The Significance of Religious Disagreement

God, Faith and Infinity » Lecture 11

Disagreement Against Faith

Religious Disagreement

There are theistic religions but also at least some non-theistic religions … among the enormous variety of religions going under the names ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’; among the theistic religions, there are strands of Hinduism and Buddhism and American Indian religion as well as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity; and all these differ significantly from one another. Isn’t it somehow arbitrary, or irrational, or unjustified, or unwarranted, or even oppressive and imperialistic to endorse one of these as opposed to all the others? According to Jean Bodin, ‘each is refuted by all’; must we not agree? …

To put it in an internal and personal way, I find myself with religious beliefs, and religious beliefs that I realize aren’t shared by nearly everyone else. … And my problem is this: when I become really aware of these other ways of looking at the world, what must or should I do? What is the right sort of attitude to take? What sort of impact should this awareness have on the beliefs I hold and the strength with which I hold them? (Plantinga 1995, pp. 191–3)

Pluralism, Exclusivism, and Abstentionism

Pluralism
The diversity of religious traditions is merely apparent: ‘the great post-axial faiths constitute different ways of experiencing, conceiving and living in relation to an ultimate divine Reality which transcends all our varied visions of it’ (Oppy and Scott 2010, p. 284).
Exclusivism
‘to continue to believe what you have all along believed; you learn about this diversity but continue to believe, that is, take to be true, [your prior religious commitments], consequently taking to be false any beliefs, religious or otherwise, that are incompatible with [them]’ (Plantinga 1995, p. 194).
Abstentionism
‘the right course … is to abstain from believing the … proposition and also abstain from believing its denial’ (Plantinga 1995, pp. 198–9).
At least, I ought to withhold from any preferential judgment between any religious traditions which have adherents who are as reasonable and as informed as I am.

Pluralism

Problems with Pluralism

Relativism

The Moral Argument against Exclusivism

it is morally not possible actually to go out into the world and say to devout, intelligent, fellow human beings: ‘…we believe that we know God and we are right; you believe that you know God, and you are totally wrong’. (William Cantwell Smith, cited in Plantinga (1995), p. 197)

Intellectual arrogance

Modest Exclusivism

A General Epistemic Argument for Abstentionism

(S1)
There is persistent genuine religious disagreement among serious and sensible people. (Plantinga 1995, pp. 191–2)
(S2)
The correct attitude for participants in persistent genuine disagreements is to suspend judgment on the disputed matters. (Feldman 2007, p. 212)
(S3)
The correct attitude in light of persistent religious disagreement is to suspend judgment on religious matters. (From S1, S2)

The Epistemology of Disagreement

Epistemic ‘Inferiors’

Evidential Asymmetries

Epistemic Peers

Responding to Disagreement: the Equal Weight view

After examining this evidence, I find in myself an inclination, perhaps a strong inclination, to think that this evidence supports \(P\). It may even be that I can’t help but believe \(P\). But I see that another person, every bit as sensible and serious as I, has an opposing reaction. … It’s difficult to know everything about his mental life and thus difficult to tell exactly why he believes as he does. One of us must be making some kind of mistake or failing to see some truth. But I have no basis for thinking that the one making the mistake is him rather than me. And the same is true of him. And in that case, the right thing for both of us to do is to suspend judgment on \(P\).…

This is a modest view, in the sense that it argues for a kind of compromise with those with whom one disagrees. It implies that one should give up one’s beliefs in the light of the sort of disagreement under discussion. This is a kind of modesty in response to disagreement from one’s peers. This is also a sceptical view, in the limited sense that it denies the existence of reasonable beliefs in a significant range of cases. (Feldman 2007, pp. 212–3)

Religious Disagreement and Equal Weight

Do We Share Evidence?

Permission and Disagreement

Uniqueness and Disagreement

Steadfast Views

Steadfast Views and Uniqueness

Can we be rationally dismissively steadfast?

