Plantinga for the Rest of Us (Part 1)

There’s probably no other Christian philosopher of the twentieth (and thus far the twenty-first) century who is both more popular and more influential than Alvin Plantinga. I’ve spent most of my academic years around theologians and the vast majority of them are aware of the fact that Plantinga is revered among Christian philosophers and that he has made significant, lasting contributions in the broader philosophical community and in Christian scholarship. Yet, as I talk to them, I find that many of them have not read Plantinga and cannot say just what Plantinga’s contribution is or articulate some of his major ideas. Of course, this is to be expected, theologians are not philosophers and are already trying desperately to keep up with what’s being said in their own disciplines. There’s the further problem that the Plantinga corpus is about ten books. His major writings on warrant is three volumes and about a thousand pages (and will cost you nearly a cool $100 in paperback). Furthermore, you can only (at best) slog through most of his writing if you do not have a broader knowledge of the issues in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of religion. I suspect many who read this post, or should I say, collection of posts, would love to read Plantinga but lack the sufficient time and resource to do so. That’s where I come in. It is helpful and necessary for people in other fields to summarize major ideas in their field. I’ve been helped by various theologians in this capacity myself. I have never read E. P. Sanders or Krister Stendahl much less second-temple Judaistic literature, yet I have a working knowledge of the debate over the New Perspective on Paul because of many who have summarized and boiled down the discussion. I’ve found virtually nothing in print or online that does the same with Plantinga’s work (and the rather skimpy wikipedia article doesn’t count). So here’s my attempt to fill the gap.

Plantinga has written on many issues in philosophy but the one I want to focus on here is his contribution in epistemology and its implications for theology and apologetics. Most theologians are more familiar with his book Warranted Christian Belief than they are with the first two books of his warrant trilogy, Warrant: The Current Debate and Warrant and Proper Function. While WCB can be read in isolation from the others, its significance blooms fullest when understood with the others. Plantinga’s basic idea is that there is a problem with the way we have talked about epistemic justification and knowledge since the at least the Enlightenment on. He blames Descartes and Locke primarily for what he calls classical foundationalism which maintains that in order for a belief to be justified it must be based either on sensory experience or that which cannot be doubted. Plantinga’s critique of classical foundationalism is quick and easy: so many of our most basic and justified beliefs do not meet this criteria and (most shameful of all) CF does not even meet its own criteria, since it is based on neither sense experience nor on what cannot be doubted. Nothing new here. This critique is so common and repeated ad naseum that its probably heard more in theology than it is in philosophy (thanks mostly to Stanley Grenz and John Franke). But Plantinga does not follow the usual path of thinking that this critique applies to foundationalism altogether. Plantinga proposes a modified version of foundationalism in which beliefs still have what Plantinga calls “warrant transfer.” That is, some beliefs receive their warrant from other, more basic beliefs. But the more basic beliefs are not beyond revision or even rejection. Plantinga’s favorite example is memory beliefs. He illustrates this by arguing that his belief that he had breakfast one morning is not based on evidence. He does not need to go to the trash can and look for the remnants of discarded food and other breakfast accessories. He simply remembers that he had a donut and an orange for breakfast and that memory belief is the foundation of his belief that he had breakfast on that morning. But, of course, not all memory beliefs are true beliefs. We sometimes remember incorrectly, and hold other false beliefs on the basis of our false memory beliefs. The conclusion then is that our memory is a sufficient starting point but not an infallible starting point, or that which cannot be doubted.

You won’t hear Plantinga use the word “justification” or “justified” to describe beliefs. Plantinga prefers the word “warrant” to describe what must be necessary to turn true beliefs into knowledge or something close to it. All versions of justification in Plantinga’s opinion involve a deontological component. This means that in order to be justified in holding a particular belief you must not flout your epistemic duty to conform your belief to some criteria, such as having sufficient evidence or believing only that which you can prove, achieve some kind of epistemic excellence, etc. If your thinking at this point: “What’s wrong with that?” then you are probably working with a justification model as opposed to a warrant model. Plantinga rightly points out that we do not possess this level of control and awareness of our beliefs sufficient to fulfill whatever may be our duty/responsibility. And much less we wouldn’t be able to know if we were fulfilling it. But there are bigger problems for justification models. According to Plantinga, justification doesn’t really do much for us. It isn’t sufficient to help us move toward knowledge and it isn’t necessary for it either.

Consider that you are committed to doing your best to satisfy your epistemic duty (whatever that may mean). Now suppose you have  some sort of rare brain lesion that causes you to believe that you will be the next US president. There is no evidence for this proposition (you probably have not even run for public office before). Regardless, you persist in your belief that you will be the next president. Even though you have experienced a cognitive malfunction, you persist in what seems like the most obvious fact. It seems as sensible to you as some of the most basic propositions: 2 + 1 = 3 or a² + b² = c². Given that you are committed to fulfilling your epistemic duty, and given that you think that believing that you will be the next president is part of fulfilling that duty, would it be right for you to withhold that belief? Absolutely not. In spite of your cognitive malfunction, as far as you can tell, it is right to persist in this belief, and it would be a shirking of your duty if you believed any other way. Plantinga’s point is that justification can still be achieved even in cases of cognitive malfunction, and thus is not sufficient to move us toward knowledge.

Furthermore, according to Plantinga, justification isn’t even necessary for knowledge. Plantinga asks us to suppose that he wrongly believes that alpha Centaurians hate the thought that he perceives red objects. As the Centaurians monitor his beliefs, he also believes that if he sees red, the Centaurians will cause him to have another set of absurd beliefs (about whatever else) and thus depriving him of epistemic excellence and fulfilling his duty. Plantinga works to convince himself that he is not seeing red when he is appeared to in a red fashion, and is successful at forming the belief that he does not see red. Of course, it takes enormous willpower and effort to keep this belief up. One day walking through London, Plantinga is appeared to in a red fashion numerous times. Each time he succeeds in convincing himself that he does not see red. Finally, Plantinga is appeared to in red fashion by a large red double-decker bus. It is too much to resist. “To hell with epistemic duty” Plantinga says, as he relaxes that he doesn’t have to fight it anymore. According to justification models, Plantinga’s belief that he sees a red bus lacks justification, yet it nevertheless constitutes knowledge. The point is that justification isn’t necessary for knowledge.

This should be enough to chew on for now. In my next post, I’ll lay out what Plantinga puts in place of justification, warrant, and show how this relates to theology and apologetics. For a personal, humble, and humorous account of Plantinga’s journey of faith and scholarship in his own words, see his spiritual autobiography available free online.