On fideism and Alvin Plantinga

✍ Scribed by Richard Askew

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 762 KB
• Volume: 23
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7047
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00139084

✦ Synopsis

Recently Terence Penelhum has suggested, in God and Skepticism, that Alvin Plantinga's critique of classical foundationalism is a version of fideism. It is a fideism that exemplifies itself in what Penelhum refers to as a "permissive parity argument." Plantinga, however, rejects any label of fideism, whether it be of an extreme or moderate variety. 1 He maintains that his approach to religious epistemology demonstrates that theistic belief is properly basic and among the "deliverances of reason." Plantinga writes, ... the Reformed epistemologist is not a fideist at all with respect to belief in God. He does not hold that there is any conflict between faith and reason here, and he does not even hold that we cannot attain this fundamental truth by reason; he holds instead, that it is among the deliverances of reason. 2