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TheBicyclingGuitarist
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28 Jun 2011, 6:10 am

91 wrote:
@ TheBicyclingGuitarist

You seem to have met some Christians who are not really up-to-date (to put it mildly) on the subject of evolution. It is their mistake to think that because they are right about their religion that you are wrong about evolution. It would be an equal error to claim that because you are right about evolution that they are wrong about their religion.


I understand just because someone may be mistaken on a field outside their expertise, that should not disqualify any statement they make within their field of expertise. However, since spiritual claims could be considered more difficult to test and reproduce than something that has as much material evidence as evolution, I have asked many times (in these forums and elsewhere) whether dogmatic refusal to accept what is demonstrably real undermines the credibility of certain religious denominations. It seems a reasonable question to me. Since I *know* they are very wrong about something I *can* see, how can I possibly trust their opinion on spiritual matters where the stakes are allegedly higher?

By the way, that is why I lean more towards Buddhism than to any other organized belief system, because it focuses on direct experience, not on dogma or doctrine. It is my opinion that Jesus teaches the same message as the Buddha, but expressed in terms of the cultures of the ancient Near East. Expressing that message in terms of the language and culture of that time and place may have led to some serious misunderstandings about what the Gospel is.

It seems to me that if there is a spiritual realm, then the material realm is a manifestation of it, or perhaps another perspective of it. There should not be a conflict between how a church describes reality compared to what we can observe and measure. If there is conflict, I personally have trouble accepting anything that church says on any subject. After all, they are supposed to be getting their information from God, right? Why should He say one thing in His Book and something different in His Creation?

Granted, MOST Christian denominations accept the fact evolution happens, but at the very least it seems to contradict what the Bible plainly says. I am of the opinion that we need a new mythology for our time, that the Bible is hopelessly out of date and out of touch, being written by and for people of a different time and place. You probably disagree. I am the first to say though that I could be wrong!


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28 Jun 2011, 6:45 am

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
I have asked many times (in these forums and elsewhere) whether dogmatic refusal to accept what is demonstrably real undermines the credibility of certain religious denominations. It seems a reasonable question to me. Since I *know* they are very wrong about something I *can* see, how can I possibly trust their opinion on spiritual matters where the stakes are allegedly higher?


If you are asking, does this effect the standing of their opinions? Then I would agree. However, if you are asking, does this affect their claims? No, not really. If their case on another matter is solid, then one ought to evaluate it freely. One cannot learn about the truth of a religion through the knocking down of straw men.

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
By the way, that is why I lean more towards Buddhism than to any other organized belief system, because it focuses on direct experience, not on dogma or doctrine. It is my opinion that Jesus teaches the same message as the Buddha, but expressed in terms of the cultures of the ancient Near East. Being limited to expressing that message in terms those cultures could understand may have led to some serious misunderstandings about what the Gospel is.


I would certainly agree that the Christian faith is in large part based on direct experience. However, the claims of Christianity are not the same as those of Buddhism. Christianity does indeed support the idea of a sensus divinitatis, within all people. However, Christianity emphasizes the deep personal connection between the divine and man in a way that really has next to no comparisons within other religions. There are a couple of very small Islamic sects that talk in sort of the same way and Mormons perhaps do so also. The religious experience described by Christ and manifest at Pentecost, is utterly incomparable in any meaningful way with the claims of Buddhism. While I apologize for being blunt in my description, I do not believe that one adds definition to religion by rubbing out the lines between them.

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
It seems to me that if there is a spiritual realm, then the material realm is a manifestation of it, or perhaps another perspective of it. There should not be a conflict between how a church describes reality compared to what we can observe and measure.


This is actually a very Judeo-Christian view. Many people when they think about heaven and the idea of a spiritual existence do so in highly Greek terms. In the ancient Greek terms, Heaven and Earth are separate and man is encouraged to endure until the end. In this view man escapes the world into heaven. While this view is mostly compatible with Christianity, this is not how Christ thought on the issue. Christ's position is one that is entirely Jewish and it is one that is lost among the popular culture. In his view, it is in Heaven and Earth that meet and fuse in the middle. For example remember what it says in the Lord's Prayer 'thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven'. Though Christ does focus on the health of the Soul, his view is equally cast on the earthly existence. I personally am always reminded of this when I am in a Cathedral, where the meeting of the two is the greatest aim. It is a uniquely Judeo-Christian view that it is the combination of nature and grace that creates the best; not just the Heavens, but the terrible brutality of Earth too.

