Faith Without Reason (A Response to Richard Dawkins, et al)

[shunyadragon]

JRichard: I won't respond to your entire post. We are mostly talking past each other at this point and I don't have the time to complete a thorough response.

First, by relativizing beliefs to classes you do yourself no favor. First, I would say that theistic beliefs are universally sanctioned, because theistic beliefs would even include beliefs like "God does not exist", etc... In which case you end up with a class of beliefs that include contradictory results per the individual. Classes do no justice. Further, this type of universal sanction is now arbitrary. Who decides the classes? I know your response already and you will tell me that atheism is not a belief or negative beliefs don't qualify or something. Arbitrary.

Second, your response concerning evolution and natural selection is just sad. Do you even understand the Origin of Species? My point is that evolution is concerned with survival. Truth value and survival are not synonymous. Let's take the example of a frog. A frog is sitting on a lilly pad and sees a black dot (bug) flying about in front of him. He then shoots out his tongue and eats it. Let's see here, we now have a frog who is performing his duties according to natural selection that are condusive for his survival, but what about the beliefs that frog maintains concerning the fly? Does he actually consider it food? What if he thinks it something completely different from a food source? My point is that these beliefs are irrelevant to whether or not the frog shoots his tongue out of his mouth and eats the fly.

The rest of your post I don't think is response worthy.

I will qualify this post as a failure to respond to an excellent well thought out short essay, and digging your own hole deeper. IF your going to include atheists into the rather broad universal concept of Theism, therefore any version of 'Theism' can use Plantinga's generic argument that the only specific criteria is 'Properly basic beliefs' and it is possible. In your own definition it would be arbitrary to exclude any variation of Theism from applying Plantinga's model to justify any one particular belief.

[Bill the Cat]

I will qualify this post ....

No one asked you Frank

[Jichard]

This is the post of mine that you're responding to: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...722#post230722

JRichard: I won't respond to your entire post. We are mostly talking past each other at this point and I don't have the time to complete a thorough response.

First, by relativizing beliefs to classes you do yourself no favor. First, I would say that theistic beliefs are universally sanctioned, because theistic beliefs would even include beliefs like "God does not exist", etc... In which case you end up with a class of beliefs that include contradictory results per the individual.

First, that makes no sense. If you read what I or Wunder was saying in context, then you would know that "theistic beliefs" refers to beliefs one would have as apart of being a theist; that is: as apart of being someone who believes that a deity exists. Given that, "God does not exist" could not be a theistic belief.

Second, your point is irrelevant since I'm not trying to argue that "God does not exist" is a universally sanctioned belief; that is: T'm not trying to argue that "God does not exist" is a properly basic belief.

Classes do no justice.

Yes they do. As Wunder notes, it's fairly uncontroversial that beliefs can be divined into classes/kinds/types of belief:

""

Further, this type of universal sanction is now arbitrary. Who decides the classes? I know your response already and you will tell me that atheism is not a belief or negative beliefs don't qualify or something. Arbitrary.

We've had this discussion before: asking who decides that X? is not a relevant point, since whether or not X is the case does not depend on people's decisions.

"People define it, as do people define all their terms. Anyway, what you just said isn't a meaningful objection; it'd be akin to objecting to evolutionary biology by saying who defines "evolution" or objecting to Christianity by saying who defined the "Christian God". It's not a meaningful objection, since asking who defines terms does nothing to undermine the support for a claim nor show it's false. And it's quite trivially easy to answer the sorts of questions, as I explained: people define terms. Furthermore, your point likely conflates terms with to what the terms refer. Yes, humans can define terms like "normal", "evolution", etc. That doesn't change the fact that the particulars/processes/properties/etc. to which those terms refer, exist or don't exist regardless of human's definitions of their terms. To say otherwise is to commit a use/mention mistake."

