So.... It's been a while, but I was looking through papers and decided to post this because it was so interesting to look at where I was in 2007. What had happened in my brain leading up to this writing and also contemplating what has happened since...... it may be confusing, but in here are some citations, so try to dig through if you want. It's almost 3000 words, just a small investment!
I really want to start writing again, hopefully something inspires me to begin once again. Maybe conversations with all of you will help. Until then, maybe I'll a post some old ponderings to get started.
Throughout this semester of studying many different perspectives on
epistemology my mind has been in turmoil about my own religious beliefs. From the time
that I left home in 2003 to come to college it seems that my beliefs have been turned
upside down over and over again. I am now graduating and this problem seems to be a
continual pattern. I can never decide what is worth believing and what is not worth
believing. Studying the great minds and works of these philosophers of epistemology has
truly helped in my quest for understanding knowledge theories and belief theories.
Particularly helpful was reading the works of Alvin Plantinga and Andrew Koehl. Using
these writers, as well as others, I have determined to take this opportunity to assess my
current beliefs and apply the informative theories of epistemology to my understanding
of my own religious beliefs.
This task that I have set out to do does not only involve analyzing my religious
beliefs with the works of others. I, while planning and writing this paper, have also been
reflectively trying to communicate even to myself what I actually believe. This process
has been long and difficult because I have found myself having to put aside my semi-
agnostic thoughts in order to convey on paper what I truly understand to be my
understanding of the religious realm.
To begin this indulgence of my beliefs and belief systems I think it appropriate to
understand that I am aware of the diversity of religion throughout humanity and the
epistemic problems that this causes. The diversity problem is the outcome that occurs
when equally intelligent and knowledgeable people contradict each other in their
religious beliefs while each maintaining their beliefs in well grounded and sincere ways.1
1 Andrew Koehl points in his introduction to his paper “On blanket statements about the epistemic
effects of religious diversity.” Also, David Basinger asks related questions on page 43 of the International
2
This has been one of the most important problems that I have had with deciding what I
actually believe. Before college I would say that I was a Christian exclusivist and
according to Andrew Koehl was one that when shown religious diversity it should have
made a profound impact on my belief status. I was the type where my beliefs were that
anyone who did not hold to Christianity was wrong, and therefore I was right. When
religious diversity was shown to me in a non-biased fashion, I began this process of
reevaluation unknowingly and slowly, ultimately leading to the writing of this paper and
beyond.2
At this point in my life I am a Christian inclusivist, which is understood to be a
person who believes that the ultimate truth from God has come from Christ and the Bible,
but that God also can show his truth through other religions and other ways.3 Digging
even deeper into my mind though, I can even see myself slowly becoming a religious
pluralist, although my past exclusivism is still holding me to Christianity. Religious
pluralism is basically the understanding that God can show his “Ultimate Reality” in
various ways and religions and therefore each way can lead to salvation, liberation,
enlightenment, or paradise.4 I have not gone this far in my beliefs yet, though through my
studies of epistemology recently the argument for religious pluralism has become very
apparent in my mind.
Alvin Plantinga understands warranted and true belief to be warranted and true
only if it has been obtained through proper cognitive factors which successfully lead to
Journal for Philosophy of Religion issue 47 of the year 2000 entitled “Religious Diversity: Where
exclusivists often go wrong.”
2 Again in Andrew Koehl’s “On blanket statements about the epistemic effects of religious
diversity” he describes these things on page 2 of his introduction as well as in his conclusion on page 26.
3 Karl Rahner wrote on religious inclusivism in his paper “Religious Inclusivism.”
4 John Hick is one of the earliest writers on this topic and writes in his paper, “Religious
Pluralism”, what it is and how many objections are not valid.
3
truth. This also has to be done in an epistemic environment. This environment is one that
includes a maxi-environment and a mini-environment. This environment is everything
involved when a belief was made.5 If there was something in that environment that was
misleading from the truth then the belief formed cannot be warranted.6 After reading his
work I have to ask myself if I am warranted in my beliefs, even if my environment has
misled me in some way. It seems that this is an impossible task to partake into, yet I can
understand ways in which it can help me in my task.
