QuestionsShould we believe without proof?Believing in God without proof can be rational: the "basic" belief
Should we believe without proof?Faith goes beyond

Believing in God without proof can be rational: the "basic" belief

Reformed epistemology; the properly basic belief

Alvin Plantinga born 1932Belief in God can be rational without proof, and evil does not make it incoherent.
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What it claims

Belief in God can be properly basic: rational (or warranted) without being deduced from a proof. The demand for evidence is not established.

Why

The rule that forbids beliefs held without proof fails its own test: it is neither self-evident nor proven.

The same idea through history
Jean Calvin1559In the Institutes of the Christian Religion (I, 3), he argues that all humans carry within them, by natural instinct, "some sense of Deity": no nation is so barbarous as not to believe there is a God. Plantinga will draw from it his faculty for knowing God without proof.
Thomas Reid1785In the Essays on the Intellectual Powers (VI, 5), he holds as a "first principle" that our natural faculties are not fallacious, and that this cannot be proved without using them. Against Hume, he defends the beliefs we hold without deducing them, in the name of common sense.
Alvin Plantinga1983In "Reason and Belief in God" (in Faith and Rationality), he attacks classical foundationalism, which demands evidence for belief in God, and argues that this belief can be "properly basic".
Alvin Plantinga2000In Warranted Christian Belief, he restates the thesis with his theory of "warrant": belief in God can arise from a properly functioning faculty, the sensus divinitatis, and thus amount to knowledge.
In short

"Believing in God without proof can be rational: the "basic" belief" is an argument by Alvin Plantinga ("Reason and Belief in God", 1983; Warranted Christian Belief, 2000, 1983) on the question "Should we believe without proof?" (answer: faith goes beyond). Its claim: Belief in God can be properly basic: rational (or warranted) without being deduced from a proof. The demand for evidence is not established. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5, P7). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

"Reason and Belief in God", 1983; Warranted Christian Belief, 2000
Valid with an implicit premise

A long tradition (Clifford, Russell, many others) answers no to the question: can one believe in God without proof without being irrational? The American philosopher Alvin Plantinga (born 1932) turns the question around. For him, we all hold beliefs that we do not deduce from any other: that there is snow outside, that we had lunch this morning, that the world was not created ten minutes ago with our memories. These beliefs are "basic": they are the starting points of our thought. Classical foundationalism (Descartes, Locke) says that only beliefs that are self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses are properly basic, and that any other rational belief must be deduced from them. Plantinga shows that this rule does not stand up by its own standard: it does not meet its own conditions, and it would condemn nearly everything we believe. He concludes that belief in God can be, like memory or perception, a properly basic belief, without proof. He draws on Calvin and Reid, and calls this position "Reformed epistemology". Note that he does not claim to prove that God exists, nor that any belief whatever can be basic. In the 2000s he replaces the word "rational" with "warranted": a belief is warranted when it comes from faculties working properly, in a suitable environment.

P1We hold many "basic" beliefs, that is, beliefs we do not deduce from other beliefs. They are the starting points of our thought.
P2Classical foundationalism lays down a rule (CP): only a belief that is self-evident, incorrigible or evident to the senses is properly basic; any other belief must be deduced from such beliefs. It is in the name of this rule that belief in God without proof is judged irrational.
P3Now if this rule were correct, it should meet its own conditions. It does not: it is neither self-evident, nor incorrigible, nor evident to the senses, and no one has shown how to deduce it from beliefs that are.
P4This rule would also condemn most of our ordinary beliefs (the past, the external world), which do not conform to it. Reid had already noticed this against Hume.
P5 · implicit premiseA rule of rationality that does not meet its own conditions and condemns most of what we reasonably believe must be rejected.
P6Nothing prevents belief in God from arising, like perception or memory, from a faculty that works properly: Calvin speaks of a natural sense of the divine, which Plantinga calls the sensus divinitatis.
P7 · implicit premiseIf the classical rule is set aside and such a faculty is possible, nothing prevents belief in God from being properly basic.
Therefore belief in God can be properly basic: rational (or warranted) without being deduced from a proof. The demand for evidence is not established.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where the rule fails its own conditions and condemns our ordinary beliefs, yet need not be rejected: the conclusion does not follow.
P2 and P3 show that the classical rule contradicts itself; with P4, it also condemns almost everything we believe. P5 draws the conclusion that it must be abandoned. P6 and P7 add that, without this rule, nothing forbids belief in God from being basic. Critics mostly discuss P6: does this faculty really exist, and how can we know without assuming that God exists?
Analogy. A regulation says: "Only what is written in this regulation is valid." But that sentence is written nowhere else: the regulation destroys itself. In the same way, a rule saying "believe only what is proved or evident" is itself neither proved nor evident.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

