evidence of the senses See EVIDENCE. evidentialism, in the philosophy of religion, the view that religious beliefs can be rationally accepted only if they are supported by one’s ‘total evidence,’ understood to mean all the other propositions one knows or justifiably believes to be true. Evidentialists typically add that, in order to be rational, one’s degree of belief should be proportioned to the strength of the evidential support. Evidentialism was formulated by Locke as a weapon against the sectarians of his day and has since been used by Clifford (among many others) to attack religious belief in general. A milder form of evidentialism is found in Aquinas, who, unlike Clifford, thinks religion can meet the evidentialist challenge.
A contrasting view is fideism, best understood as the claim that one’s fundamental religious convictions are not subject to independent rational assessment. A reason often given for this is that devotion to God should be one’s ‘ultimate concern,’ and to subject faith to the judgment of reason is to place reason above God and make of it an idol. Proponents of fideism include Tertullian, Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, and some Wittgensteinians.
A third view, which as yet lacks a generally accepted label, may be termed experientialism; it asserts that some religious beliefs are directly justified by religious experience. Experientialism differs from evidentialism in holding that religious beliefs can be rational without being supported by inferences from other beliefs one holds; thus theistic arguments are superfluous, whether or not there are any sound ones available. But experientialism is not fideism; it holds that religious beliefs may be directly grounded in religious experience wtihout the mediation of other beliefs, and may be rationally warranted on that account, just as perceptual beliefs are directly grounded in perceptual experience. Recent examples of experientialism are found in Plantinga’s ‘Reformed Epistemology,’ which asserts that religious beliefs grounded in experience can be ‘properly basic,’ and in the contention of Alston that in religious experience the subject may be ‘perceiving God.’
See also PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGIO.
W.Has.