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
If there is conflict, I personally have trouble accepting anything that church says on any subject. Granted, MOST Christian denominations accept the fact evolution happens, but at the very least it seems to contradict what the Bible plainly says.


The Bible is not so small a thing as its critics and fundamentalist would make it. There is room within it for allegory and symbol. Whatever the truth about the garden of Eden, the truth can easily be allegorized as a Garden and the same is true about the age of the Earth.


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28 Jun 2011, 6:53 am

TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
There should not be a conflict between how a church describes reality compared to what we can observe and measure. If there is conflict, I personally have trouble accepting anything that church says on any subject. After all, they are supposed to be getting their information from God, right? Why should He say one thing in His Book and something different in His Creation?

Granted, MOST Christian denominations accept the fact evolution happens, but at the very least it seems to contradict what the Bible plainly says. I am of the opinion that we need a new mythology for our time, that the Bible is hopelessly out of date and out of touch, being written by and for people of a different time and place. You probably disagree. I am the first to say though that I could be wrong!

Someone once said to me that you could look at the Old Testament as a history book, and my brother, who has been taking classes to learn about the Bible, says that the early parts of the Bible show a change in the way the Jewish faith worked, from worshipping one particular God (out of many) to the belief that there was one, and only one, God. If the Bible can be read as such, then it is reasonable to claim that the early parts will contain less up-to-date knowledge than the later sections, especially Genesis 1, when nobody was around to check up on what God was doing. This doesn't mean that leaving the "wrong" information in is a mistake, though, as observing the way something develops can be useful in forming a context for later events (no examples come to mind, but I believe this is generally true, at least in science). As for whether the Bible is out of touch, I find it hard to say. Some of the things defined as sinful by the Bible are still considered unacceptable today in the eyes of the law (e.g. murder and theft), though whether that is because Chrisitanity was influential in the way in which modern society developed, or whether those were things which people didn't like even 4000 years ago, I don't feel qualified to say.



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28 Jun 2011, 6:56 am

CrinklyCrustacean wrote:
TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:
There should not be a conflict between how a church describes reality compared to what we can observe and measure. If there is conflict, I personally have trouble accepting anything that church says on any subject. After all, they are supposed to be getting their information from God, right? Why should He say one thing in His Book and something different in His Creation?

Granted, MOST Christian denominations accept the fact evolution happens, but at the very least it seems to contradict what the Bible plainly says. I am of the opinion that we need a new mythology for our time, that the Bible is hopelessly out of date and out of touch, being written by and for people of a different time and place. You probably disagree. I am the first to say though that I could be wrong!

Someone once said to me that you could look at the Old Testament as a history book, and my brother, who has been taking classes to learn about the Bible, says that the early parts of the Bible show a change in the way the Jewish faith worked, from worshipping one particular God (out of many) to the belief that there was one, and only one, God. If the Bible can be read as such, then it is reasonable to claim that the early parts will contain less up-to-date knowledge than the later sections, especially Genesis 1, when nobody was around to check up on what God was doing. This doesn't mean that leaving the "wrong" information in is a mistake, though, as observing the way something develops can be useful in forming a context for later events (no examples come to mind, but I believe this is generally true, at least in science). As for whether the Bible is out of touch, I find it hard to say. Some of the things defined as sinful by the Bible are still considered unacceptable today in the eyes of the law (e.g. murder and theft), though whether that is because Chrisitanity was influential in the way in which modern society developed, or whether those were things which people didn't like even 4000 years ago, I don't feel qualified to say.

seing as how many of the truly ethical issues are adressed by almost all forms of religion i feel i can say that none of those ethical issues have any direct conection to any religion.


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28 Jun 2011, 7:12 am

Oodain wrote:
seing as how many of the truly ethical issues are adressed by almost all forms of religion i feel i can say that none of those ethical issues have any direct conection to any religion.


That is a strange supposition. Throwing out moral ontology because of a criticism of moral epistemology.


