Is Knowledge of God's Existence Properly Basic?

[MindForgedManacle]

I have to say that this is perhaps the second most annoying apologist response to unbelievers, that they know Christianity is true regardless of the evidence. Does it make any sense to say that one's knowledge of the existence of God is properly basic?

Proponents of this tend to claim that it is on the basis of the "witness of the Holy Spirit" that they know Christianity is true. And that this gives them a self-authenticating way of knowing Christianity is true, even if in some "historically-contingent" circumstances the evidence is not in its favor (William Lane Craig).

[Tartarus Sauce]

So what's the most annoying?

In response to the question at hand: so is it basically just a repackaging of appealing to personal revelation?

[Angrboda]

Alvin Plantinga is, historically, one of the major proponents of this view. There is a good explanation and analysis of Plantinga's view in an essay by Richard Gale in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, which, I am not going to quote due to length and it being about a third of the essay's entire content. I'm short of time at the moment, but I will look later to see if I can excerpt or summarize some. I would suggest reading the essay yourself, and, secondarily, examining the literature surrounding Plantinga's arguments on the matter.

I find foundationalism personally repugnant, so I don't tend to give foundationalist arguments much of a hearing.

[max-greece]

I don't know if I know any believers that decided to believe on the basis of the evidence. That is atheist territory.

Most, if not all true believers, seem to have some kind of personal experience or revelation that has convinced them that their particular God or system of belief is correct.

Once they are convinced they are correct producing any form of evidence to the contrary becomes merely a test of the strength of their belief. The harder you challenge their belief the stronger they cling to it.

I came to the conclusion long ago that there was nothing I could usefully do with people in that category aside from attempt to get them to agree/admit that even if their pathway is right for them it may not be the only pathway and that other options may apply to other individuals.

Ultimately if even the most ardent followers can see that there are other, valid options out there for other people then there should be a reduction of those people going to war for their beliefs. That is probably the most we can hope for.

On the other hand there are apparently plenty of believers paying lip service to the religion without actually having belief.

These people can be much more open to the idea of atheism or even agnosticism.

Atheism is spreading. Whether that is because we are better at spreading the message or whether that is simply as a result of atheism not being something one has to hide anymore is an open question.

It will be interesting to see, over the coming decades, how far atheism spreads. Will we one day be in the majority? How big a majority might that be?

[Zone]

Atheism doesn't spread it's the religions that contract and lose their hold. Islam has it covered by being a full integrated authoritarian political system and complete way of life, it'll come to dominate Europe at least.

[Brian37]

I have to say that this is perhaps the second most annoying apologist response to unbelievers, that they know Christianity is true regardless of the evidence. Does it make any sense to say that one's knowledge of the existence of God is properly basic?

Proponents of this tend to claim that it is on the basis of the "witness of the Holy Spirit" that they know Christianity is true. And that this gives them a self-authenticating way of knowing Christianity is true, even if in some "historically-contingent" circumstances the evidence is not in its favor (William Lane Craig).

It will be to the believer no matter what. Their logic works backwards, swallow what feels good first, assume it is true first, then make the arguments lead backwards to the naked assertion they have already assumed.

Naked assertion<=retrofitted apology<=desired outcome.

[MindForgedManacle]

So what's the most annoying?

The presuppositional argument, wherein the apologist says that God is the only explanation for what they call 'logical absolutes', by which they mean the laws of thought (the laws of identity and noncontradiction), the axioms of, well, all communication. What they don't understand is that the laws of thought are self-attesting, and that you can't have a coherent anything without assuming them. Even stating them to be false first assumes they are true and then denies them.

Hence, the most annoying. :p

In response to the question at hand: so is it basically just a repackaging of appealing to personal revelation?

More or less. Basically their faith isn't based on evidence but the Holy Spirit.

[Faith No More]

I've just read Plantinga's argument, and it essentially boils down to that the believer is justified in taking the belief in god as properly basic due to his/her intuitions that a god is involved. He claims the fact that a person intuitively feels as if a god is responsible for something, i.e. creation, that person is justified in taking god's existence as properly basic. His only defense for those intuitions as basic appears to be that he isn't obligated to accept the classical foundationalist determination of what can taken as properly basic.

It's another one of those religious arguments that doesn't technically have any faulty logic apparent in it, but it doesn't really pass the smell test, either. And I have concluded that it's properly basic for me to accept that when I smell bullshit, bullshit is present.

[Simon Moon]

I have to say that this is perhaps the second most annoying apologist response to unbelievers, that they know Christianity is true regardless of the evidence. Does it make any sense to say that one's knowledge of the existence of God is properly basic?

Proponents of this tend to claim that it is on the basis of the "witness of the Holy Spirit" that they know Christianity is true. And that this gives them a self-authenticating way of knowing Christianity is true, even if in some "historically-contingent" circumstances the evidence is not in its favor (William Lane Craig).

One of the most annoying proponents of this crappy argument that I've heard recently is this guy named Sye Ten Bruggencate' on YT.

Seriously, if you are into a bit of masochism, watch a few of his vids.

He got in a debate with Truthsurge, an ex evangelical Christian (now atheist) that was truly astonishing.

Sye Ten accused Truthsurge of being delusional when Truthsurge claimed that he did have a personal 'revelation' while he was a Bible believing Christian.

Sye Ten's justification for claiming that Truthsurge's experience was a delusion, but his own is legitimate, is because he's still a Christian.

Just ponder that idiocy for a minute.

While they were both still Christians, their individual claims of 'witness of the holy spirit' would have been pretty much indistinguishable, as they both would have described them.

Yet, because Truthsurge was able to break himself free of his delusion, while Sye Ten is still under his, from Sye Ten's view, he is the one that is not delusional. And Truthsurge was never a 'true Christian' (Sye's words).

Sye went on to say that Truthsurge would not have been able to enter Heaven while under his delusion, because he was not a 'true Christian'.

Even trying to type out Sye Ten's arguments makes my brain hurt.