It is obvious that the evidentialist objector will reject the notion of supernal belief due to the lack of evidence while the theist is likely to say yes. However, the theists who say “Yes” fall into two main categories:
• those who claim that there is sufficient evidence.
• those who claim that evidence is unnecessary.
Theistic
evidentialists contend that there is enough evidence to ground rational belief
in the supernatural, while reformed epistemologists contend that evidence is
not necessary to ground rational belief in the supernatural (but that belief in
the supernatural is grounded in various characteristics of religious
experience).
In Western European
countries, religious belief has waned since the Age of Enlightenment. Yet
there are counter-trends. Today almost 70% of Americans profess belief in a
higher power.
In China, after
decades of institutionally enforced atheism, religious belief is dramatically
on the rise. And even though religious belief has waned among professional Western philosophers since the Age of Enlightenment in 1715, many prominent Western philosophers remain theists.
Question(s)
What conclusions can
be drawn from these sociological observations?
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References
Sudduth, Michael L.
Czapkay. "Alstonian foundationalism and higher-level theistic
evidentialism." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 37.1
(1995): 25-44.
Kretzmann, Norman.
"Evidence against anti-evidentialism." Our Knowledge of God.
Springer, Dordrecht, 1992. 17-38.
Conee, Earl, and
Richard Feldman. Evidentialism: Essays in epistemology. Clarendon Press, 2004.
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