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28 Jun 2011, 9:30 am

Strings on Wheels [sorry, but it is easier to type, and people keep abbreviating even Philologos, which I realize is, even for me, a strain almost equal to the binary guy because you keep counting o's - like Mississipi]:

You say"

"Granted, MOST Christian denominations accept the fact evolution happens, but at the very least it seems to contradict what the Bible plainly says."

Actually, no. What it plainly says is God created the world. What it plainly says is it took him six days - a day being a term which even the biblical literalists cannot and will not take literally [sorry, guys, but you cannot call yourself a literal interpretation guy and then say "except for HERE where it is figurative".

A serious literalist - if there is even one out there, if I doubt - has to believe creation in six time units, has to believe in the dimensions and capacities of the ark and keeping enough land bound species fed [presumably not on each other] for the duration of the voyage. He has to believe Moses' snake / staff, Elijah's Himmelfahrt, water turning into quality wine, and the resurrection.

But he is not told anything for or against evolution, Big Bang, atoms, antimatter, Transformational Grammar [it is ungodly and demonic, but NOT in the Bible] or Keynesian economics. The prophecies neither affirm nor deny America, the League of Nations, or President Obama.



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28 Jun 2011, 10:37 am

Philologos wrote:
Strings on Wheels [sorry, but it is easier to type, and people keep abbreviating even Philologos, which I realize is, even for me, a strain almost equal to the binary guy because you keep counting o's - like Mississipi]:

You say"

"Granted, MOST Christian denominations accept the fact evolution happens, but at the very least it seems to contradict what the Bible plainly says."

Actually, no. What it plainly says is God created the world. What it plainly says is it took him six days - a day being a term which even the biblical literalists cannot and will not take literally [sorry, guys, but you cannot call yourself a literal interpretation guy and then say "except for HERE where it is figurative".

A serious literalist - if there is even one out there, if I doubt - has to believe creation in six time units, has to believe in the dimensions and capacities of the ark and keeping enough land bound species fed [presumably not on each other] for the duration of the voyage. He has to believe Moses' snake / staff, Elijah's Himmelfahrt, water turning into quality wine, and the resurrection.

But he is not told anything for or against evolution, Big Bang, atoms, antimatter, Transformational Grammar [it is ungodly and demonic, but NOT in the Bible] or Keynesian economics. The prophecies neither affirm nor deny America, the League of Nations, or President Obama.

But if all the animals were created with a wave of God's hand or a twitch of a nostril in the Garden of Eden, how does that not conflict with evolution?



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28 Jun 2011, 12:05 pm

You HAVE to know the answer to that. Not that you have to believe it, since there seems little you do believe - but you must have heard it. Why should I PBS and / or hohum the others?

It occurs to me you MIGHT not catch the reference:

Image

That was supposed to be visible. How are we supposed to wiork this, anyway?


Well, the link WILL take you to the picture.



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28 Jun 2011, 12:44 pm

Philologos wrote:
You HAVE to know the answer to that. Not that you have to believe it, since there seems little you do believe - but you must have heard it. Why should I PBS and / or hohum the others?

It occurs to me you MIGHT not catch the reference:

Image

That was supposed to be visible. How are we supposed to wiork this, anyway?


Well, the link WILL take you to the picture.


Why do I continuously get disappointed when one claiming expertise in language fails to communicate?



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30 Jun 2011, 10:22 am

91 wrote:
However, Plantinga relates warrant to agency, does not fit with Voodoo and so it would not be warranted. This is called the 'son of the great pumpkin objection'.

Dr. Craig, discussing Epistemology
http://www.euroleadershipresources.org/ ... .php?ID=61

He did not really reject Voodooism. He just assumed voodooism is false. On the other even he admits that Christianity has NO warrant if it is false. Also, his idea of divine knowledge sense is not universally acknowledged even along theologians (see the WLC source you gave). On the other hand it won't be hard for a voodooism theologian to construct a similar model. To conclude, this warrant / no warrant criticism is no stronger than a voodooist criticizing Christianity.

At this point, I think there are several major weakness of the reformed epistemology:
1) There simply isn't any rigorous definition of what can be considered (properly) basic belief. He just assumes there is agreement within Christians and ignore the others. That defeats the point of 'epistemology' to begin with.