Nor is it arbitrary, since one can have reasons for noting similarities and differences between beliefs, and grouping beliefs into classes based on those similarities/differences, just as one can group other particulars together (ex: organisms, building, etc.) into classes based on similarities and differences between particulars. After all, that's one of the main ways humans identify the properties of particulars. Even you do that. After all, that is what you use to identify "God" as being different from the class of "non-God" particulars.

Second, your response concerning evolution and natural selection is just sad. Do you even understand the Origin of Species?

Please don't get snarky; I've been more than respectful to you. My background is in biology and philosophy. I understand evolutionary biology quite well; same with philosophy of biology as it relates it evolution and epistemology. That's how I can recognize some of the mistakes in what you were saying.

By the way, evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology have progressed since Darwin was wrote Origin. I gave you one such recent source in that progression: the philosopher of biology Paul Griffiths. I suggest reading people like him, Michael Ruse, Richard Joyce, Kim Sterelny, etc. to help familiarize yourself with the field. Because the arguments you're making won't past muster in contemporary philosophy of biology.

Anyway, here are some further sources on this topic, if you're genuinely interested:

Stephens, Christopher L. "When Is It Selectively Advantageous to Have True Beliefs? Sandwiching the Better Safe than Sorry Argument."

Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. "Consider the Source: The Evolution of Adaptations for Decoupling and Metarepresentation."

My point is that evolution is concerned with survival.

Evolution is not literally "concerned" with anything. And as I previously told you, there are evolutionary processes other than natural selection and random mutation. That's biology 101. Furthermore, natural selection can favor a trait that harms an individual's survival. For example, this happens in the context of kin selection in eusocial insects. I'm surprised you're not aware of this, since it's pretty introductory stuff and you thought you knew enough to say to me, "your response concerning evolution and natural selection is just sad. Do you even understand the Origin of Species?".

Truth value and survival are not synonymous.

They don't need to be synonymous in order for true beliefs to be helpful in an organism's survival, anymore that "being a wing that is useful for flight" and "survival" need to be synonymous in order for wings (that are useful in flight) to be useful in an organism's survival.

Synonymy between X and Y, is not necessary for their to be a causal link between X and Y. In fact, as Hume noted, causal links preclude synonymy.

Let's take the example of a frog. A frog is sitting on a lilly pad and sees a black dot (bug) flying about in front of him. He then shoots out his tongue and eats it. Let's see here, we now have a frog who is performing his duties according to natural selection that are condusive for his survival, but what about the beliefs that frog maintains concerning the fly? Does he actually consider it food? What if he thinks it something completely different from a food source? My point is that these beliefs are irrelevant to whether or not the frog shoots his tongue out of his mouth and eats the fly.

First, your phrase "performing his duties according to natural selection" makes no sense.

Second, your analogy is irrelevant if frogs behaviors are not causally influenced by beliefs with propositional content. After all, natural selection cannot select for cognitive processes that produce true beliefs if there aren't any beliefs there to begin with, nor would your frog analogy be relevant to humans since humans do have beliefs that causally-influence our behavior. And it's not clear that frogs do have such beliefs. The frog's behavior may be regulated without beliefs. After all, different organisms regulate their behavior in different ways. So just as a frog might regulate it's behavior using a nervous system that lacks beliefs, a bacteria might regulate it's behavior without a nervous system and a human might regulate it's behavior using a nervous system that has causally-efficacious beliefs.

