Evidentialism And The Ethics Of Belief

Locke is the most influential philosopher of 17th century.He inaugurated the English empiricist tradition and creatively justified religious beliefs,thus he opened a new approach to deal with the epistemological predicament due to the cultural crisis of his own age.His epistemology,especially his religious epistemology has a significant impact on Western religious philosophy from 18th century onwards.Locke and his contemporary philosophers need to address the epistemological crisis of their era,which is,how humans choose what to believe,how to understand,and whether humans' ability to know and judge is limited.In this regard,Locke's general thought is,by shaking off the yoke of tradition and authority,to know the world and understand theology under the guidance of empiricist reason.His epistemological idea mainly is advocating evidentialism as the core of fiundamentalism,regulated with deontological principals,which reflects exactly the characteristics and originality of Locke's religious epistemology.The background and source of Locke's thought is mentioned in chapter one.In chapter two,I will discuss his general epistemology,and his religious epistemology is elaborated in chapter three and four.Locke holds that religious beliefs must conform to human reason,therefore fundamentalist,evidentialist and deontological principals can be applied to religious beliefs as well.The existence of God needs to be explained epistemologically.In order to illuminate this better,Locke first expounds epistemology in general,which denies innate knowledge on basis of empiricism and believes that experience is the foundation of all the knowledge.Knowledge is“nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement,or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas9",and truth is the correct combination of ideas.He distinguishes three degrees of knowledge according to their certainty:intuitive knowledge,inferential knowledge and sensitive knowledge.On the basis of general epistemology,Locke denies the argument that religious beliefs are only faith,but without knowledge.He explicitly holds religious beliefs are inferential knowledge,introduces the basic principles of general epistemology into religious beliefs and forms a system of standard epistemology of religious beliefs.The distinctive feature of this system follows the sound of reason or let reason be your guidance.In his opinion,the epistemological principals of fundamentalism and evidentialism are applicable to religious beliefs,eg.,human can deduce the existence of God without beyond oneself,but based on one's own existence--which is intuitive knowledge.Whether to accept a certain religious belief is based on the rational evidence that humans can provide,and we should make a proper belief attitude according to the evidence.One is able to judge the religious beliefs correctly as long as one exerts the faculty of reason profoundly.Therefore,Locke underlines cognitive responsibility,no exception of religious beliefs,since he believes every rational being has the responsibility to provide evidence in terms of one certain belief,judge this belief according to the evidence,and do one's best to perform this duty.On the relationship between faith and reason,Locke thought they are different,meanwhile faith should conform to reason,and the credibility of faith must be verified by reason.In order to make a elaboration of the relationship between the two,he divided propositions into three categories:rational propositions,beyond rational propositions,and irrational propositions.Locke claimed that faith should be regulated by reason,and we shouldn't accept the faith which against our reason.We ought to make sure that the propositions beyond our reason are revelations from God before we believe in them.And for the proposition against our reason,we should not believe in them.The view of religious beliefs with the principle of Empiricism claimed by Locke,which,on the one hand,promoted the development of Deism in England,and the religious belief with the principle of evidence had been developed by extreme Evidentialism and Logical positivism in 19th century and 20th century.On the other hand,theological intellectualism was criticized by modern philosophies,for example,Hume and Kant,but there are also some reformed philosophies represented by Plantinga,they modified the theological intellectualism.