Blackwell Reference Online

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Reformed epistemology rejects the widely held Enlightenment evidentialist assumption that one must have evidence for belief in God to be rational, where evidence is understood as a propositional argument (a theistic proof) for the existence of God. Reformed epistemology holds that belief in God does not require the support of evidence in order for it to be rational. The evidentialist's universal demand for evidence cannot be met in most cases with the cognitive equipment that we have. There is a limit to the things that human beings can prove. We have been outfitted with cognitive faculties that produce beliefs that we can reason from. There are at least three reasons to believe that it is proper or rational for a person to accept belief in God without the need for an argument. First, because most of our cognitive faculties produce beliefs immediately, without evidence or argument, there are good inductive grounds for thinking that a god-faculty produces beliefs immediately. Second, belief in God is more like belief in a person than belief in a scientific hypothesis. If belief in God is more like belief in other persons than belief in atoms, then the trust that is appropriate to persons will be appropriate to God. Finally, contemporary cognitive science seems to have confirmed that we have cognitive faculties that produce belief in spiritual beings.Suppose a stranger, let's call ... log in or subscribe to read full text