Third, but let's suppose that the frogs behavior are causally influenced by beliefs that the frog has. It is possible for natural selection to pick up on the causal effects of those beliefs. One reason you miss this point, is because you have only one round of selection. More precisely, in your above frog case, you have one round of selection based on the frog catching one fly. But natural selection does not proceed based on just one round of selection. Instead natural selection is iterative, insofar as their are multiple rounds of selection in different contexts. So, for instance, it just won't be a matter of the frog catching a fly on one occasion. It might be the frog catching a fly in a different environment, or the frog communicating information about the fly to its descendants / group members so that those members can help the frog catch flies, or the frog making plans to get the fly later on (even though the frog is not currently present), or... Notice that in each of these scenarios, it helps for the frog to believe that flies are a food source. This belief will causally regulate what the frog does in each scenario. Hence natural selection being to help pick up on the frog having this true belief. Also notice that in my discussion, I've made the frog more human-like (or really, more social-mammal-like) in its cognition. And that's because that's what you need to do when explaining how natural selection operates on human cognition / human beliefs. Humans are cognitively complex organisms that plan, communicate, etc., as are many other social mammals. And human beliefs causally influence how humans operate when planning, communicating, etc. Thus, these multiple instances of planning, communicating, etc. provide further rounds of selections for the causal effects of a particular beliefs, including true beliefs who's causal effects differ from those of false beliefs.

The rest of your post I don't think is response worthy.

Didn't you start your post by claiming that you didn't have enough time to respond?

"I don't have the time to complete a thorough response."

Now you're claiming that the rest of my post is not response-worthy. So which is: do you not have enough time to respond to my post, or is my post not worthy of a response from you.

In either event, I don't really mind. I think you're just coming up with rationalizations for not responding, since you can address the rest of what I wrote.

[JimL]

That it not irrational to take belief in God as properly basic. So when atheists dismiss theism as an irrational or stupid they are not on solid logical ground. Hence the theist need not be intimidated by that groundless objection, and is well with in his rational rights.

Plantingas argument itsef is irrational. He bases his notion of a properly basic belief on a supposed cognitive faculty "sensus divinitatis" which itself there is no evidence for. The only thing that Plantinga actually proves is that belief in god is properly basic, if the existence of god is true, which doesn't get him anywhere.

[psstein]

Plantingas argument itsef is irrational. He bases his notion of a properly basic belief on a supposed cognitive faculty "sensus divinitatis" which itself there is no evidence for. The only thing that Plantinga actually proves is that belief in god is properly basic, if the existence of god is true, which doesn't get him anywhere.

Yeah, I'm pretty much in the same boat. I don't really see how Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology isn't circular. I think Kai Nielson's (haven't read it in a long time, going off memory) essay in Debating Christian Theism is a pretty strong indictment.

[seer]

Plantingas argument itsef is irrational. He bases his notion of a properly basic belief on a supposed cognitive faculty "sensus divinitatis" which itself there is no evidence for. The only thing that Plantinga actually proves is that belief in god is properly basic, if the existence of god is true, which doesn't get him anywhere.

I'm not saying that I agree or disagree Plantinga, I'm only trying to explain the upshot of his argument. As a matter of fact I don't agree with the whole property basic argument, whether religious or not.

[ShrimpMaster]

...Yes they do. As Wunder notes, it's fairly uncontroversial that beliefs can be divined into classes/kinds/types of belief:

""

We've had this discussion before: asking who decides that X? is not a relevant point, since whether or not X is the case does not depend on people's decisions.

Nor is it arbitrary, since one can have reasons for noting similarities and differences between beliefs, and grouping beliefs into classes based on those similarities/differences, just as one can group other particulars together (ex: organisms, building, etc.) into classes based on similarities and differences between particulars. After all, that's one of the main ways humans identify the properties of particulars. Even you do that. After all, that is what you use to identify "God" as being different from the class of "non-God" particulars.

I have given a number of reasons to reject universal sanction in relation to pragmatic indispensability. You replied with Tyler Wunder's spin on universal sanction that groups beliefs into classes. I considered this arbitrary and you are saying that it is not because the class of the belief is not based on humans decisions. This is not a good response. Why? Because I can classify my belief in God under any number of umbrellas. I could even create a class called "beliefs in relation to the purpose of human life". This would include theistic beliefs like "God exists" and even secular beliefs like "make lots of money", "get straight A's", "impress other people", etc... Why is this important? Because it shows that the classification of beliefs is actually based on human decisions, which is arbitrary. Further, you stated that Tyler Wunder's criteria does not include pragmatic indispensability as a criteria. Then how are classes determined to be properly basic under Tyler Wunder's epistemology?