2) Warranted belief =/= knowledge. Example: consider the belief 'It may or may not rain tomorrow'. It is clearly a warranted belief with no defeater but not knowledge about the weather. That is difference between falliblism and reformed epistemology. For the former not surviving falsifying attempt =/= not considered a knowledge. At this point Plantinga just asserted he didn't care.

3) The definition of 'result of normally functioning truth seeking agent under the right mini-environment' is dubious at best. What measures being normal? How does one knows that the mini-environment is right? The condition seems question beggingly restrictive.

4) The whole A/C model is nothing but his speculation. For example is does not appear many Christian feel the same 6th sense and use it to justify their belief in god.



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30 Jun 2011, 10:40 am

It is foolish to believe that evolution is the sole and only argument against creationism. We already know the mechanisms by which the whole world appear. So even the rather weak claim that God created the world is not scientifically correct, no matter the period of time. 6 days or millions of years, we did not need a deity to do it.


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30 Jun 2011, 11:05 am

Right. One of the primary YEC beliefs is that the world has been collapsing into disorder since the fall. So they explicitly don't believe in star birth. That would be an example of order arising after the fall and so they just deny it happens today.

That has nothing to do with biological evolution or the age of the Earth. Their jihad against science casts a wider net.



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30 Jun 2011, 11:38 am

Vexcalibur wrote:
It is foolish to believe that evolution is the sole and only argument against creationism. We already know the mechanisms by which the whole world appear. So even the rather weak claim that God created the world is not scientifically correct, no matter the period of time. 6 days or millions of years, we did not need a deity to do it.


I have to say, despite the lack of mach with your monicker your new logo is just SO mindblowingly apt - the expression is priceless.

Be that as it may:

"We already know the mechanisms by which the whole world appear. "?

Even if I do NOT translate that as "we have a working hypothesis which so far seems to fit the data we have at present", how does saying "we know what happens when dynamite explodes" PROVE there was no one to mix the stuff or apply the spark?

"If I look around the room I see nobody but myself" - true statement.

Ask - does that prove there are no other humans in the house?



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01 Jul 2011, 12:13 am

01001011 wrote:
He did not really reject Voodooism. He just assumed voodooism is false.


No he said it could be properly basic, but not necessarily a warranted properly basic belief.

01001011 wrote:
On the other even he admits that Christianity has NO warrant if it is false.


Correct, but this is not a powerful objection.

01001011 wrote:
Also, his idea of divine knowledge sense is not universally acknowledged even along theologians (see the WLC source you gave).


It does not have to be, it only has to have a coherent definition with relation to Reformed Epistemology. Your point tests the logical consistency, internal, to Reformed Epistemology. Your point does nothing to disprove Reformed Epistemology with relation to its own internal consistency. See my last response for more info.

01001011 wrote:
On the other hand it won't be hard for a voodooism theologian to construct a similar model. To conclude, this warrant / no warrant criticism is no stronger than a voodooist criticizing Christianity.


A Voodoo practitioner could construct an internally consistent set of logical beliefs, it does not follow that such beliefs are warranted. Due to the fact that Voodooism does not engage with the divine in the same way as Reformed Epistemology, it is not simply a matter of picking one set of Epistemology up and plonking it down on Voodoo due to the need for agency, they are not compatible. Dr. Glenn Peoples like to tell the story of his having been in some class where an atheist will raised their hand and said, I have a belief in the giant super-giraffe that fits all of Plantinga's criteria... then the lecturer asked 'are you certain your faculties were not out of whack?' and the student said 'yes', then he asked 'can you defend the logical consistency of your position?' and the student answered 'yes' then they went through the rest of the criteria and finally asked 'did your super Giraffe endow you with truth seeking faculties' and the student replied 'yes' and then the lecturer responded... 'then if your position is true, you just formed a reasonable defense of it'.

The mistake you making isn't that Plantinga assumes Christianity is true, its that reformed epistemology does not even attempt to show Christianity is true. That remains a totally separate question and so far you have not really distinguished this. Reformed Epistemology is a defense of Christian thought, a defense of the logical consistency of Christian theism. The point the student was making, was actually the point Plantinga was making; you cannot dismiss these criteria as being warranted pillars of a belief, if the being in question, claims to do them, without disproving that said being actually does them.