So far I have only established that I understand there to be people who are just as
warranted as I am and who believe completely different things than I do. I also know that
all of those people grew up in completely different cultural backgrounds and diverse
circumstances which may have led them to believe what they believe. This also applies to
me. After understanding the way Plantinga describes warrant only helps my
understanding of the warrant of beliefs by telling me that it seems to not be easy to have
warranted beliefs. This is the case because a person can never truly know if their
environment, as described above, has misled them. Continuing to decipher my religious
beliefs will hopefully reveal at least that all of my beliefs are justified and, without
knowing if my environment was truly epistemic or not, warranted.
One of my most important beliefs is obviously that I believe in the Christian God.
Influenced, yes, by the environment that I have lived in, I still believe this picture of God
to be the idea of God that I have in my mind. The grounds that I have for this mean
nothing to me because I know that I cannot prove that my God is THE God with any
rationality or proof. This is troublesome to me because until recently I have always had
5 Plantinga, Alvin, Warrant and Proper Function, (Oxford University Press, 1993), pg 47.
6 Andrew Koehl analyses Alvin Plantinga’s argument in his paper “Reformed Epistemology and
Diversity” on pages 3-5.
4
the mindset of the modern philosopher; I always feel that in order to know something you
should have enough proof for it. Yes I would say that I have had religious experiences
that have led me toward strengthening my beliefs, but even without those I think that I
would still believe. This means that my belief in God is incorrigible. My belief in this
God, though not justified by any proofs or reason, is still a valid belief. According to
Plantinga, my belief in God would be properly basic. Being a basic belief means that it is
rational and warranted without being based on other beliefs. This is the case because even
though I have examples of justifying circumstances, like my experiences and upbringing,
I hold my belief in the Christian God without having that belief based on another one of
my beliefs.7 In my opinion Plantinga understands the problem of religious beliefs in a
responsible way. Natural evidentialists believe that proof can be found in the earth for the
existence of God, but I think that this is irresponsible since every argument given on
behalf of this is not reasonable nor can a conclusion be made about a god. For example, if
I would say that the sun is so beautiful and everything on earth is sustained so perfectly
and then conclude that because of this there must be a god, I would be giving a natural
evidentialists argument. For my own beliefs anyway, these so called “evidences” are only
supports for my beliefs and not proofs, better yet they are not even necessary for my
Because I believe in the Christian God, I also believe that his total truth has been
given to us humans through the writings of his followers in the Bible. This means that
though God can speak through other things his truth to us, the Bible is one of the main
ways which he does this. I do not however claim that the Bible is the direct word of God
or somehow an exact truth which is worthy praise. The Bible in my opinion is writings
7 Alvin Plantinga describes his views on this issue in “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?”
5
which have been inspired by God, written by those who are inspired, and ultimately
convey some understanding of a God which we cannot understand. I think that this belief
is warranted because of the fact that I have studied the Bible intensely and my basic
belief in the Christian God supports the ideas that are in the Bible. Rationally, my
understanding of the Bible is, in my opinion, more believable than saying that the Bible is
the word of God spoken directly from his mouth. This though is an assumption on my
part because I see the actions of the Christian God differently than other equally
intelligent Christians may. If I were to read the Koran, I am sure that this basic belief of
the Christian would not support everything in it. My inclusivism again does however let
me say that God does have truth for the humans who do follow this text. I think that
according to Plantinga my belief in the Bible follows from my justified belief in the
Christian God and that it is also justified.
Dependant upon both my basic belief in God, my belief in the Bible, and my
understanding of how God shows himself to us humans, I have obtained beliefs about the
character of God. I understand God as being omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
To describe the specifics of my beliefs of these would take a book sized paper, but the
picture in my mind is basically just something that we humans can not understand fully.
