International Journal for Philosophy o f Religion 14:123-127 (1983). �9 Martinus Ni/hoff Publishers, The Hague. Printed in ~he Netherlands.

THEISM AND PROPER BASICALITY: A RESPONSE TO PLANTINGA

RICHARD GRIGG University of lowa

Alvin Plantinga's argument in his article "Is Belief in God Properly Basic? ''1 is, I think, a perceptive one, if for no other reason than that it attempts to find a basis for belief in God which is consistent with the way in which persons actually come to believe. On this score it is superior, for example, to the so-called "ontological argument." But to note this particular strength in Plantinga's approach is not neces- sarily to suppose that his argument succeeds. Indeed, it is the purpose of this ar- ticle to argue that Plantinga does not succeed in demonstrating belief in God to be properly basic. I will start by summarizing Plantinga's position. On the basis of this overview it will be possible to distinguish two main components in his argument. I will then offer a critique of the second component of that argument.

Plantinga begins by laying out what he takes to be the classical basis for oppo- sition to theistic belief, a basis he labels "classical foundationalism." The classical foundationalist position divides our beliefs into two major categories. On the one hand, there are those beliefs that are held on the basis of some other beliefs; such beliefs, if properly held, are based on evidence. On the other hand, there are those beliefs which are not based on any other beliefs and may therefore be termed "basic." Foundationalism presupposes that definite rules can be given for deciding which beliefs are properly basic:

...a proposition p is properly basic for a person S if and only if p is either self-evident or incorrigible for S (modern foundationalism) or either self- evident or 'evident to the senses' for S (ancient and medieval foundational- ism).2

On these terms, belief in God is not properly basic. Thus, belief in God is only justified if there is evidence for the belief. But there is insufficient evidence. Hence, according to classical foundationalism, belief in God is not justified.

But why should we accept the rules for proper basicality offered by classical foundationalism? Plantinga argues that we should not. For one thing, they are self- referentially incoherent, i.e., they fail their own test of basicality. Second, there are numerous beliefs which we commonly treat as basic which do not pass the test prescribed by classical foundationalism, and these beliefs are not groundless as the

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foundationalist would have to suppose. As examples, Plantinga points to particular perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, and beliefs which ascribe mental states to other persons: (1) I see a tree, (2) I had breakfast this morning, and (3) That person is angry. Such beliefs are neither self-evident nor incorrigible, nor do the experiences which immediately give rise to them serve as evidence, but, at least in certain cir- cumstances, these experiences do serve as grounds for holding the beliefs. In most circumstances, for example, my experience of a memory of having breakfast this morning would justify my belief that I indeed did have breakfast, and that belief would be properly basic. On the other hand, if I know my memory to be defective and realize that it often plays tricks on me, then I cannot take as basic the belief that I had breakfast this morning even though I seem to remember eating it.

Plantinga goes on to assert that there are beliefs about God which are analogous to (1), (2), and (3); they too are properly basic. Perhaps the most obvious example is the experience of considering the universe about us and ascribing it to a wise creator. Other examples can also be provided:

Upon reading the Bible, one may be impressed with a deep sense that God is speaking to him. Upon having done what I know is cheap, or wrong, or wicked I may feel guilty in God's sight and form the belief God disapproves o f what I've done. Upon confession and repentance, I may feel forgiven, forming the belief God forgives me for what I've done. 3

Plantinga does point out that if beliefs such as these are properly basic, then, strictly speaking, belief in God is not properly basic but is self-evidently entailed by these properly basic beliefs. In a loose sense, then, we may say that belief in God is properly basic.

Plantinga acknowledges the fact that, not only does the theist whom he has in mind reject the criteria of basicality offered by classical foundationalism, but this theist probably does not have any explicit criteria to put in their place. Does this mean that the theist has no way of determining which beliefs are properly basic? Is he now in the position that something like belief in the Great Pumpkin could be claimed as basic and he would have no way to refute the claim? Certainly not, says Plantinga. Note that, even if I do not have any explicit criterion of meaning in mind, I can easily see that the following sentence is meaningless: Twas billig; and the slithy toves did gyre and gymble in the wabe. Similarly, even though I have no explicit criterion of proper basicality at my disposal, I can judge claims to proper basicality. Thus, according to Plantinga, it should be possible to arrive at a criterion by means of induction:

We must assemble examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously properly basic in the latter, and examples of beliefs and con- ditions such that the former are obviously not properly basic in the latter. We must then frame hypotheses as to the necessary and sufficient conditions of proper basicality and test these hypotheses by reference to those exam- ples. 4

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Now the theist will choose belief in God as one of his or her paradigms of basicali- ty.

...there is no reason to assume in advance that everyone will agree on the examples. The Christian will of course suppose that belief in God is entirely proper and rational; if he doesn't accept this on the basis of other proposi- tions, he will conclude that it is basic for him and quite properly so. Fol- lowers of Bertrand Russell and Madelyn Murray O'Hare may disagree, but how is that relevant? Must my criteria, or those of the Christian community, conform to their examples? Surely not. s

The Christian community, says Plantinga, is responsible to its own set of examples, not to someone else's.