Finally, your rejection of reformed epistemology in favor of Tyler Wunder's universal sanction is useless. Why? Because Plantinga is not arguing for the truth of his model. He is saying that "if Christianity is true, then his model or something like it is true". Why is this important? Because universal sanction does nothing to object to the truth of Christianity, therefore, if Chrisitanity is true, then Plantinga's model would be true under universal sanction, because the sensus divinitatus would be a universally sanctioned belief producing process.

All in all I reject Tyler Wunder's universal sanction because it is arbitrary, and because Plantinga's model is superior. Further, it does nothing to object to the outcome of Plantinga's project, so it is useless in this discussion. Not only that, but (like I said previously) universal sanction would leave us all in utter skepticism.

By the way, evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology have progressed since Darwin was wrote Origin. I gave you one such recent source in that progression: the philosopher of biology Paul Griffiths. I suggest reading people like him, Michael Ruse, Richard Joyce, Kim Sterelny, etc. to help familiarize yourself with the field. Because the arguments you're making won't past muster in contemporary philosophy of biology.

It actually hasn't, but I digress...

Evolution is not literally "concerned" with anything. And as I previously told you, there are evolutionary processes other than natural selection and random mutation. That's biology 101. Furthermore, natural selection can favor a trait that harms an individual's survival. For example, this happens in the context of kin selection in eusocial insects. I'm surprised you're not aware of this, since it's pretty introductory stuff and you thought you knew enough to say to me, "your response concerning evolution and natural selection is just sad. Do you even understand the Origin of Species?".

They don't need to be synonymous in order for true beliefs to be helpful in an organism's survival, anymore that "being a wing that is useful for flight" and "survival" need to be synonymous in order for wings (that are useful in flight) to be useful in an organism's survival.

Synonymy between X and Y, is not necessary for their to be a causal link between X and Y. In fact, as Hume noted, causal links preclude synonymy.

You miss the point. I am not arguing that evolution cannot produce true beliefs. By chance it can, but there is no way to know what beliefs are true and what are not. Since evolution is not a belief producing process successfully aimed at the production of true beliefs, then we have a defeater for all beliefs that we hold including naturalism. I am sure you understand Plantinga's argument. You said it yourself at the beginning... "Evolution is not literally "concerned" with anything" - time for you to eat your words.

Second, your analogy is irrelevant if frogs behaviors are not causally influenced by beliefs with propositional content. After all, natural selection cannot select for cognitive processes that produce true beliefs if there aren't any beliefs there to begin with, nor would your frog analogy be relevant to humans since humans do have beliefs that causally-influence our behavior. And it's not clear that frogs do have such beliefs. The frog's behavior may be regulated without beliefs. After all, different organisms regulate their behavior in different ways. So just as a frog might regulate it's behavior using a nervous system that lacks beliefs, a bacteria might regulate it's behavior without a nervous system and a human might regulate it's behavior using a nervous system that has causally-efficacious beliefs.

I am not really interested in arguing about whether a frog's behaviors are regulated by beliefs or not.

Third, but let's suppose that the frogs behavior are causally influenced by beliefs that the frog has. It is possible for natural selection to pick up on the causal effects of those beliefs. One reason you miss this point, is because you have only one round of selection. More precisely, in your above frog case, you have one round of selection based on the frog catching one fly. But natural selection does not proceed based on just one round of selection. Instead natural selection is iterative, insofar as their are multiple rounds of selection in different contexts. So, for instance, it just won't be a matter of the frog catching a fly on one occasion. It might be the frog catching a fly in a different environment, or the frog communicating information about the fly to its descendants / group members so that those members can help the frog catch flies, or the frog making plans to get the fly later on (even though the frog is not currently present), or... Notice that in each of these scenarios, it helps for the frog to believe that flies are a food source. This belief will causally regulate what the frog does in each scenario. Hence natural selection being to help pick up on the frog having this true belief. Also notice that in my discussion, I've made the frog more human-like (or really, more social-mammal-like) in its cognition. And that's because that's what you need to do when explaining how natural selection operates on human cognition / human beliefs. Humans are cognitively complex organisms that plan, communicate, etc., as are many other social mammals. And human beliefs causally influence how humans operate when planning, communicating, etc. Thus, these multiple instances of planning, communicating, etc. provide further rounds of selections for the causal effects of a particular beliefs, including true beliefs who's causal effects differ from those of false beliefs.