This is because the connection between the divine and the finite is only done through
different types of mediation and interpretation. This could be why I do sometimes think
that pluralism could be the correct understanding of how God works. God is nonetheless
in his full capacity higher than any conception. Because this is what I believe, I have
always had a problem with describing my specific beliefs about God and religion.
Through reading the Bible I have though concluded that God is a being that is relational
6
and that also prefers to be in relationships with his creation. The Bible also teaches me
that God exemplifies grace and love. To be perfectly honest I don’t “know that I know”
these things about God, but I do know that my warranted basic belief in the Christian
God supports my belief that the Bible can teach us things about him and therefore I can
justifiably draw conclusions from this text about this God. Plantinga and Koehl are both
confessed Christians and to this point I assume that they agree with me, even though
again many intelligent and sincere people differ about every aspect of this thought
process.
One of the most important beliefs that Christians profess is the belief that
Christ was the incarnation of God on earth and that he died and was resurrected for the
forgiveness of our sins. To understand this as a belief a person must understand that we
humans are living in sin. I believe that we are living in sin I can see what is described as
sin, I can feel the pain that sin causes, and the Bible tells us that sin exists in us. This
belief that Jesus is the savior of our eternal lives is also based upon the words of the Bible
as well as the teachings of the church. Even though it seems irrational that someone can
be a divine incarnation, I believe that the Christian God exists and speaks through the
Bible, and therefore if the Bible says these things I am obligated to believe them because
my warrant beliefs prior lead me to these conclusions.
It seems to me that most of my beliefs about the specifics of Christianity are
derived from the Bible, therefore I don’t feel the need to keep bringing up things that the
Bible helps me to believe. The point has been made that there is a connection of
justification and warrant between my basic belief in God, my belief that his truth is
spoken through the Bible, and that most beliefs I have thereafter follow from this chain. It
7
may seem that I am in agreement with the ideas of foundationalism presented by
Roderick Chisholm. According to Chisholm, beliefs can be justified by our experience,
by their relation to other connected beliefs, and also by their own nature (basic beliefs).8
I like this type of foundationalism because it deals with the issue of infinite regress and
therefore includes my basic belief in God as a starting point. This does seem to fit with
what I have previously stated, but there is more to my beliefs than just a chain of beliefs
connected to my belief in God. I also have a belief that is separate from my belief in God
that tells me that it is better to do good things or things that are not harmful, than to do
things that are bad and harmful. Specifically I think that we humans should look out for
each other and create a sustaining world instead of a world that causes so much
destruction and pain. These beliefs though not directly connected to my belief in God, do
correlate and connect with my beliefs that have been derived from this belief. These
separate beliefs cohere with each other and also make me think that I am also in
agreement with the followers of coherentism, or at least the idea that my beliefs are to a
certain extent justified because they are coherent with other beliefs that I have. I do not
however think that my understanding of coherentism complies with the ideas of the
coherent theory of truth which says that because my beliefs are a part of a coherent
system they are true.9 So what do I make of my belief system?
There is also a theory called the Foundherentist Theory. This theory looks to
utilize aspects of foundationalsim and coherentism. Foundherenstism is viewed like a
crossword puzzle. Finding an answer in a crossword puzzle using the given clues is
8 Chisholm argues for foundationalism in his writing “Contemporary Classical Foundationalism”.
9 Jonathan Dancy argues for both the coherence theory of truth and the coherence theory of
justification in his work “A Defence of Coherentism”. I do not agree with his argument for both but it does
lay good ground work in understand both sides of this type of coherentism.
8
similar to a foundationalists view that beliefs are based on other beliefs for justification.
The separate clues in a crossword puzzle also have to interlock though and fit right and
therefore could be similar to the ideas of the justification described by. In the views of the
founherentist both are necessary components in the justification of knowledge.10
As described earlier, I believe separate from my belief in God that we humans
should do good things. I also have beliefs that humans tend to inherently do bad things
(sin) apart from my understanding of God. These ideas however do work in a crossword
type analogy because the Bible does tell its readers similar things about humanity. I also
have beliefs that say that we humans, although we can attempt to solve all of our
problems, cannot in fact do so and therefore need something apart from us to do this. This
fits well into the crossword puzzle that I have created as well. My beliefs in Jesus as our
savior fit with this belief even though its fruition will not be revealed, according to the
Bible, until the final judgment.
