Question I'm trying to wrap my mind around the Reformed Epistemology idea of the proof of God, but I am a total novice at this and I can't figure it out. As far as I can tell by the article "Without Evidence or Argument" by Kelly James Clark, the proof is 1) We should believe that God exists only with sufficient proof that God exists 2) We cannot get sufficient proof that God exists, because every argument would have to be justified by another argument infinitely Therefore, we do not need proof that God exists. I am completely baffled by this, and I'm pretty sure I'm reading it all wrong. I could really use a hand. Am I even understanding the premises at all?

Accepted:
February 13, 2009

Comments

Reformed epistemologists, as I understand them, are saying that we could know that God exists even if we were utterly unable to give a proof. That's because on their view, knowing something isn't a matter of being able to give reasons for believing it. Knowing something is a matter of being connected to it in the right sort of way. A little too simply, suppose there really is a God, and that the reason I believe God exists is because God reliably causes me to believe it. (And if God's causings wouldn't be reliable, then which ones would?) Reformed epistemologists would say that in that case, I know that God exists.

This isn't a proof that God exists, and it isn't an argument to convince you that you should believe in God. It's a special case of a general view about knowledge: that we know things when they're true and our beliefs about them are caused in the right sort of way. And notice that this sort of view has some advantages. If there really is a computer in front of me, and if my belief that there is gets caused in the right sort of way, then I know the computer is there even if I have no argument that would convince the skeptic.

It helps to keep the Reformed Epistemologist's opponent in mind. The target is someone who claims that even if God exists, we couldn't know this unless we had a proof -- i.e., an argument from explicit premises. The Reformed Epistemologist is saying that the analysis of knowledge that this view rests on is mistaken, and that a better analysis shows how we could know that God exists, if s/he does, even if we don't have a proof.

It may help as well to keep in mind that the Reformed Epistemologist rejects the so-called "KK" thesis. You might think that if I know that P, then I must know that I know P. The Reformed Epistemologist, along with other externalists about knowledge, rejects this. Assuming God exists, someone could know that Gof exists even if they don't know that they know it.

So there's a sketch of the view. I'll add that I think there is much less to it than meet the eye, but that's another story.