Reasonable faith and reasonable fideism

What is faith? And what makes faith reasonable, when it is so? I first defend approaching the question of faith and its reasonableness by starting from faith in the religious context. Next, I develop a ‘venture’ theory of a specific kind of faith of which religious - and specifically Christian - pra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religious studies
Main Author: Bishop, John (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2023
In: Religious studies
Further subjects:B epistemological externalism
B Faith
B Fideism
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Summary:What is faith? And what makes faith reasonable, when it is so? I first defend approaching the question of faith and its reasonableness by starting from faith in the religious context. Next, I develop a ‘venture’ theory of a specific kind of faith of which religious - and specifically Christian - practical commitment to a whole worldview may be taken methodologically as a paradigm case. Then I consider the conditions under which faith-commitment of this general type may be reasonable. I suggest that faith-ventures of this kind are morally permissible only when they are made reasonably, with epistemic integrity. I consider the role an appeal to epistemic externalism may have in defending the epistemic integrity of venturing beyond (though not against) the available evidence. I advance a moderate fideist thesis (inspired by William James's ‘justification of faith’), and consider the debate between Jamesian fideists and evidentialists for whom epistemic integrity requires commitment to be made to truth-claims only to the extent supported by evidence for their truth.
ISSN:1469-901X
Contains:Enthalten in: Religious studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0034412522000282