Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered... - C.S. Lewis
I previously defended Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism from the shoddy and sophomoric attempts to undermine it by atheist Francois Tremblay. His critique was shown to be terribly unsophisticated, riddled with misunderstandings and misrepresentations, and all-around sloppy work. This entry will consist of doing the same to Tremblay's critique of Plantinga's epistemology. Now, I'm not behind Plantinga 100%. There are areas I disagree with him on, and areas where his epistemology could be strengthened and worked out better - apropos the latter, I no doubt he'd also agree. But these disagreements do not stop me from agreeing with much he has to say. Also, just because I disagree on some points, that does not give me free license to just misrepresent the man. That's what Tremblay does. Assuming Tremblay is a smart individual, his hatred of theism, God, and the like, seem to be a good explanatory model for answering the question of how he can misrepresent and misunderstand his interlocutors so badly.
Tremblay begins by saying: "before I begin, it is of great import to understand Reformed Epistemology, since it is the premise of Plantinga’s entire theological work." Okay, so it is of great importance to understand Reformed Epistemology (RE, hereafter), and Tremblay's going to explain it to us. Thus Tremblay:
I describe the position of Reformed Epistemology, which is a category of Christian apologetics, in my book “Handbook of Atheistic Apologetics”. Basically, Reformed Epistemology is an attempt to divert the burden of proof to atheistic shoulders by assuming that theism is a “properly basic belief”, giving it priority over “non-basic” positions like atheism. We can express the reasoning behind this apologetics position in a simple manner:
1. Current (secular) foundationalism is incomplete because it does not account for direct perception.
2. We have direct perception of God (by a “divine sense”).
3. Therefore theism is properly basic.
And so goes the elucidating....
Anyway, notice how Tremblay begins. He doesn't allow his readers to really "understand" RE, but rather gives them his cock-eyed opinion of it. A position that spans thousands of written pages is so important to understand that it’s given a couple of sentences by Tremblay. But, he doesn't even get it right. Reformed Epistemology aims to show that belief in God can be rational, even in the absence of propositional evidence for it. Without getting too in depth, since it's not my job to explain it - that was Tremblay's stated purpose - the rationality of belief in God is shown by arguments from parity, such as our rational belief in other minds, the past, and the like. If these are rational - and surely they are - then so can belief in God be rational. Plantinga then shows that the objections to the rationality of belief in God (a) do not make clear how the multifarious term 'rationality' is being used, and (b) if they use it in a deontological-justification type way, then they suffer the problems associated with this view of justification, and (c) the critics usually confuse the de jure objection with the de facto question.
Next, let's look at Tremblay's (1) - (3) above. As far as (1) goes, actually a distinction needs to be made between strong and moderate foundationalism, and strong foundationalism fails for many reasons, a couple of which are: (1) it cuts out most of our knowledge and (2) it is self-referentially incoherent. With regards to (2), though Plantinga likes much of what Alston has to say, Plantinga doesn't construe the sensus divinitatis as direct perception, but it is a built-in (if you will) capacity all men have to recognize God's existence; so Plantinga sees it as an intellectual faculty or disposition toward belief in God. (Needless to say, I do not agree with Plantinga's version of the sensus divinitatis, rather, the knowledge all men have is actual, not a capacity for knowledge. I will not argue this for it takes us too far off the course of this blog entry.) Plantinga does hold that Christian theism is basic, and so Tremblay is correct on (3).
Before moving on to the rest of Tremblay's critique of Plantinga, it will be interesting to note this claim he makes:
If we accept that reality is objective, which is to say that it can only be found by extrospection, then the senses are by definition our sole fundamental means to find reality.
What does it mean to say that the senses are our sole fundamental means to find reality? Are there also non-fundamental means? Does Tremblay mean that our senses are the only way we can know anything? If so, this is obviously false. There are many things we know not on the basis of the senses, i.e., that the earth is more than 5 minutes old. Lastly, does Tremblay know this claim, if so, how? There are many more philosophically weak and obviously false in Tremblay's critique, but we'll not be able to address all of them since the purpose of this entry is to evaluate his critique of Plantinga. The above is sufficient to show the types of claims his paper is peppered with.