Though I do not like applying terms and definitions to understand my beliefs, I do
find that it has helped me to organize my thoughts. Philosophers like Plantinga, Koehl,
Basinger, Chisholm, Dancy, Haack, and many others, have inspired me to think more
critically of my epistemic foundation of beliefs. Although my beliefs seem to be justified
and warranted in my perception, I do not know if they are in fact the truth; I can never
know this. I do not even know if these philosophers would agree that my beliefs are
warranted and justified. In understanding past epistemological thoughts and the thoughts
of recent epistemology including reformed epistemology I have gained a clearer
understanding of how to form beliefs that can be debated as being reasonable, warranted,
10 Susan Haack goes in depth to explain this epistemic understanding in her writing “A
Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification”
9
and justified. In a world where I understand there to be many hidden truths it is important
to understand why a person, including myself, believes what he or she believes. I think
that Dr. Koehl’s conclusion in “On blanket statements about the epistemic effects of
religious diversity” should not only be applied to those who are exclusivists but also to
everyone who understands the diversity of religious beliefs throughout the world. The
truth is that most people are “epistemically impoverished” as Koehl calls it, not just the
exclusivists. I feel that before studying the writings of these great thinkers I was
impoverished, and I was an inclusivist. After studying these things though I feel that I am
more epistemically sound in what I believe just because I have thought through my
beliefs and decided that I should believe the things that are warranted and justified over
that which may just be assumptions or weak beliefs.
The turmoil in my mind has been calmed yet it will never be satisfied
because I know that my epistemic life cannot end until the day I die. Since beliefs are all
that we really have here on earth, we should responsibly take care of them and change
them to be more sound and make more sense rationally. In the future I will use these
same techniques in determining growth and maturity in my belief system and hopefully
become a wiser person because of it. Because of my understanding of epistemology and
religious diversity I will also do this while respecting the diverse and respectable beliefs
that differ from mine which may also be just as warranted and justified.
10
I really want to start writing again, hopefully something inspires me to begin once again. Maybe conversations with all of you will help. Until then, maybe I'll a post some old ponderings to get started.
Throughout this semester of studying many different perspectives on
epistemology my mind has been in turmoil about my own religious beliefs. From the time
that I left home in 2003 to come to college it seems that my beliefs have been turned
upside down over and over again. I am now graduating and this problem seems to be a
continual pattern. I can never decide what is worth believing and what is not worth
believing. Studying the great minds and works of these philosophers of epistemology has
truly helped in my quest for understanding knowledge theories and belief theories.
Particularly helpful was reading the works of Alvin Plantinga and Andrew Koehl. Using
these writers, as well as others, I have determined to take this opportunity to assess my
current beliefs and apply the informative theories of epistemology to my understanding
of my own religious beliefs.
This task that I have set out to do does not only involve analyzing my religious
beliefs with the works of others. I, while planning and writing this paper, have also been
reflectively trying to communicate even to myself what I actually believe. This process
has been long and difficult because I have found myself having to put aside my semi-
agnostic thoughts in order to convey on paper what I truly understand to be my
understanding of the religious realm.