The "Great Pumpkin" objection (formulated by Plantinga) 1983 · attacks the conclusion

If belief in God can be properly basic, then so can any other belief, however bizarre. One might as well claim that belief in the Great Pumpkin, who returns every Halloween to the most sincere pumpkin patch, is properly basic.

Plantinga replies
Alvin Plantinga 2000
Plantinga replies that the objection is "plainly false": recognizing that some kinds of belief are properly basic does not commit one to thinking all other kinds are. Descartes and Locke admitted basic beliefs without having to admit just any. He had already dealt with the objection in 1983; this text takes it up again.
Michael Martin 1990
Martin grants that the pumpkin falls, but draws a neighbouring objection: voodoo followers could in turn say that their basic beliefs are rational within their community. One would thus get legitimate communities of devil worshipers, flat earthers or believers in fairies. Plantinga calls it "Son of Great Pumpkin".
See the rest of the debate (1)
Alvin Plantinga 2000
Plantinga replies that the voodoo follower is not entitled to conclude the same: if voodoo is false and arose from a mistake, its beliefs have no warrant, and a conclusion drawn from an unwarranted premise has none either. "Son of Great Pumpkin does no better than Great Pumpkin."
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: everyone agrees that the Great Pumpkin objection, as it stands, does not work. The debate has moved. Plantinga admits that, on his view, belief in God has warrant only if it is true: so the question of its rationality cannot be settled independently of the question of its truth. The basic disagreement lies there: can one defend the rationality of a basic belief without assuming it is true?
William K. Clifford 1877 · attacks the conclusion

For Clifford, it is wrong, always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence. Believing in God without proof would therefore be a moral fault. Plantinga ranks him among the classical evidentialists.

Plantinga replies
see the argument
Alvin Plantinga 2000
Plantinga grants that there are duties of belief, but denies that one has a duty to conform one's beliefs to the rule of classical foundationalism, which demands evidence. Our ordinary beliefs, held without proof, do not make us guilty.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Clifford and Plantinga agree that believing is subject to duties. They differ on what these duties require: evidence for every belief (Clifford) or only for those that are not basic (Plantinga). Basic disagreement: where to draw the line between beliefs that need evidence and those that do not?
Michael Martin 1990 · attacks the conclusion

For Martin, once a belief is declared "basic", it escapes all rational criticism. Plantinga's foundationalism would thus be "radically relativistic".

Plantinga replies
Alvin Plantinga 2000
Plantinga replies that a basic belief remains open to objections: it can be defeated by arguments or contrary reasons. He illustrates it with ordinary basic beliefs, which we abandon when we learn they are false. He already made this point in 1983 ("Is Argument Irrelevant to Basic Belief?").
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Plantinga replies that a basic belief can be defeated by contrary reasons. The wider question, who judges between communities with different basic beliefs, is that of the "Son of Great Pumpkin" objection (see above).
What today's voices say
Defend it
William Lane CraigHe says belief in God can be properly basic: one can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments, by personally experiencing him; he advises seekers to pray, "God, if you're there, show yourself to me".