Tremblay moves on with his critique,
As for the divine sense, it is obvious that there is actually nothing being perceived there. For one thing, the results of that “perception” is extremely cultural-dependent, which is an obvious sign of a subjective interpretation being imposed on simpler objective phenomena.
The divine sense is a capacity for knowledge, it doesn't mean all people will have the knowledge. Thus Plantinga’s position, even if wrong, has not been touched by Tremblay. Maybe other arguments could be given but not Tremblay's. Second, even if his understanding were true, Plantinga also includes the noetic effects of sin into his account, thus explaining why people's cognitive faculty would not function properly, hence this would explain why all people don’t believe in God, thus countering Tremblay‘s objection. Tremblay fails to take this basic (constituting a large chapter in Warranted Christian Belief) aspect of Plantinga's program into account, thus totally failing to engage Plantinga's argument. Lastly, philosophically speaking, his account is shoddy. Tremblay fails to take into account seeing vs. seeing as. Indeed, a few hundred years ago, most people in the world believed the earth was flat, they could "see" the flat edge. Hence there were no (or, very minor) culturally-dependant views. Lastly, that many cultures may "perceive" our T.V.s to be gods, does not imply that it is obvious that there is actually nothing like a T.V. being perceived there. Nevertheless, we're dealing with Plantinga's case, and Tremblay's critique is about as worrisome as a cloudy day for Plantinga.
Tremblay pontificates,
All we really have in our minds is the emotional impact of holding religious belief, of which constructions of a divine sense seem to be nothing more than a rationalization.
Assuming the falsity of Plantinga's case, that is. If Plantinga is correct (or generally correct), then his religious beliefs have been formed by proper functioning faculties, aimed at producing true beliefs, working according to a good design plan, and operating in a congenial epistemic environment. Unfortunately, Tremblay doesn't interact with this, or critique it, and so his above comment is simply a pious atheological hope.
Continuing, Tremblay claims,
In his theological discussions, Plantinga starts from the premise that Reformed Epistemology is a valid position. Having “established” that theism is properly basic, all he has to do now is to refute defeaters, his term for propositions that oppose a basic belief.
And Tremblay just skips right over any of Plantinga's arguments for the status of proper basicality Christian theism enjoys. This allows Tremblay to put "established" in scare quotes, giving the "impression" that Tremblay has "established" that Plantinga hasn't established his claim to proper basicality.
Furthermore, Tremblay shows some more basic ignorance. For Plantinga, defeaters need not be propositions. The claim that a defeater must be a belief or a proposition is a condition some may lay out, but Plantinga rejects this notion, and by doing so, we see that Tremblay is ignorant of Plantinga's position. Says Plantinga,
"A further matter here: must a defeater be a belief, or could some other cognitive condition serve as well? A defeatee will be a belief--the belief that P, for some proposition P. And often what defeats this belief, if it gets defeated, will be some other belief. But not necessarily always. I tell you that there are no tulips in Holland, Michigan this May: too much cold weather in April. You are obliged to go to Holland to visit a sick aunt; as it happens, you go in May. Driving into the city, you are confronted by a splendid field of tulips in full bloom. You then have a defeater for your belief that there are no tulips there then, whether or not you explicitly form the belief--"Hey! There are lots of tulips here." So perhaps defeaters need not always be beliefs." - Plantinga, Naturalism Defeated?, 1994, unpublished paper.
So, what gets defeated is a belief or proposition, but defeaters need not be beliefs or propositions. Lastly, a defeater need not be a belief or proposition - as we just saw - and neither is it a "term" for something that refutes a basic belief. Defeaters can refute basic and non-basic beliefs alike. Defeaters defeat beliefs, basic or otherwise.
Moving along Tremblay's critique gets really bad. Ironically, he accuses Plantinga of being lazy while all the while it is Tremblay who is the lazy one. Says Tremblay,
Leaning on Quinn (who is not even an atheologian, by Plantinga’s own admission), he posits that there is only one serious argument for strong-atheism, the Problem of Evil:
So these substantial reasons for thinking theism false would be the atheological argument from evil together with theories according to which theistic belief is illusory or merely projective; here perhaps Quinn has in mind Marxist and Freudian theories of religious belief.