To begin this indulgence of my beliefs and belief systems I think it appropriate to
understand that I am aware of the diversity of religion throughout humanity and the
epistemic problems that this causes. The diversity problem is the outcome that occurs
when equally intelligent and knowledgeable people contradict each other in their
religious beliefs while each maintaining their beliefs in well grounded and sincere ways.1
1 Andrew Koehl points in his introduction to his paper “On blanket statements about the epistemic
effects of religious diversity.” Also, David Basinger asks related questions on page 43 of the International
2
This has been one of the most important problems that I have had with deciding what I
actually believe. Before college I would say that I was a Christian exclusivist and
according to Andrew Koehl was one that when shown religious diversity it should have
made a profound impact on my belief status. I was the type where my beliefs were that
anyone who did not hold to Christianity was wrong, and therefore I was right. When
religious diversity was shown to me in a non-biased fashion, I began this process of
reevaluation unknowingly and slowly, ultimately leading to the writing of this paper and
beyond.2
At this point in my life I am a Christian inclusivist, which is understood to be a
person who believes that the ultimate truth from God has come from Christ and the Bible,
but that God also can show his truth through other religions and other ways.3 Digging
even deeper into my mind though, I can even see myself slowly becoming a religious
pluralist, although my past exclusivism is still holding me to Christianity. Religious
pluralism is basically the understanding that God can show his “Ultimate Reality” in
various ways and religions and therefore each way can lead to salvation, liberation,
enlightenment, or paradise.4 I have not gone this far in my beliefs yet, though through my
studies of epistemology recently the argument for religious pluralism has become very
apparent in my mind.
Alvin Plantinga understands warranted and true belief to be warranted and true
only if it has been obtained through proper cognitive factors which successfully lead to
Journal for Philosophy of Religion issue 47 of the year 2000 entitled “Religious Diversity: Where
exclusivists often go wrong.”
2 Again in Andrew Koehl’s “On blanket statements about the epistemic effects of religious
diversity” he describes these things on page 2 of his introduction as well as in his conclusion on page 26.
3 Karl Rahner wrote on religious inclusivism in his paper “Religious Inclusivism.”
4 John Hick is one of the earliest writers on this topic and writes in his paper, “Religious
Pluralism”, what it is and how many objections are not valid.
3
truth. This also has to be done in an epistemic environment. This environment is one that
includes a maxi-environment and a mini-environment. This environment is everything
involved when a belief was made.5 If there was something in that environment that was
misleading from the truth then the belief formed cannot be warranted.6 After reading his
work I have to ask myself if I am warranted in my beliefs, even if my environment has
misled me in some way. It seems that this is an impossible task to partake into, yet I can
understand ways in which it can help me in my task.
So far I have only established that I understand there to be people who are just as
warranted as I am and who believe completely different things than I do. I also know that
all of those people grew up in completely different cultural backgrounds and diverse
circumstances which may have led them to believe what they believe. This also applies to
me. After understanding the way Plantinga describes warrant only helps my
understanding of the warrant of beliefs by telling me that it seems to not be easy to have
warranted beliefs. This is the case because a person can never truly know if their
environment, as described above, has misled them. Continuing to decipher my religious
beliefs will hopefully reveal at least that all of my beliefs are justified and, without
knowing if my environment was truly epistemic or not, warranted.
One of my most important beliefs is obviously that I believe in the Christian God.
Influenced, yes, by the environment that I have lived in, I still believe this picture of God
to be the idea of God that I have in my mind. The grounds that I have for this mean
nothing to me because I know that I cannot prove that my God is THE God with any
rationality or proof. This is troublesome to me because until recently I have always had
5 Plantinga, Alvin, Warrant and Proper Function, (Oxford University Press, 1993), pg 47.
6 Andrew Koehl analyses Alvin Plantinga’s argument in his paper “Reformed Epistemology and
Diversity” on pages 3-5.
4
the mindset of the modern philosopher; I always feel that in order to know something you
should have enough proof for it. Yes I would say that I have had religious experiences
that have led me toward strengthening my beliefs, but even without those I think that I
would still believe. This means that my belief in God is incorrigible. My belief in this
God, though not justified by any proofs or reason, is still a valid belief. According to
Plantinga, my belief in God would be properly basic. Being a basic belief means that it is
rational and warranted without being based on other beliefs. This is the case because even
though I have examples of justifying circumstances, like my experiences and upbringing,
I hold my belief in the Christian God without having that belief based on another one of
my beliefs.7 In my opinion Plantinga understands the problem of religious beliefs in a
responsible way. Natural evidentialists believe that proof can be found in the earth for the
existence of God, but I think that this is irresponsible since every argument given on
behalf of this is not reasonable nor can a conclusion be made about a god. For example, if
I would say that the sun is so beautiful and everything on earth is sustained so perfectly
and then conclude that because of this there must be a god, I would be giving a natural
evidentialists argument. For my own beliefs anyway, these so called “evidences” are only
supports for my beliefs and not proofs, better yet they are not even necessary for my
Because I believe in the Christian God, I also believe that his total truth has been
given to us humans through the writings of his followers in the Bible. This means that
though God can speak through other things his truth to us, the Bible is one of the main
ways which he does this. I do not however claim that the Bible is the direct word of God
or somehow an exact truth which is worthy praise. The Bible in my opinion is writings