01001011 wrote:
1) There simply isn't any rigorous definition of what can be considered (properly) basic belief. He just assumes there is agreement within Christians and ignore the others. That defeats the point of 'epistemology' to begin with.


Alvin Plantinga gives a very good definition of what a properly basic belief is. To disprove Reformed Epistemology in relation to its definition of a properly basic, you would need to do it by showing internal contradiction, with relation to your claim. You are stating that the definition does not work because not all Christians hold to it. But Plantinga does not hold that all Christian belief is properly basic and warranted. To argue along these lines is to create a straw man.

01001011 wrote:
2) Warranted belief =/= knowledge. Example: consider the belief 'It may or may not rain tomorrow'. It is clearly a warranted belief with no defeater but not knowledge about the weather. That is difference between falliblism and reformed epistemology. For the former not surviving falsifying attempt =/= not considered a knowledge. At this point Plantinga just asserted he didn't care.


Source? I think you are depriving Plantinga of the virtue of context here? Also, Plantinga refined his definition of 'Warrant' many times in response to criticism; specifically to escape Gettier Problems. Specifically he has said the a belief can be properly basic, based on working faculties and still not have warrant. He does not use failsifiability as the standard, rather defensibility.

01001011 wrote:
3) The definition of 'result of normally functioning truth seeking agent under the right mini-environment' is dubious at best. What measures being normal? How does one knows that the mini-environment is right? The condition seems question beggingly restrictive.


No not really. Plantinga holds that even accidentally true beliefs are not warranted. As to the mini-environments; you are question begging in favor of falisifiability, you are assuming that this is the only epidemiological standard. Plantinga uses defensibility; so it is not Plantinga who is begging the question here.

01001011 wrote:
4) The whole A/C model is nothing but his speculation. For example is does not appear many Christian feel the same 6th sense and use it to justify their belief in god.


Your choice of wording here is especially awkward. Plantinga does not make a claim relating to all Christians or all Christian beliefs. Nor does his epistemology function purely in the sixth sense or sensus divinitatis. He lays out a logically coherent system of justified belief. Christians may be accidentally in concurrence with this system, but Plantinga does not claim that this is warranted belief of itself... another straw man.

Plantinga admints his A/C model does not work. :D
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nDOxLh6AbQ[/youtube]


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Last edited by 91 on 04 Jul 2011, 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

01001011
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04 Jul 2011, 10:58 am

91 wrote:
Dr. Glenn Peoples like to tell the story of his having been in some class where an atheist will raised their hand and said, I have a belief in the giant super-giraffe that fits all of Plantinga's criteria... then the lecturer asked 'are you certain your faculties were not out of whack?' and the student said 'yes', then he asked 'can you defend the logical consistency of your position?' and the student answered 'yes' then they went through the rest of the criteria and finally asked 'did your super Giraffe endow you with truth seeking faculties' and the student replied 'yes' and then the lecturer responded... 'then if your position is true, you just formed a reasonable defense of it'.

The mistake you making isn't that Plantinga assumes Christianity is true, its that reformed epistemology does not even attempt to show Christianity is true. That remains a totally separate question and so far you have not really distinguished this. Reformed Epistemology is a defense of Christian thought, a defense of the logical consistency of Christian theism. The point the student was making, was actually the point Plantinga was making; you cannot dismiss these criteria as being warranted pillars of a belief, if the being in question, claims to do them, without disproving that said being actually does them.

That proves my point. We cannot dismiss super Giraffe more than god. Does that mean believing in super Giraffe is as reasonable as believing in god under reformed epistemology?

Epistemology by definition concerns EXTERNAL consistency. If you think Reformed Epistemology only concerns internal consistency then you are admitting defeat.
Quote:
Alvin Plantinga gives a very good definition of what a properly basic belief is.
...
Source? I think you are depriving Plantinga of the virtue of context here? Also, Plantinga refined his definition of 'Warrant' many times in response to criticism;

Source? I have read his last book and did not found any rigorous definition.

Quote:
...specifically to escape Gettier Problems. Specifically he has said the a belief can be properly basic, based on working faculties and still not have warrant. He does not use failsifiability as the standard, rather defensibility.

