Rationality of Religious Belief: Externalist Perspective

Over history, defending from rationality of religious belief has had different types, regarding to the kind of ruling philosophical and epistemic approach over human thought. Externalism expression in contemporary epistemology has caused some religious thinkers having externalist view to religious believes in a new way and prove its rationality through externalist perspective. In this externalist perspective, argument's role in justification of religious belief is weakened and argument-oriented ruling over natural theology and Locke and Descarte's evidentialism are refused. In this view, religious belief could be rational and justified without any argument. In other word, religious belief is included in basic believes. Both Alston's empiricism and Plantinga's claim that religious belief is properly basic stems from their externalist view on knowledge problem. Generally speaking, emergence of the school of reformed epistemology in religious thought is concurrent with emergence or revival of externalism in contemporary epistemology and profoundly owes that.