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Natural Born Believers

11/21/2011

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Plantinga has argued that belief in God could be so warranted that even in the face of the problem of evil, a Christian theist could rationally maintain belief in God apart from arguments and evidence in a properly basic manner.  Well, it turns out that evidence is accumulating that our faculties of reason are strongly disposed (if not hardwired) to form belief in God from the first moment that we are capable of entering into a relationship with God.   There is mounting empirical evidence that children are natural born believers.  If this is true, then it seems to me that the problem of evil would be defeated via an overwhelming defeater, although a more nuanced reply would be required to spell out more carefully why this is so, but in short, the warrant for God's existence may outweigh any evidential support against the existence of God that evil may supply if we have no reason to think that our belief forming mechanism isn't truth aimed in a coarse grained manner. 

Justin Barrett: Why Would Anyone Believe in God?  / Natural Born Believers

Michael Brooks See “Natural Born Believers” in New Scientist magazine or on their website.

Pascal Boyer & Deborah Kelemen “Are Children Intuitive Theists”

Paul Bloom

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