Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism

218 J.J.C. Smart
come just from the proper functioning of our faculties of sight, hearing, etc.
as when we see that there is a bird on the gatepost. In his theory God has
provided us with a faculty whose proper function is (after appropriate stimuli)
to have an immediate perception of the truth of theism and the proper
functioning of this faculty can itself be a warrant no less than sight as in the
case of the bird on the gatepost. Thus Plantinga in an important sense is not
a fideist. According to him we have not just faith but warrant. However,
I will not attempt to summarise Plantinga’s ingenious and complex epistemology.
From a Darwinian point of view we might explain the reliability of our
sense organs by evolution by natural selection. Whereas Plantinga’s idea of
the function of a theistic faculty requires intrusion of the supernatural that
a naturalist philosopher will find implausible. It is not that Plantinga expects
to convince the naturalistic philosopher of the truth of theism but he does
expect to convince us that from his point of view theism is rational.
I wish to remind the reader, however, that Haldane and I are metaphysical
realists. If one person believes p and the other not-p, even if neither can prove
one or the other proposition to the satisfaction of the other person, one or the
other proposition is true. Truth must be distinguished from provability or
being warrantedly assertible.
The examples of Swinburne and Plantinga illustrate my view that knockdown
arguments are rarely possible in philosophy, but one may hope to
persuade a class of readers with similar background assumptions, and perhaps
even induce a little uneasiness in some others.
Prima facie it is odd to see faith as a form of knowledge. Faith occurs when
people do not know. (In a religious context. Faith that your pilot won’t crash
your plane is very different, because you have good empirical reasons for
believing in his competence.) A scientifically plausible epistemology raises
difficulties for religious faith. Common sense gives good empirical reasons for
the reliability of our eyes and ears, and this is reinforced by considerations of
the selective advantages in evolution of a capacity for veridical perception,
whether simple or sophisticated. Perhaps there might be a scientific theory of
how faith works and perhaps of how it might have survival value independently
of its being veridical or otherwise.
Even a pure fideist might think that his or her faith gives assurance against
Humean scepticism about laws of nature. He or she might argue that since
knowledge exists theism must be true. This looks like Kantian transcendental
argument and so as an explanation is back to front. This is not as impossible
a position as might as first appear, at least if we do not see it as an objection
that different faiths conflict. Nevertheless it requires the premise that knowledge
is possible. Since Hume we have been aware of the impossibility of
validating scientific inductive practices. At least in science we submit our
hypotheses to empirical test.