EVIDENTIALISM AND THE RATIONALITY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Evidentialism has been one of the prominent epistemological approaches to the rationality of belief since the time of the Enlightenment. It maintains that a belief ought to be based on sufficient evidence in order to be rationally acceptable. Some evidentialist critics of theism contend that there is not sufficient evidence for belief in God to be rationally justified. While the typical response from theists is to attempt to provide sufficient evidence to justify belief in God, some philosophers of religion have attempted to undercut this debate by showing that belief in God is a properly basic belief, requiring no further evidence or argument for it to be rationally justified. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to examine the evidentialist challenge to the rationality of religious belief, particularly belief in God, then offer an internalist model of immediate knowledge of God through knowledge by presence. This model is the best explanation of how an immediate knowledge of God can be justified epistemically, and seems more effective epistemically than other approaches to the rationality of belief in God.