01001011 wrote:
3) The definition of 'result of normally functioning truth seeking agent under the right mini-environment' is dubious at best. What measures being normal? How does one knows that the mini-environment is right? The condition seems question beggingly restrictive.


No not really. Plantinga holds that even accidentally true beliefs are not warranted. As to the mini-environments; you are question begging in favor of falisifiability, you are assuming that this is the only epidemiological standard. Plantinga uses defensibility; so it is not Plantinga who is begging the question here.

My objection has nothing to do with falsifiability. Rather it is just the basic problem of epistemology: namely our knowledge is never complete. Saying we have warrant provided we have complete knowledge is saying nothing.

Quote:
but Plantinga does not claim that this is warranted belief of itself... another straw man.

What is 'this' you are referring to? And if belief in divine sense is not warranted belief, then how can belief in god based on divine sense be warranted in view of the Gettier problem?



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04 Jul 2011, 12:05 pm

01001011 wrote:
That proves my point. We cannot dismiss super Giraffe more than god. Does that mean believing in super Giraffe is as reasonable as believing in god under reformed epistemology?


Well not really, belief in the cosmic giraffe would only be warranted if it was true. Like I said, that is a separate issue. Your objection simply lacks any explanatory power.

01001011 wrote:
Source? I have read his last book and did not found any rigorous definition.


Alvin Plantinga has written three books on warrant. I believe his latest book was written with Daniel Dennett on the subject of science and religion (warrant as a basic belief is only tangentially mentioned, he focuses more on the compatibility of religion and evolution); so I am not sure which book it is you are talking about. Also, Plantinga does not really focus all that greatly on a definition, he simply posits the largely agreed upon definition that it (a properly basic belief) is a belief that is justified without the need for further justification. He then argues, quite persuasively, that classical foundationalism does not hold a monopoly on the establishment of such beliefs.

01001011 wrote:
My objection has nothing to do with falsifiability. Rather it is just the basic problem of epistemology: namely our knowledge is never complete. Saying we have warrant provided we have complete knowledge is saying nothing.


I don't think you are grasping exactly what is being said. Plantinga argues that warrant is justified true belief. Warrant, is what distinguishes knowledge from true belief. Now, contrary to what you are suggesting, the argument does not end there. Plantinga discusses the question of whether it is justifiable to accept Christian belief as warranted. He does this, firstly, by rather splendidly, showing that all the objections that would provide defeaters for his contention, fail. He then posits, that there is no epistemic reason why, if Christianity is true, it cannot be a warranted belief and that Christian beliefs, again, if true, are knowledge. The fact that you think this is saying nothing, kind of concedes his point. It was only 35 or so years ago that a Plantinga set the philosophical world on fire with these sorts of arguments; he, almost single-handedly, overturned nearly a century of atheistic philosophy; which rabidly held, that no religious belief could ever be warranted. That view has now been largely overturned, debate continues, but religious epistemology is now taken very seriously.

There are good reasons why he is considered the greatest living philosopher. Before Plantinga's breakthrough book 'God and Other Minds', religion was essentially considered out of the philosophy business. Since Plantinga's book; we have had an explosion in Christiany Philosophy; without Plantinga opening the door; there would be no William Lane Craig, no Peter van Inwagen, no Alistair McGrath and people like Richard Swinburne would most likely never have gotten jobs at Oxford... It is not an understatement to point out that Plantinga triggered a Christian philosophical revolution. If you don't believe me; go check out commonsenseatheism.com (http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=5380).

Quote:
And if belief in divine sense is not warranted belief, then how can belief in god based on divine sense be warranted in view of the Gettier problem?


Plantinga is at pains to distinguish how Christians talk about the interaction of the Holy Spirit from how other traditions talk about it. Plantinga stating that the Christian mechanism (and a couple of others) is different, giving reasons for why this is so. This does not mean he is not claiming that interaction with the divine, in the Christian sense, based on working faculties, is warranted. The Gettier Objections simply do not apply to present formulations of reformed epistemology since Plantinga is NOT claiming that the beliefs that fall victim to these objections, are warranted.

Here is a good power-point on the subject:
http://stairs.umd.edu/236/Reformed_Epistemology.pdf


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Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.