We can distinguish two main components in Plantinga's argument, the first having a negative character and the second a positive one. First, he has made what I take to be convincing case for the claim that foundationalism is unsound. It fol- lows that the theist ought not to be troubled by the foundationalist's contention that belief in God is not properly basic. 6 But to say that the foundationalist chal- lenge to the properly basic character of belief in God can be rejected is not yet to say that we know that belief in God is in fact properly basic. Here is where the second, positive component of Plantinga's argument comes in, and that second component is built upon an appeal to the obvious basicality of beliefs such as (1), (2), and (3). Now the theist may wish to claim that belief in God is as obviously basic, at least for the theist himself or herself, as are (1), (2), and (3). But it seems evident that in so far as Plantinga's own argument is concerned, (1), (2), and (3) have a special role to play. It would not be a matter of reasoned argument at all if Plantinga were simply to assert out of the blue that belief in God can be properly basic. Rather, Plantinga must first appeal to our sense that beliefs such as (1), (2), and (3) are obviously basic in order to convince us that it is quite reasonable to accept certain beliefs as basic even though we have rejected the criteria provided by foundationalism and can substitute rio explicit criteria of our own. He can then go on to make the claim that it is reasonable for the theist to take belief in God as properly basic. But if (1), (2) and (3) do have something of a paradigmatic role to play in Plantinga's argument, then we ought to ask whether belief in God and the experiences which give rise to it are sufficiently similar to (I) , (2), and (3) and the experiences which ground them that we can draw any conclusions about the basicality of belief in God from the basicality of (1), (2), and (3). It is my conten- tion that, while Plantinga may well be right about the proper basicality of (1), (2), and (3), beliefs about God do in fact differ from these paradigmatic beliefs to a sufficient degree that one cannot draw the conclusion that belief in God is proper- ly basic. This difference is at least three-fold.

First, Plantinga points out that a belief such as the one that I had breakfast this morning is properly basic in certain circumstances, i.e., as long as I have no reason for supposing that my memory is defective. But note that we can trust beliefs such as (1), (2), and (3) not only because we are unaware of defects in our experiential

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equipment but also because we constantly have outside sources for confirmation of such beliefs. Indeed, is it not only through such outside sources that we can be- come aware of a defect in our equipment? For example, when I return home this evening, I will see some dirty dishes sitting in my sink, one less egg in my regrigera- tor than was there yesterday, etc. This is not to say that (2) is believed because of evidence. Rather, it is a basic belief grounded immediately in my memory. But one of the reasons that I can take such memory beliefs as properly basic is that my memory is almost always subsequently confirmed by empirical evidence. But this cannot be said for a belief about God, e.g., the belief that God created the world. In fact, some would argue that not only is there no such outside source of confir- mation for belief in God but that the problem of evil actually provides negative evidence.

Second, there is a significant kind of universality which accrues to (1), (2), and (3) but not to beliefs about God. I do not mean to refer to the supposed fact that theistic belief is based upon experiences which not everyone has, while beliefs such as (1), (2), and (3) are based upon nearly universal experiences. This would not count against the basicahty of theistic belief. Rather, I wish to point out that while nearly everyone who has experience x is led to the belief that he or she is seeing a tree, experience y leads some to a particular belief about God but leads many others in different directions. In other words, it seems to me that it is not neces- sarily the case that the theist has experiences others do not. It may well be the case, instead, that the kind of experience which gives rise to a belief about God, unlike the experiences grounding (1), (2), or (3), does not automatically give rise to one particular belief. For example, many persons have had the experience of being awed by the beauty of the universe without being led to believe in a wise creator. The theist might argue that his own response is the natural one, that, after all, it has been a nearly universal response through the bulk of Western history and that the modern unbeliever is an aberration and must self-consciously oppose this very natural belief. But this argument does not take account of traditionally nontheistic religions such as Taoism, Confucianism, or Theravada Buddhism.

Third, the movement from a certain experience y to a belief about God is not immune from bias. That is, there is obvious psychological benefit, at least for some people, in believing in God ;many persons w a n t to believe in God. But it can hardly be said that we ordinarily have this kind of bias in favor of the belief that we see a tree, that we had breakfast this morning, or that another person is angry.

It is my contention that all three of these points indicate significant differences between belief in God and (1), (2), and (3), which we have accepted as paradigms of proper basicality. Thus, while it has not been proven that belief in God is not properly basic, I think I have shown that it cannot be argued that belief in God is properly basic by reference to the proper basicality of (1), (2), and (3).

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NOTES

1. Alvin Plantinga, "Is Belief in God Properly Basic?" Nous, XV (March, 1981), 41 -51 . 2. Ibid., p. 44. 3. Ibid., p .46. 4. Ibid., p. 50. 5. Ibid., p. 50. 6. Plantinga worked out his argument against foundationalism in more detail in "Is Belief

in God Rational?" in Rationality and Religious Belief, ed., with introduction, by C.F. Delaney (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 7 -27 .