Religious epistemology

{{Short description|Approach to epistemological questions from a religious perspective}}

{{About|recent epistemological developments|the historical examples how epistemology was developed by religious orders|:Template:Scholasticism|later epistemological developments in religion|:Template:17th-century scholasticism}}

Religious epistemology broadly covers religious approaches to epistemological questions, or attempts to understand the epistemological issues that come from religious belief. The questions asked by epistemologists apply to religious beliefs and propositions whether they seem rational, justified, warranted, reasonable, based on evidence and so on. Religious views also influence epistemological theories, such as in the case of Reformed epistemology.{{cite encyclopedia

|last=Clark |first=Kelly James

|contribution= Religious Epistemology

|contribution-url= http://www.iep.utm.edu/relig-ep/

|date=October 2, 2004

|title= Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

|issn=2161-0002

}}{{cite web |last1=Dougherty |first1=Trent |last2=Tweedt |first2=Chris |title=Religious Epistemology |url=https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phc3.12185 |website=Wiley |access-date=February 24, 2025 |date=July 24, 2016}}

Reformed epistemology has mainly developed in contemporary Christian religious epistemology, as in the work of Alvin Plantinga (born 1932), William P. Alston (1921-2009), Nicholas Wolterstorff (born 1932) and Kelly James Clark,{{cite book

|last=Clark |first=Kelly James

|title=Return to reason: a critique of Enlightenment evidentialism and defense of reason and belief in God

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GXP5RdOmNt0C&pg=PA8

|access-date=18 June 2011

|date=March 1990

|publisher=Eerdmans

|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan

|lccn=90031016

|isbn=978-0-8028-0456-3}} as a critique of and alternative to the idea of "evidentialism" of the sort proposed by W. K. Clifford (1845-1879).{{cite book

|last= Wolterstorff |first=Nicholas

|title=Divine discourse: philosophical reflections on the claim that God speaks

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVydaBw6g3sC&pg=PA14

|access-date=18 June 2011

|year=1995

|publisher=Cambridge University Press

|location=Cambridge; New York

|lccn=94042264

|isbn=978-0-521-47557-0

|pages=13–16}}{{cite book

|last=van Woudenberg |first=René

|chapter=Chapter 3: Reformed Epistemology

|title=Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues

|editor1-last=Copan |editor1-first=Paul

|editor2-last=Meister |editor2-first=Chad

|publisher=Blackwell

|location=Malden, Massachusetts

|year=2008

|lccn=2007014537

|isbn=978-1-4051-3990-8}} Alvin Plantinga, for instance, is critical of the evidentialist analysis of knowledge provided by Richard Feldman and by Earl Conee.{{Cite journal | last1 = Feldman | first1 = R. | last2 = Conee | first2 = E. | doi = 10.1007/BF00372404 | title = Evidentialism | journal = Philosophical Studies | publisher = Kluwer Academic Publishers| volume = 48 | pages = 15–34 | date = July 1, 1985| issn = 1573-0883}}{{cite book

|last=Plantinga

|first=Alvin

|title=Warrant and Proper Function

|url=https://archive.org/details/warrantproperfun00plan

|url-access=limited

|year=1993

|publisher=Oxford University Press

|location=New York

|isbn=978-0-19-507864-0

|lccn=92000408

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/warrantproperfun00plan/page/n197 185]–93}}

D. Z. Phillips (1934-2006) states that the argument of the reformed epistemologists furthers and challenges a view he dubs "foundationalism":

{{Quote|The essence of the Reformed challenge is to accuse the foundationalist of claiming to have a criterion of rationality which, in fact, he does not possess. By means of this alleged criterion the foundationalist claims to discern which epistemic practices are rational and which are not. Non-rational practices, he claims, include those of religion.

{{cite book

|last= Phillips

|first= D. Z.

|title= Faith After Foundationalism

|year= 1988

|publisher= Routledge

|location= London; New York

|lccn= 87022153

|isbn= 978-0-415-00333-9

|page= 24

}}

}}

Much work in recent epistemology of religion goes beyond debates on foundationalism and reformed epistemology to consider contemporary issues deriving from social epistemology (especially concerning the epistemology of testimony, or the epistemology of disagreement), or formal epistemology's use of probability theory.{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/knowledge-belief-and-god-9780198798705|title=Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology|last=Benton |display-authors=etal |first=Matthew A.|date=2018-04-22|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198798705|location=Oxford, New York}} Other notable work draws on the idea that knowing God is akin to knowing a person, which is not reducible to knowing propositions about a person.{{cite book |last1=Stump |first1=Eleonore |title=Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering |date=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780199277421}}; {{cite journal |last1=Benton |first1=Matthew |title=God and Interpersonal Knowledge |journal=Res Philosophica |date=2018 |volume=95 |issue=3 |pages=421–447 |doi=10.11612/resphil.1666 |url=https://www.pdcnet.org/resphilosophica/content/resphilosophica_2018_0095_0003_0421_0447}}; and {{cite book |last1=Benton |first1=Matthew |title=Knowledge and God |date=2024 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9781009124119 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/knowledge-and-god/361F1D5364E65B137B88222A3BCE72A0}}

Some work in recent epistemology of religion discusses various challenges from psychology, cognitive science or evolutionary biology to the rationality or justification of religious beliefs. Some argue that evolutionary explanations of religious belief undermine its rationality.

{{cite encyclopedia

|last1= Wilkins

|first1=John S.

|last2=Griffiths

|first2=Paul E.

|editor1-last=Dawes

|editor1-first=Gregory

|editor2-last=Maclaurin

|editor2-first=James

|title= Evolutionary debunking arguments in three domains

|year= 2012

|encyclopedia= A New Science of Religion

|pages=133–146

|publisher=Routledge

|isbn=9781138108929

|doi=10.4324/9780203086131-14

}}

{{cite web |last1=Visala |first1=Aku |last2=Vainio |first2=Olli-Pekka |title=Philosophy of religion and the scientific turn |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0190-9 |publisher=Palgrave Communications |access-date=February 24, 2025 |date=November 13, 2018}} Others respond to these arguments.

{{cite book

|last= Van Eyghen

|first= Hans

|title= Arguing From Cognitive Science of Religion. Is Religious Belief Debunked?

|year= 2023

|publisher= Bloomsbury Academic

|url=https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/files/112741327/Arguing_from_Cognitive_Science_of_Religion_-_Hans_van_Eyghen.pdf

}}