Certainly, it would help if the frogs believe that the flies are a food source - this does not mean that they do. Like I stated previously, evolution can produce true beliefs, but why would they be necessarily true? I am certain you would be a lunatic to argue that evolution can produce necessarily true beliefs. This is all the theist needs to show in order to have a defeater for the acceptance of naturalism. Further, this is just one frog who holds the wrong belief. What if you are that frog? Well you might die because you don't have the right belief, but what if it was a less important belief? Would evolution select for that? I don't see any reason it would. Further, there are any number of beliefs I could imagine that the frog could replace his belief that "the fly is a food source" with that would enable him to continue to search for and catch the fly. This means that the frog doesn't need to have a true belief for it to be selected in future generations and to enable the survival of the frog...

Didn't you start your post by claiming that you didn't have enough time to respond? Now you're claiming that the rest of my post is not response-worthy. So which is: do you not have enough time to respond to my post, or is my post not worthy of a response from you.

Yes, I was saying that based on the time I have the rest is not worthy of a response. It was not meant as an insult.

[ShrimpMaster]

Plantingas argument itsef is irrational. He bases his notion of a properly basic belief on a supposed cognitive faculty "sensus divinitatis" which itself there is no evidence for. The only thing that Plantinga actually proves is that belief in god is properly basic, if the existence of god is true, which doesn't get him anywhere.

JimL, Plantinga addresses this in his book. It isn't circular, because Plantinga is not supposing his model is true. His argument is that "if Christianity is true, then his model or something like it is true". There is a lot more to it than this, but if you want to research further I would suggest reading the book. Thanks

[shunyadragon]

Finally, your rejection of reformed epistemology in favor of Tyler Wunder's universal sanction is useless. Why? Because Plantinga is not arguing for the truth of his model. He is saying that "if Christianity is true, then his model or something like it is true". Why is this important? Because universal sanction does nothing to object to the truth of Christianity, therefore, if Chrisitanity is true, then Plantinga's model would be true under universal sanction, because the sensus divinitatus would be a universally sanctioned belief producing process.

It is acknowledged that Plantinga's argument is not a proof, nor arguing for the truth of his model. My argument is that in the highlighted above is where any "X" belief or non-belief may be substituted to justify that IF "X" is true, than "X" would be true under universal sanction.

You may place this is a criteria for your argument, but I do not see any place in Plantinga's argument that 'sensus divinitatus is essential to the argument that a belief is properly basic, and possibly true. I consider any claim of the experience 'sensus divinitatus' to be too anecdotal and not even experienced by all Christians to justify it as universally sanctioned.

All in all I reject Tyler Wunder's universal sanction because it is arbitrary, and because Plantinga's model is superior. Further, it does nothing to object to the outcome of Plantinga's project, so it is useless in this discussion. Not only that, but (like I said previously) universal sanction would leave us all in utter skepticism.

Utter skepticism is not a bad choice over Plantinga's argument.

[ShrimpMaster]

Plantingas argument itsef is irrational. He bases his notion of a properly basic belief on a supposed cognitive faculty "sensus divinitatis" which itself there is no evidence for. The only thing that Plantinga actually proves is that belief in god is properly basic, if the existence of god is true, which doesn't get him anywhere.

I didn't respond to the latter of your post. You're objection is that Plantinga's project doesn't do a whole lot. Remember that Plantinga is attempting to create an intellectually defensible account of Christianity. He isn't trying to prove the existence of God or even his model. All he is doing is creating a model that is possibly true given Christianity is true. This is enough to sustain his project.

