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HOW REFORMED IS REFORMED EPISTEMOLOGY? ALVIN PLANTINGA AND CALVIN'S ‘SENSUS DIVINITATIS’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1997

DEREK S. JEFFREYS
Affiliation:
The Divinity School, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
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Abstract

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In his recent two volumes on epistemology, Alvin Plantinga surveys contemporary theories of knowledge thoroughly, and carefully defends an externalist epistemology. He promises that in a third volume, Warranted Christian Belief, he will present John Calvin's sensus divinitatis as an epistemic module akin to sense perception, a priori knowledge, induction, testimony and other epistemic modules. Plantinga defines the sensus divinitatis as a ‘many sided disposition to accept belief in God (or propositions that immediately and obviously entail the existence of God) in a variety of circumstances’. Like other epistemic modules, it produces beliefs in an appropriate cognitive environment, aims at the production of true beliefs, and generates beliefs which have a high statistical probability of being true.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1997 Cambridge University Press