7 Alvin Plantinga describes his views on this issue in “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?”
5
which have been inspired by God, written by those who are inspired, and ultimately
convey some understanding of a God which we cannot understand. I think that this belief
is warranted because of the fact that I have studied the Bible intensely and my basic
belief in the Christian God supports the ideas that are in the Bible. Rationally, my
understanding of the Bible is, in my opinion, more believable than saying that the Bible is
the word of God spoken directly from his mouth. This though is an assumption on my
part because I see the actions of the Christian God differently than other equally
intelligent Christians may. If I were to read the Koran, I am sure that this basic belief of
the Christian would not support everything in it. My inclusivism again does however let
me say that God does have truth for the humans who do follow this text. I think that
according to Plantinga my belief in the Bible follows from my justified belief in the
Christian God and that it is also justified.
Dependant upon both my basic belief in God, my belief in the Bible, and my
understanding of how God shows himself to us humans, I have obtained beliefs about the
character of God. I understand God as being omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
To describe the specifics of my beliefs of these would take a book sized paper, but the
picture in my mind is basically just something that we humans can not understand fully.
This is because the connection between the divine and the finite is only done through
different types of mediation and interpretation. This could be why I do sometimes think
that pluralism could be the correct understanding of how God works. God is nonetheless
in his full capacity higher than any conception. Because this is what I believe, I have
always had a problem with describing my specific beliefs about God and religion.
Through reading the Bible I have though concluded that God is a being that is relational
6
and that also prefers to be in relationships with his creation. The Bible also teaches me
that God exemplifies grace and love. To be perfectly honest I don’t “know that I know”
these things about God, but I do know that my warranted basic belief in the Christian
God supports my belief that the Bible can teach us things about him and therefore I can
justifiably draw conclusions from this text about this God. Plantinga and Koehl are both
confessed Christians and to this point I assume that they agree with me, even though
again many intelligent and sincere people differ about every aspect of this thought
process.
One of the most important beliefs that Christians profess is the belief that
Christ was the incarnation of God on earth and that he died and was resurrected for the
forgiveness of our sins. To understand this as a belief a person must understand that we
humans are living in sin. I believe that we are living in sin I can see what is described as
sin, I can feel the pain that sin causes, and the Bible tells us that sin exists in us. This
belief that Jesus is the savior of our eternal lives is also based upon the words of the Bible
as well as the teachings of the church. Even though it seems irrational that someone can
be a divine incarnation, I believe that the Christian God exists and speaks through the
Bible, and therefore if the Bible says these things I am obligated to believe them because
my warrant beliefs prior lead me to these conclusions.
It seems to me that most of my beliefs about the specifics of Christianity are
derived from the Bible, therefore I don’t feel the need to keep bringing up things that the
Bible helps me to believe. The point has been made that there is a connection of
justification and warrant between my basic belief in God, my belief that his truth is
spoken through the Bible, and that most beliefs I have thereafter follow from this chain. It
7
may seem that I am in agreement with the ideas of foundationalism presented by
Roderick Chisholm. According to Chisholm, beliefs can be justified by our experience,
by their relation to other connected beliefs, and also by their own nature (basic beliefs).8
I like this type of foundationalism because it deals with the issue of infinite regress and
therefore includes my basic belief in God as a starting point. This does seem to fit with
what I have previously stated, but there is more to my beliefs than just a chain of beliefs
connected to my belief in God. I also have a belief that is separate from my belief in God
that tells me that it is better to do good things or things that are not harmful, than to do
things that are bad and harmful. Specifically I think that we humans should look out for
each other and create a sustaining world instead of a world that causes so much
destruction and pain. These beliefs though not directly connected to my belief in God, do
correlate and connect with my beliefs that have been derived from this belief. These
separate beliefs cohere with each other and also make me think that I am also in
agreement with the followers of coherentism, or at least the idea that my beliefs are to a
certain extent justified because they are coherent with other beliefs that I have. I do not
however think that my understanding of coherentism complies with the ideas of the
coherent theory of truth which says that because my beliefs are a part of a coherent
system they are true.9 So what do I make of my belief system?
