromised, say by the noetic effects of sin. It may very well be true that apart from the noetic effects of sin, humans would believe in God just as firmly as they believe in their own existence, the existence of an external world, other minds, and various a priori truths, and perhaps our theistic beliefs would be just as warranted as these other beliefs.

But this is an ideal view of the human cognitive situation, at best true for some original cognitive design plan and perhaps true for us in our final state. But now we see through a glass darkly, as it were. As indicated in prior chapters, the noetic effects of sin are a factor in assessing the degree to which all our beliefs can be warranted, including belief in God. It is hard to see how theistic belief can be maximally warranted for humans under any post-lapsarian cognitive design plan.11

So I think we must conclude that there isn’t a very strong case for supposing that theistic beliefs are epistemically certain in either the sense of indubitability or maximal warrant. In fact, this looks just plain false.

III. The Senses in which Belief in God is Certain

In what sense, then, can theistic belief be certain?

Many theists are psychologically certain of the existence of God and other theological propositions. However practically useful such a belief is, psychological certainty says nothing about the normative axis of belief, the epistemic merits or credentials of a belief. So we must look elsewhere for a relevant and plausible sense in which theists may have certainty concerning the existence of God and other theological propositions.

If God’s existence is logically necessary, then theistic belief is certain in a purely logical sense, for then it will not be logically possible to believe that God exists and for this belief to be false.12 But this isn’t epistemic certainty. Since it is logically possible to believe a logically necessary truth and yet not know the proposition, or even be warranted in holding it, clearly there is a sense in which it is impossible to be mistaken in a belief and yet for this to carry no epistemic significance. Suppose Jack believes nothing is red and non-colored because a character in a cartoon asserts it and Jack is inclined to accept whatever he hears cartoon characters affirm. His belief is true, but it would seem to have little by way of warrant. The logical status of the proposition tells us nothing about the positive epistemic status of his belief in the proposition.13

I would suggest that the relevant and plausible kind of certainty is moral certainty. A morally certain belief is beyond all reasonable doubt, though not beyond all possible doubt. In positive terms, such beliefs are highly probable. Morally certain beliefs entitle us to be sure about our beliefs, and at least some of them they carry a degree of warrant that is plausibly sufficient, together with the satisfaction of the truth condition, for knowledge. Thus morally certain theistic beliefs do justice to the Biblical passages that suggest Christians ought to be sure about their faith and that Christians have knowledge of God.14

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Poster Comment:

A good mental drill in this piece. I posted two of the main points, and the author's summary. Good debate in the comments section at the site.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 56.

#51. To: redleghunter (#0)

One of the reasons these discussions bore me to tears is that everybody talks and talks, but nobody listens to anybody else. At any rate, people do not listen to ME, and they glide right over what I have to say.

In the context of this thread, I will say it again: epistemological certainty of the existence of God can be gained by physical proof of God's existence.

The ASSUMPTION everybody who makes these arguments makes is that no such proof exists. That's false. There is quite a bit of physical proof, things that are of clear religious content that, when examined forensically, are demonstrable miracles - meaning that their properties violate the laws of physics and they can neither exist nor have come into existence. Yet there they are, existing in all of their spinning unreasonableness, and conveying overt, in-your-face religious content as their primary function.

I understand that somebody saying "I've spoken with God", or "I've seen this" or "I've seen that" isn't persuasive to anybody: the speaker could be lying, or crazy, or deluded.

But concrete examinable objects are of a different order of proof: they can be forensically examined - and the objects that prove God HAVE BEEN, some quite exhaustively.

I always try to bring them into precisely this sort of discussion, because they are discussion enders: there, God's existence is physically proven, NOW WHAT? That is where the discussion should go, if people were logical, and if they actually were interested in learning something.

But that never happens. Believe me, I know. I have attempted to show the proofs a hundred times. I am never asked to show the proofs. NEVER. NOT ONE TIME. People IGNORE the proffer. They don't want to hear it. Or they don't hear it. They assume they know that it's all bullshit and they don't spent a second even considering the possibility that God has physically proved himself to anybody who will look.

I always press the issue, because I know that the physical proof is very strong, it's the strongest argument of all. It SILENCES the discussion by ending it, as the proof not only proves God, but demonstrates WHO God is - and answers the question of "Which religion". All of the miracles are Christian. ALL of them, as in EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Nobody asks at the proffer, but I always press, because I know the answer to the question, and God provided the answer. Then people get annoyed. They get annoyed and they start trotting out their own made-up traditions of spit, tissue paper and earwax, saying that God would never LET himself be PROVEN, because the whole PURPOSE of religion is to force FAITH WITHOUT PROOF. These logical boogers are pulled out of people's nose and wiped all over everything.