[ShrimpMaster]

It is acknowledged that Plantinga's argument is not a proof, nor arguing for the truth of his model. My argument is that in the highlighted above is where any "X" belief or non-belief may be substituted to justify that IF "X" is true, than "X" would be true under universal sanction.

Well, that would be a good argument against universal sanction if anything, but that is not necessarily true. A belief being true is not all that is required for it to be warranted. Plantinga gives the example of a person (say Mike) who believes a really bad baseball team is going to win the World Series. Imagine the season starts and they trade away all of their good players and Mike is still convinced that they are going to win the world series. It turns out the baseball team actually does end up winning the world series despite the poor circumstances. Plantinga's question is that does Mike's belief constitute warrant? No, says Plantinga. In Mike's case it would have been more like a really lucky guess. Plantinga's project is really about what distinguishes a belief from knowledge. Plantinga calls this "warrant", so there is a large criteria around what makes a belief warranted.

Let's consider naturalism for a second. JRichard and I have been talking about evolution with respect to naturalism. Is the belief in naturalism warranted, if true? Like Christianity? Plantinga says it is not. Why is that? Because the model for naturalism includes a belief producing process (evolution) that is not aimed at the production of true beliefs. Like I said before, evolution may produce true beliefs, but it does not mean that evolution necessarily produces true beliefs. Therefore, even if naturalism is true it is not warranted, because we now have a defeater for all of our beliefs including naturalism.

You may place this is a criteria for your argument, but I do not see any place in Plantinga's argument that 'sensus divinitatus is essential to the argument that a belief is properly basic, and possibly true. I consider any claim of the experience 'sensus divinitatus' to be too anecdotal and not even experienced by all Christians to justify it as universally sanctioned.

The sensus divinitatus is essential to Plantinga's model in that it describes how the belief in God can be properly basic. Realize that you hold a lot of beliefs in the same manner Plantinga describes the sensus divinitatus. Memory beliefs, beliefs in the reality of the past, the belief that your friend has a mind and is not a robot, apriori beliefs, etc...

Utter skepticism is not a bad choice over Plantinga's argument.

It is a good book if you have the time and mind for it.

[seer]

It is a good book if you have the time and mind for it.

And if you have the time SM, you may want to jump in on this discussion about the Euthyphro dilemma and objective moral values. "The Thinker" is quoting Mr. Koons - claiming that God's goodness would be unintelligible.


http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...C-Alter/page90

[shunyadragon]

Well, that would be a good argument against universal sanction if anything, but that is not necessarily true. A belief being true is not all that is required for it to be warranted. Plantinga gives the example of a person (say Mike) who believes a really bad baseball team is going to win the World Series. Imagine the season starts and they trade away all of their good players and Mike is still convinced that they are going to win the world series. It turns out the baseball team actually does end up winning the world series despite the poor circumstances. Plantinga's question is that does Mike's belief constitute warrant? No, says Plantinga. In Mike's case it would have been more like a really lucky guess. Plantinga's project is really about what distinguishes a belief from knowledge. Plantinga calls this "warrant", so there is a large criteria around what makes a belief warranted.

Your adding another Plantinga argument to the model, which Plantinga argues against Naturalism. This would be going beyond the intent of the model. I was criticized by other Twebers for bringing up the problems with the other arguments by Plantinga, because they considered them not relevant to this model. Also, Plantinga's argument against Naturalism using evolution has been widely criticized, because of his misuse of the science of evolution to justify an unsound argument. Plantinga argues for the necessity of Design in his belief in evolution for it to result in 'true beliefs', which is not a falsifiable in science and has failed in all attempts by the Discovery Institutes efforts to establish a scientific basis for it. every argument

Plantinga asserting that this belief does not constitute warrant amounts to an unfounded assertion, and falls like a House of Cards..

