Selected Readings (with some annotations)
Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Alston, a first-rate philosopher who is also a Christian, argues (roughly speaking) that belief that God exists can be formed in a reliable way. His basic argument is that all of our doxological practices (belief forming practices) involve certain modules of knowing which cannot be tested without some sort of epistemic circularity. If all of our beliefs are subject to this sort of problem and are thought to be prima facie rational, then why think that belief that God exists isn’t prima facie rational? Couldn’t one’s experience of the divine provide some prima facie justification?
________. The Reliability of Sense Perception. Cornell University Press, 1996.
________. “Knowledge of God,” in Faith, Reason, and Skepticism. Marcus Hester. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
DeWeese, Garrett, J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2011.
Evans, C. Stephen and Merold Westphal, eds. Christian Perspectives on Religious Knowledge. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 1993.
Geivett, Douglas R. and Sweetman, Brendan, eds. Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology Revelation in Religious Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Mavrodes, George I. Revelation in Religous Belief. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.
Mitchell, Basil. The Justification of Religious Belief. London: Macmillan, 1973.
Moreland, J.P & Craig, William Lane. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2003. See the discussion pp. 71-172 and especially pp. 111-129 and 154-171.
If you’re not trained in philosophy and you’re a Christian, this is the book I would encourage you to start with. You may find it a bit difficult, but if you can master this book you’re well on your way to sharpening your skills in this field. I like it a lot even if I don’t agree with everything they say.
________. Philosopical Foundations for a Christian WorldView (2nd Edition). InterVarsity Press, 2017.
Update to their first edition.
Plantinga, Alvin. “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Editors). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
This essay is one of the most important essays in philosophy of religion. Instead of taking the view that in order to have rational belief in God’s existence you must have a sound propositional argument, Plantinga argues that a theist is well within her epistemic rights to hold belief that God exists is a “properly basic” belief--a justified belief without support from any other propositions. At the same time he insists that such a belief is not gratuitous because it is (or can be) formed by properly functioning faculties and this belief is a part of one’s natural epistemic endowment via the sensus divinatatus God and Other Minds.
________. God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification for Belief in God. Ithaca, NU: Cornell University Press, 1967.
This book argues that belief that God exists is relevantly similar to belief that other minds exist. The author knows of no knock-down-drag-out argument, but it is surely rational to hold that other minds exists….and the same is true, he argues, for belief that God exists. (While Plantinga does not hold that the traditional theistic arguments for God are sound for everyone, he does not think they are worthless.)
________. Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000.
This was the long awaited follow-up to Plantinga’s two earlier books on warrant. Here he lays out in greater detail his epistemic views and he sees an analogy between God taken as a properly basic belief and “the great things of the gospel” taken as a properly basic belief. A theist can hold that both are epistemically respectable, that is, they are beliefs that are within the epistemic rights of those who hold them.
________. Warrant: The Current Debate. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Graduate level reading, but a fast way to catch up on the current (up to 1993) thinking about epistemology. Plantinga divides current epistemology into two large camps: the internalist who are linked to deontology (those who think forming beliefs in a certain way is a sort of rational duty) and those who are externalists that hold much of our belief forming practice is not within our control. Plantinga identifies with the latter. A difficult but intriguing book.
________. Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993.
This book is at the heart of Plantinga’s brand of externalist epistemology. Plantinga argues persuasively that what is needed for true beliefs to become knowledge is warrant. And what is key to warrant is the proper functioning of our cognitive faculties that were formed according to a certain contextual and successful design plan. In short, without such a successful design plan for our cognitive faculties we have good reason to distrust all of our beliefs.
________. and Wolterstorff, Nicholas, eds. Faith and Rationality. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
Pojman, Louis. Religious Belief and the Will. London & New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986.