A thread re: "properly basic beliefs." The idea is that there are beliefs that we form w/out making some explicit inference, and that under certain conditions (when our belief-forming processes are functioning properly) this is perfectly fine & you're warranted in holding them.

This *doesn't* mean these beliefs are unquestionable. Reliable belief forming processes can be wrong! When something happens to call a properly basic belief into question, we investigate & reason about it, sometimes realize it was incorrect.

Even when there's no challenge to the belief, there are plenty of other reasons why you might think more about it, seek explicit reasons, etc. Curiosity, for one thing. Or you might want to if it's an especially important belief and a lot hangs on it.

What "properly basic" *doesn't* do is give you license to just wave away objections with an appeal to intuition. In fact, "intuition" is not really what's at stake one way or the other, but that aside,

you can't just appeal to the fact that you think a belief is properly basic to defend your position from challenges. Once you've got a challenge, you have good reason to try to offer positive reasons, not just defend from objections.

That said, Plantinga is saying you're not obligated to have proof (in the form of explicitly articulated reasoned inferences) just to *hold* a belief. Something might seem to you to be true even if you can't articulate why, or at least can't give a knock down proof.

Ok so what about Christian belief in particular? Is PBB just a way of dogmatically asserting that it's true? Well, no, not as Plantinga develops it. He's actually quite modest. He argues *not* that Xianity is true, but that *if* it's true, then it's also likely properly basic.

The reason is, if Xianity is true, that it seems like God has given (or restores or gives to the regenerate) a faculty or habit (say, faith) whereby we can reliably from true beliefs (e.g., trusting the truths of the Gospel) under certain conditions (say, being preached to).

But why argue this seemingly modest point? Well, Plantinga's target is folks who say something like, "Christianity may or may not be true for all I know, but I *do* know you're irrational to believe it's true; there's no way you have sufficient evidence to believe it."

Plantinga's argument, if it works, forces such a person to admit that they can't hold Christianity is unjustified (i.e. unreasonable to believe) without also committing to the view that it's in fact false. So to argue it's unjustified, one would need to argue that it's false.

Now does this amount to just presupposing Christianity is true, or dogmatically asserting it? Does it remove the motivation for presenting arguments for the reasonableness of Christianity? As far as I can see, definitely not!

There is no dogmatic assertion that Christianity is true here. No excusing the believer from engaging objections in good faith. No removing the motive of faith to seek understanding, which includes (cf Anselm) seeking positive reasons for what faith already believes.

But does it nonetheless set the bar of epistemic responsibility too low? Well, only if you're willing to say we should only believe Christianity if we can give full propositional arguments for it, I think. But I confess, I'm with Plantinga on this one.

While I think it's part of maturity to seek reasons for what we believe as we're able given time/ability/resources/etc., I don't think every person has the obligation to do this to any particular standard of proof. Obligations in that regard are relative to context & person.