Let's consider naturalism for a second. JRichard and I have been talking about evolution with respect to naturalism. Is the belief in naturalism warranted, if true? Like Christianity? Plantinga says it is not. Why is that? Because the model for naturalism includes a belief producing process (evolution) that is not aimed at the production of true beliefs. Like I said before, evolution may produce true beliefs, but it does not mean that evolution necessarily produces true beliefs. Therefore, even if naturalism is true it is not warranted, because we now have a defeater for all of our beliefs including naturalism.

The fact that evolution does not necessarily produce true beliefs is a problem for Plantinga, because of the failure of 'Design arguments,' not Naturalists, unless Plantinga is prepared to reject the science of evolution. Plantinga considers certain beliefs warranted and others not based on arbitrary assumptions concerning the misuse of the science of evolution, and the necessity of assuming 'Design,' therefore a circular argument, because one must assume design and the necessity of a designer (God) for his argument to be valid.

The sensus divinitatus is essential to Plantinga's model in that it describes how the belief in God can be properly basic. Realize that you hold a lot of beliefs in the same manner Plantinga describes the sensus divinitatus. Memory beliefs, beliefs in the reality of the past, the belief that your friend has a mind and is not a robot, apriori beliefs, etc...

Problem Plantinga does not use sensus divinitatus as an assumption in his argument.

It is a good book if you have the time and mind for it.

[JimL]

I didn't respond to the latter of your post. You're objection is that Plantinga's project doesn't do a whole lot. Remember that Plantinga is attempting to create an intellectually defensible account of Christianity. He isn't trying to prove the existence of God or even his model. All he is doing is creating a model that is possibly true given Christianity is true. This is enough to sustain his project.

Well, Plantinga could do the same for the flying spaghetti monster as well. Whats the point, that belief in the flying spaghetti monster is properly basic, if the flying spaghetti monster is true?

[Jichard]

I have given a number of reasons to reject universal sanction in relation to pragmatic indispensability. You replied with Tyler Wunder's spin on universal sanction that groups beliefs into classes.

That's just not "Tyler Wunder's spin". That's what universal sanction was discussed as from the beginning, back when Sennett introduced it.

I considered this arbitrary and you are saying that it is not because the class of the belief is not based on humans decisions. This is not a good response. Why? Because I can classify my belief in God under any number of umbrellas. I could even create a class called "beliefs in relation to the purpose of human life". This would include theistic beliefs like "God exists" and even secular beliefs like "make lots of money", "get straight A's", "impress other people", etc... Why is this important? Because it shows that the classification of beliefs is actually based on human decisions, which is arbitrary.

Same mistake: you're conflating that fact that humans can make classifications/terms with humans determine the things to which those classifications/terms. Your mistake is as bad as saying that since humans define the term "cat", the existence of cats is arbitrary. This is ridiculous, since whether humans define how a certain term is used, has no bearing on whether the referents of the term exist. To say otherwise is to commit a use-mention mistake, where you're confusing people's defining a term (thus the mention of the term) with the people defining the referents of the term (thus using the term). Anyway, the similarities/differences between various beliefs are real, regardless of whether or not human beings develop classifications/terms to pick up on those similarities/differences. Their existence is not arbitrary, anymore than the existence of cats is arbitrary.

Now, given the existence of these differences between beliefs (differences we refer to using different classification systems/terms), Wunder's point follows. You seem to think you can undermine this point by pointing out that you can make other classification systems/terms. But how is that relevant? All that shows is that you can make new terms/classifications to refer to different stuff. That has no bearing on the existence of the properties pointed out by Wunder's classification, nor does it undermine the claims regarding universal sanction.

Further, you stated that Tyler Wunder's criteria does not include pragmatic indispensability as a criteria. Then how are classes determined to be properly basic under Tyler Wunder's epistemology?

Where did I claim that? I claimed that a particular belief is not the target of pragmatic indispensability, but instead it's skepticism about the class of beliefs that is the target of universal sanction.