Nor can we reasonably claim that our own form of religious experience, together with that of the tradition of which we are a part, is veridical whilst the others are not. We can of course claim this; and indeed virtually every religious tradition has done so, regarding alternative forms of religious either as false or as confused and inferior versions of itself. But the … rational justification … for treating one’s own form of religious experience as a cognitive response … to a divine reality must … equally apply to the religious experience of others. In acknowledging this we are obeying the intellectual Golden Rule of granting to others a premise on which we rely ourselves. Persons living within other traditions, then, are equally justified in trusting their own distinctive religious experience and in forming their beliefs on the basis of it. For the only reason for treating one’s tradition differently from others is the very human, but not very cogent, reason that it is one’s own! (Hick, in Oppy and Scott (2010), p. 284)

Epistemic Symmetry and Permissivism

Does Permissivism Rationalize Incoherent Beliefs?

Suppose a detective has strong evidence incriminating Lefty and also has strong evidence incriminating Righty of the same crime. Assume that the detective knows that only one suspect could be guilty. One might think that since a case could be made for either suspect, the detective could reasonably believe that Lefty is guilty and Righty is not, but could also reasonably believe that Righty is guilty and Lefty is not. She gets to choose. …

I think, however, that this analysis of the case is seriously mistaken. It is clear that the detectives should suspend judgment in this sort of case (given only two possible candidates for guilt). The evidence for Lefty is evidence against Righty. Believing a particular suspect to be guilty on the basis of this combined evidence is simply not reasonable. Furthermore, it is hard to make clear sense of the thought that the other belief is reasonable. Suppose one of the detectives believes that Lefty is guilty. She can then infer that Righty is not guilty. But if she can draw this inference, she cannot also reasonably think that it is reasonable to conclude that Righty is guilty. This combination of beliefs simply does not make sense. (Feldman 2007, pp. 204–5)

Does Permissivism Make Epistemic Standards Arbitrary?

[Suppose that] how we come to adhere to certain epistemic standards… is just a matter of education. I follow standards S because I was inculcated with them at MIT. But had I attended Berkeley, I would have been inculcated with standards S\('\) instead. Given my total evidence as input, S and S\('\) deliver the conclusions \(P\), and not-\(P\) respectively. … I learn that if I attend MIT I will inevitably inherit standards S from my mentors, which given the evidence will lead me to believe \(P\). Attending Berkeley will result in my adhering to standards S\('\) and hence arriving at the conclusion not-\(P\). Now surely the prospect of several years of graduate school will seem rather pointless no matter how passionately curious I am as to whether \(P\). … I might as well choose a grad school to attend and hence opinions to hold by a preference for Massachusetts weather, or by flipping a coin. Once I have filled out the enrolment form for MIT say, I will know that unless something gets in the way, in a few years I will be of the opinion that \(P\). … But of course it would be absurd to form an opinion on the matter by an arbitrary choice when I don’t even know what to make of the evidence. (White 2005, p. 452)

Summing Up

Steadfast Views: Right Reasons

Mapping the Debate over Disagreement

Faith and Disagreement

Religious Faith and Disagreement

Disagreement and Faith

Querying the Argument

Postponing Choice and Suspending Judgment

References

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Christensen, D., 2009. Disagreement as evidence: The epistemology of controversy. Philosophy Compass, 4 (5), 756–767.
Eagle, A., 2014. The epistemic significance of agreement.
Feldman, R., 2007. Reasonable religious disagreements. In: L. Antony, ed. Philosophers without gods. Oxford University Press, 194–214.
Harman, G., 1975. Moral relativism defended. The Philosophical Review, 84 (1), 3.
Kelly, T., 2005. The epistemic significance of disagreement. In: T.S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne, eds. Oxford studies in epistemology. Oxford University Press, 167–196.
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Rosen, G., 2001. Nominalism, naturalism, epistemic relativism. Philosophical Perspectives, 15, 60–91.
White, R., 2005. Epistemic permissiveness. Philosophical Perspectives, 19, 445–459.