And having summarily dismissed psychological arguments, he concludes:
'This leaves us with the atheological argument from evil as the sole substantial reason for thinking [that “God does not exist” is] true.'
This is normal laziness for bad, or even average, theologians, but from a supposedly top-notch thinker like Plantinga it is horribly deficient. It is well-known in the literature that there are many supporting arguments to the proposition “God does not exist”, including noncognitivism, other incoherency arguments, teleological arguments, Occam’s Razor, and yes, even evidential arguments of the type that Plantinga summarily rejects.
In the context of the paper Tremblay uses as his source for all things Plantinga, Plantinga is discussing claims by Quinn, an admitted theist, that belief in God is not basic, for him. Plantinga is not trying to deal with atheological arguments per se, but, rather, with the reasons this believer, Quinn, has to offer against Plantinga's position. Thus the purpose of the discussion here is not for Plantinga to survey all the atheological objections out there, but only the ones Quinn gives to support his claim that belief in God does not enjoy the status of properly basic, for him. Hence Plantinga doesn't "posit that there is only one serious argument for strong-atheism;" instead, he posits that out of the few arguments that Quinn gives, only one of them could do the damage to Quinn's faith that Quinn says they do (and that doesn‘t either, upon analysis, says Plantinga).
Having seen the utter disregard for context displayed by Tremblay (was this purposeful, or does he have ADD), we can see his charge that Plantinga's saying that the problem of evil is the only argument left is "normal laziness for bad, or even average, theologians, but from a supposedly top-notch thinker like Plantinga it is horribly deficient," is completely unfounded. Plantinga isn't saying that the only argument out there is the argument from evil, he's saying that, for Quinn, that's the only one left, out of the few he gave, that could defeat his God belief. (At any rate, Tremblay's arguments he mentions don't serve to defeat belief in God anyway, but to discuss all of them would take us beyond the purpose of this entry, which is Tremblay's sloppy abilities as a critic.)
Tremblay forges ahead, unaware of his bad work in his paper,
Setting these aside, is Plantinga’s defense against the Problem of Evil satisfactory? He expresses it as a contradiction between these two propositions:
5. God exists and is omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good…
6. There are 10[13] turps of evil.
With the “turp” representing a unit of morality. But even if we grant the coherency of (6), which is not necessarily problematic, Plantinga’s escape is once again lazy:
At present, I think atheologians have given up the claim that (5) and (6) are incompatible, and quite properly so. What they now say is that (5) is unlikely or improbable with respect to (6).
Why such sloppiness? In all my readings of actual atheologians, I have not yet seen such a position. Which atheologian upholds that (5) and (6) are not outright incompatible, and why? On this, he does not even sketch an explanation. (numbering original)
Well, I don't happen to think Plantinga's argument against evil is successful, but for reasons other than Tremblay. Plantinga's claim is that (5) and (6) are not incompatible with another proposition:
(7) Every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity.
Plantinga's argument seeks to show that this resolves any logical contradiction. Our purpose is not to examine Plantinga's argument, but to show Tremblay's ignorance of it. Plantinga knew Quinn was familiar with his arguments against the problem of evil, and those who critique someone should also be familiar with their work. This staves off embarrassing predicaments such as we witness here.
Next, notice how Tremblay revels in ignorance about the consensus that the logical argument from evil has no teeth. He acts surprised, like he's never heard such a thing before. Now, maybe if he had written his paper in the 50's, he'd have an excuse, but he wrote it in 2005 (at least that's when he last updated it, but I assume that the reader will be generous in granting me the assumption that he didn't write the critique in the 50's). But with regards to the idea that the deductive argument is acknowledged castrated, Greg Welty writes,
"The debate in the recent literature about the problem of evil has shifted from preoccupation with the logical argument to an increased focus on the evidential argument. Thus William P. Alston (1996) claims that "it is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt, but the inductive argument is still very much alive and kicking" (97). He goes so far as to refer to the logical argument as the "late lamented deductive cousin" of the inductive argument (121). With respect to the contention that "the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of the theistic God," atheist William L. Rowe (1990) claims that: "No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim" (126 fn. 1). Stephen J. Wykstra (1990) concurs with this assessment, saying that Rowe's atheistic argument "exemplifies the recent turn away from 'logical' (or 'deductive', or 'demonstrative') formulations, construing the case instead as 'evidential' (or 'inductive', or 'probabilistic') in nature" (138)." -Greg Welty, The Problem of Evil, Master Paper, Oxford, 1998.