There is also a theory called the Foundherentist Theory. This theory looks to
utilize aspects of foundationalsim and coherentism. Foundherenstism is viewed like a
crossword puzzle. Finding an answer in a crossword puzzle using the given clues is
8 Chisholm argues for foundationalism in his writing “Contemporary Classical Foundationalism”.
9 Jonathan Dancy argues for both the coherence theory of truth and the coherence theory of
justification in his work “A Defence of Coherentism”. I do not agree with his argument for both but it does
lay good ground work in understand both sides of this type of coherentism.
8
similar to a foundationalists view that beliefs are based on other beliefs for justification.
The separate clues in a crossword puzzle also have to interlock though and fit right and
therefore could be similar to the ideas of the justification described by. In the views of the
founherentist both are necessary components in the justification of knowledge.10
As described earlier, I believe separate from my belief in God that we humans
should do good things. I also have beliefs that humans tend to inherently do bad things
(sin) apart from my understanding of God. These ideas however do work in a crossword
type analogy because the Bible does tell its readers similar things about humanity. I also
have beliefs that say that we humans, although we can attempt to solve all of our
problems, cannot in fact do so and therefore need something apart from us to do this. This
fits well into the crossword puzzle that I have created as well. My beliefs in Jesus as our
savior fit with this belief even though its fruition will not be revealed, according to the
Bible, until the final judgment.
Though I do not like applying terms and definitions to understand my beliefs, I do
find that it has helped me to organize my thoughts. Philosophers like Plantinga, Koehl,
Basinger, Chisholm, Dancy, Haack, and many others, have inspired me to think more
critically of my epistemic foundation of beliefs. Although my beliefs seem to be justified
and warranted in my perception, I do not know if they are in fact the truth; I can never
know this. I do not even know if these philosophers would agree that my beliefs are
warranted and justified. In understanding past epistemological thoughts and the thoughts
of recent epistemology including reformed epistemology I have gained a clearer
understanding of how to form beliefs that can be debated as being reasonable, warranted,
10 Susan Haack goes in depth to explain this epistemic understanding in her writing “A
Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification”
9
and justified. In a world where I understand there to be many hidden truths it is important
to understand why a person, including myself, believes what he or she believes. I think
that Dr. Koehl’s conclusion in “On blanket statements about the epistemic effects of
religious diversity” should not only be applied to those who are exclusivists but also to
everyone who understands the diversity of religious beliefs throughout the world. The
truth is that most people are “epistemically impoverished” as Koehl calls it, not just the
exclusivists. I feel that before studying the writings of these great thinkers I was
impoverished, and I was an inclusivist. After studying these things though I feel that I am
more epistemically sound in what I believe just because I have thought through my
beliefs and decided that I should believe the things that are warranted and justified over
that which may just be assumptions or weak beliefs.
The turmoil in my mind has been calmed yet it will never be satisfied
because I know that my epistemic life cannot end until the day I die. Since beliefs are all
that we really have here on earth, we should responsibly take care of them and change
them to be more sound and make more sense rationally. In the future I will use these
same techniques in determining growth and maturity in my belief system and hopefully
become a wiser person because of it. Because of my understanding of epistemology and
religious diversity I will also do this while respecting the diverse and respectable beliefs
that differ from mine which may also be just as warranted and justified.
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