Wittgenstein’s “Lectures on Religious Belief” (LRB) provide a source for as yet unexplored connections to religious ideas as treated in Robert N. McCauley’s book Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not (2013), and to other CSR scholars who focus attention on how “cognitively speaking it is religion that is natural and science that is largely unnatural.” Tensions are explored in this paper between our “maturationally natural” religious inclinations to adopt religious ideas and the “unnatural” demands sometimes made upon people, (...) either a) by imposition of evidentialist norms over religious utterances, or b) by an agent’s adherence to perceived demands of theological correctness and to a particularly demanding conception of genuine or authentic faith. Wittgenstein uses Bertrand Russell and Father O'Hara to articulate these two tensions, and to offer alternatives which to some degree assuage them. I argue that such tensions are not only illuminating of the more and less helpful models of the relationship between reason and faith, but also open up new research questions which connect contemporary CSR and Wittgensteinian (or more broadly Continental) approaches to philosophy of religion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper I seek to retain many of Dormany's central claims about the excellent-making features of faith, without accepting her direct application of evidentialism to faith. In order to achieve that goal, I argue that we have to distinguish between the non-conflicting norms of epistemology and pistology. We also have to distinguish the often conflicting norms of epistemic and practical rationality.

ABSTRACT Dormandy’s ‘True Faith’ presents two views on the proper epistemological stance towards faith: doxastic-partialism and evidentialism. Here, I argue for a third option that cuts across the evidentialism/partialism distinction. I first analyze the Pascalian conception of faith, arguing that Pascal begins with the cognitive attitude of acceptance rather than belief. Next, I discuss Dormandy’s case for evidentialism, and contend that some evidence—the kind gained through transformative experiences—presents a difficulty for her argument. Finally, I offer my proposed view—Partialist Evidentialism—and argue (...) that this approach is necessary for acquiring some unique kinds of evidence for religious faith. (shrink)

A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that people of faith are epistemically gifted by God, whereas non-believers are subject to the noetic effects of a fallen world. This view aims to show how religious beliefs for people of faith can be epistemically justified. But I argue that it makes such people prone to a cluster of epistemic vices that I call epistemic phariseeism. Divine-help epistemology is especially apt to promote these vices because its normativity (...) is not just epistemic, but also religious and moral. I suggest an alternative epistemological view that is better suited to religious faith. (shrink)