But it gets worse. In his critique, Tremblay had paraded Michael Martin out as someone who gave good arguments against God. It's safe to assume then that Tremblay actually read Martin. Says Martin,
"However, [the deductive argument from evil] has generally been regarded as unsuccessful. [...] Because of the failure of deductive arguments from evil, atheologians have developed inductive or probabilistic arguments from evil for the non-existence of God." - Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, p.335, 1990
Having read the above, let's now review Tremblay's bombastic claim: "Why such sloppiness? In all my readings of actual atheologians, I have not yet seen such a position. Which atheologian upholds that (5) and (6) are not outright incompatible, and why?" He looks pretty ridiculous, huh?
Oh, but it gets even worse! Read this next claim by Tremblay:
It is hard to understand what Plantinga even means here: the Problem of Evil is certainly not an inductive argument. And there is no way for the theologian to declare (5) and (6) even potentially compatible: such attempts, even sophisticated ones, have repeatedly failed (see Martin’s book for an analysis of modern attempts, for instance).
(!!!) Notice that Tremblay says that the argument from evil "is most certainly not" an inductive argument, and then he refers the reader to Martin's Atheism to back up his claim! But we just read Martin, and Martin "most certainly" says that the argument from evil is an inductive argument, at least the ones contemporary philosophers employ. Indeed, the entirety of chapter 14 has Martin giving an analysis of attempts to avoid the inductive argument from evil! Thus Martin concludes chapter 14 this way: "In sum, the two forms of an inductive argument from evil are formally sound and can be defended against criticism" (361, emphasis mine). There is just no excuse for this. This is a top-notch hack job. Tremblay could not have read Martin, but yet refers to and uses Martin to argue against other people. Tremblay's argument is nothing but an exercise in name dropping. If Tremblay did read Martin, what can explain his horrible reading comprehension skills? You thought I was just being mean about ADD above. But I’m seriously concerned.
At any rate, I'll end my analysis of Tremblay's critique of Plantinga's specified and qualified answer to Quinn, as well as Tremblay's interaction with Plantinga's argument against the logical problem of evil, concluding that this section fails miserably.
Moving along Tremblay now critiques Plantinga's views of defeaters and basic beliefs (above I've already shown Tremblay's misrepresentations and misunderstandings on this topic, but we'll still deal with what he says nonetheless), And so Tremblay,
His case does not end there. He also proposes that a basic belief can still stand in the presence of a strong defeater, because the existence itself of a basic belief is sufficient for complete, unwavering belief in the face of non-basic defeaters:
"... if a belief p is properly basic in certain circumstances, then it has warrant or positive epistemic status in those circumstances in which it is properly basic-warrant it does not get by virtue of being believed on the evidential basis of other propositions. (By hypothesis it is not believed on the evidential basis of other propositions.)"
And that therefore:
"To be successful, a potential defeater for [a basic belief] must have as much or more warrant as [the basic belief] does. And [a basic belief] can withstand the challenge offered by a given defeater even if there is not independent evidence that serves either to rebut or undercut the defeater in question; perhaps the nonpropositional warrant that [the basic belief] enjoys is itself sufficient (as in the above case of the missing letter) to withstand the challenge."
Actually, the reason the basic belief B can withstand a defeater D in Plantinga's thought here is that B has more warrant for Plantinga than D has. It is not because "the existence itself of a basic belief is sufficient for complete, unwavering belief in the face of non-basic defeaters." If Tremblay were accurate, then Plantinga's position would be that a basic belief could never be defeated. But this is not Plantinga’s position, as will be shown below.
