Volume 22, Issue 1, 2020
Symposium on Theistic Evolution
Patrick J. Casey
Pages 123-141
Plantinga and the Balkanization of Reason
In this paper, I argue that Plantinga maintains it is possible to come to know that Christianity is true, but only from the inside. Further, since Plantinga argues that one’s judgments about the epistemic status of Christian belief depend upon one’s prephilosophical metaphysical views, his position amounts to the claim that the Christian community has privileged access to truth and that non-Christians are ill-equipped to evaluate their beliefs. The upshot of Plantinga’s position is, I suggest, that people from different communities will disagree about the epistemic status of religious belief, and reason is simply incapable of adjudicating those disputes.