Fact is, those beliefs themselves are false. God always proved himself by visible miracle in the Scripture - every time - AND he left solid physical proof since then that anybody can look at, and start seeing more and more of it, and realize that it's not even a debatable point. God exists, and he left hundreds of open physical artifacts that prove it to the skeptical mind that doesn't run off the reservation of science.

But that's where the trench line always settles: people talking in blind and bludgeoning ignorance and stupidity about what God "would not do", even though God manifestly DID.

And so we never get to the actual miracles. Nobody will ever look. Nobody ever asks.

Then they write stupid articles like this one that pretend - for all it is is a pretence - that God plays hide the football with his existence and leaves us all stumbling around in the dark trying to reason things out.

It's all a load of crap.

God revealed himself in power and miracle in Scriptural times, and he did so throughout the ages since, and he left at least a hundred objects each of which manifests a Christian miracle. And he didn't leave anything like that anywhere else.

I'll write it here, with considerable irritation in my voice. And STILL nobody will ask for the list. People do not want to know. They prefer to lie to themselves and say that it's all unknowable.

It's not. I know God is because he grabbed my face and talked to me. I set out to prove to myself that I'm not crazy, and to prove to others that he exists, and to prove it scientifically, and the proof is mountainous.

I've seen the skeptics attack the proof, but they always resort to obfuscation and lies. They cannot face the evidence head on, because it DOES prove God. It also proves other things people don't want to hear.

Nevertheless, God can be proven epistemologically, using the concrete physical miracles he left and preserved through the ages to do just precisely that: prove himself, to anybody who really needs to know.

So, if there's a man saying "Well, if I had PROOF of God, then I'd believe." The proof exists, abundantly, concretely. But if you don't understand physics, chemistry and biology, you won't be able to fully grasp just how miraculous these proofs are. You can see WHAT they are, and WHAT story they tell, but you cannot penetrate to the MIRACLE without science.

God proves himself physically by leaving physical miracles for people to look at. The miracles prove that God is the Christian God. The lack of miracles for any other religion prove that the Christian God is the only one who can perform these miracles.

Now watch the howling and gnashing of teeth, and watch a whole bunch of folks become smarter than they really are, and watch me be demoted to an ignorant, unscientific Bible-thumper (and watch the Bible-thumpers scream from the other wing that "God would NEVER provide proof). Both sides are wrong, he DID provide proof, and the proof proves it, and intelligent and discerning minds ought to look, see and accept.

Instead, there will be silence, or anger. And the discussion will go on as though nothing happened, and as though there is no proof.

Well, there is. There is, and God left it there to answer these questions. So people who think they're so smart and philosophical and theological should be quiet and examine it.

And then they should think three times before denying it because they don't like the content of it, or the fact of its existence. They should be quiet because the miracles ARE miracles, and they HAVE the content, which means that God put that content there in that form, and the man who opposes the form or the content is contesting with God: "You cannot do that!" And that's a supremely stupid and arrogant thing for a man to say to God.

Just watch what happens next now. It's so predictable.

(1) Ignorance. (2) Anger. (3) Haughty denunciation. (4) Appeals to logic and theology.

But never (A) LOOK at the miracles and SEE what God left.

People should just do A and then put their hands over their mouths and be silent, and accept that God IS, and God is PROVEN, and God has an opinion about some things, and he has expressed it. And then men should drop their opposing beliefs and accept reality.

Now watch none of those things happen, and the blind lead the blind into a pit. Just you watch and see.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-24   9:06:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#56. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, A Pole, Bob Celeste (#51)

John 20:24-29King James Version (KJV)

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Is Christ saying that one can only be blessed if one believes without seeing Him? Was Thomas then not blessed for rejecting the testimonty of his fellow Apostles and only believeing after God let Thomas touch Him?

SOSO  posted on  2015-01-24   12:32:35 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 56.

#58. To: SOSO (#56)

Is Christ saying that one can only be blessed if one believes without seeing Him? Was Thomas then not blessed for rejecting the testimonty of his fellow Apostles and only believeing after God let Thomas touch Him?

The disciples had the blessing of being with the Bride Groom while on earth. That is their blessing. Our blessing is believing their proclamation of Christ. John 17 is a good reference for the above.

redleghunter  posted on  2015-01-24 15:47:39 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#64. To: SOSO (#56)

Is Christ saying that one can only be blessed if one believes without seeing Him?

Apparently not, given that God left all those physical miracles.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-01-24 21:29:11 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 56.

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