Tremblay now critiques Plantinga's arguments for the above via "the stolen letter analogy." Says Tremblay,
Plantinga’s case of the missing letter is interesting because it shows the kind of reasoning that leads him to believe that basic beliefs are universally superior. He sets up an example where all the circumstantial evidence (location, motive, opportunity, habitual behaviour) points to the position that:
(1) Plantinga stole a letter from the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
But on the other hand, he clearly remembers that:
(2) [Plantinga] was alone in the woods all that afternoon, and [he] did not steal the letter.
He concludes that the basic belief expressed in (2) is inherently superior to the propositional evidence that supports (1), indicating that basic beliefs are inherently superior because they necessarily hold more warrant to us.
And this is problematic for Tremblay because,
However, there is a major problem with this analysis. Even if we accept the analogy between (2) and a hypothetical divine sense, the analogy itself does not prove that basic beliefs are undefeatable by non-basic beliefs. It is set up to make the case in (1) much weaker than it could actually be, since circumstantial evidence is not as credible as direct evidence. For example, a surveillance video of Plantinga stealing the letter would be direct evidence, and thus would make (1) more credible.
But Plantinga does not hold that basic beliefs are not defeatable by non-basic beliefs. Indeed, Plantinga addresses this in his paper Naturalism Defeated (and remember that Tremblay wrote his critique well after 1994, and so has no excuse for being unfamiliar with relevant objections that nullify his complaints). And so Plantinga,
"By way of reply [to the claim that a basic belief cannot be defeated by a non-basic one]: suppose we agree that we do ordinarily believe R in the basic way, and are furthermore perfectly rational in so doing. Let's also agree that R does has warrant and perhaps a great deal of warrant, when it is taken as basic. Still further, we can add that R plays a unique and crucial role in our noetic structures: if we are reflective and come to doubt R, we will be in serious epistemic trouble.
But it doesn't follow that I can't acquire a defeater for R: clearly I can. Suppose I assume in the ordinary way that my cognitive faculties are reliable, but then come to suspect and finally to believe that I am insane. Once I see the connection between this belief, the belief that I am insane, and R, I have a defeater for R." - Plantinga, Naturalism Defeated, 1994
And therefore, according to Plantinga, Tremblay is incorrect about Plantinga's position. Are we noticing a pattern here? A general apathy to presenting people's positions correctly and taking time to understand them. Do atheists just let this stuff slide? Is it okay to think this sloppily if your an atheist, but if a theist argues in the above manner, atheists release the hounds of hell on them?
And, yes, Plantinga does allow that a video of him filching the letter would be a defeater for his belief that he was walking in the woods that afternoon. But, unfortunately, it is Tremblay who argues disanalagously; unless, that is, Tremblay has the atheological corollary to the Zapruder films? Does Tremblay have video tapes of Jesus still in his tomb, or something?
Tremblay jests,
Like any reasonable person, Plantinga really compared the probabilities of (1) and (2) and concluded that his recollection was more reliable than circumstantial evidence. But if he was faced with a much stronger case for (1), of the type I just described, he would no doubt change his mind and conclude that his memory is incomplete or distorted. Otherwise, we would rightly say that he is being irrational. As such, even if one believes in a divine sense, which is irrational, perception of a god can in no way be considered universally superior to non-basic beliefs, for the same reason.
but surely neither Plantinga or I am going to concede that such "stronger evidence" exists against my belief in God. And so Tremblay's argument against Plantinga's position of defeaters and basic beliefs requires the theist to accept that something like a video tape was found to undermine our basic belief. Now, the atheists may think this evidence abundant, but I was under the impression that Tremblay wasn't preaching to the atheological glee club, or trying to beg questions against the theist. Basically, Tremblay's argument is that Plantinga cannot say his belief in God is undefeated because it's defeated. Oh, really, when did this happen; pious hopes of an atheist shown to be a complete failure at critiquing theism aside.
This ends our critique of Francois Tremblay's critique of Alvin Plantinga.
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