Finally, your rejection of reformed epistemology in favor of Tyler Wunder's universal sanction is useless. Why? Because Plantinga is not arguing for the truth of his model.

You're still missing the point: Plantinga's defense depends on their being no plausible criterion of proper basicality, such that that criterion excludes theistic belief. He needs that in order to get his conclusion that theistic belief can be properly basic.

He is saying that "if Christianity is true, then his model or something like it is true".

And I've repeatedly explained the problem with that. Once again:

First, Plantinga's defense is trivial, and can be employed in defense of almost any position. All one has to do is include an epistemic claim as apart of one's position. For example, an atheist could employ Plantinga's defense by doing the following:

1) define your atheist as including epistemic statements like the following: I came to my atheist position in a rational way, such that I can justifiably lack belief that God exists
2) then note that if anyone makes a de jure objection to your position, then they are also making a de facto objection as well, since they would be denying your epistemic statement

One could even do the same for belief in the Great Pumpkin's existence; just include epistemic claims like the following: I came to my belief in the Great Pumpkin in a rational way, such that I can justifiably belief in the Great Pumpkin. Then note that if anyone makes a de jure objection to your position, then they are also making a de facto objection as well.

Second, Plantinga's defense doesn't actually convert de jure objections to de facto objections, since it involves and ad hoc re-definition and strawman of what Christianity is committed to. After all, Christianity is not necessarily committed to anything like the extended A/C. So someone can have a de jure objection (without a de facoto objection) to what Christianity is actually committed to, even if they have a de facto objection to the strawman of Christianity that Plantinga erects.
To put this another way:

Call minimal Christianity or M-Christianity, the form or Christianity that includes the jointly necessary and sufficient conditions for being Christian. I'm denying that M-Christianity includes something like the extended A/C model.
Now, of course, a Christian could accept something like the extended A/C model and include this model in their form of Christianity. Call this form of Christianity (which includes something like the extended A/C model) AC-Christianity. I'm denying that AC-Christianity is entailed by M-Christianity.
I'm also saying that even if de jure objections to AC-Christianity commit one to de facto objections to AC-Christianity, that fails to rebut the fact that de jure objections to M-Christianity do not commit one to de facto objections to M-Christianity.

Why is this important? Because universal sanction does nothing to object to the truth of Christianity, therefore, if Chrisitanity is true, then Plantinga's model would be true under universal sanction, because the sensus divinitatus would be a universally sanctioned belief producing process.

It's incorrect to claim that " the sensus divinitatus would be a universally sanctioned belief producing process". That is because even if something like the A/C model were true, that does not mean that the class of beliefs produced by the sensus diviniatus would be pragmatically indispensable. In fact, we already know such theistic beliefs are not pragmatically indispensable since atheists get on just fine without that class of beliefs.

All in all I reject Tyler Wunder's universal sanction because it is arbitrary,

It isn't. You haven't shown that it is. All you've done is make the trivial point that people come up with definitions for terms. That doesn't show arbitrariness with respect to the referents of those terms, anymore than I can shown that all of theology is arbitrary just because some people define the term "God" differently.

and because Plantinga's model is superior.

Plantinga's account is worse for reasons I've already gone over before. Once again:

"Universal sanction is superior to Plantinga's position, since it doesn't fall prey to the epistemic relativism that plagues Plantinga's position, especially in the form of the Great Pumpkin objection."

Further, it does nothing to object to the outcome of Plantinga's project, so it is useless in this discussion.

Addressed above.

Not only that, but (like I said previously) universal sanction would leave us all in utter skepticism.

You never showed that.

It actually hasn't, but I digress...

Are you seriously denying that evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology have progressed since Darwin wrote Origin?

I hope you're not saying that, since that would be a mind-numbingly stupid statement to make. So I really don't think you'd make a statement like that.

You miss the point. I am not arguing that evolution cannot produce true beliefs. By chance it can,

Natural selection is not chance.

but there is no way to know what beliefs are true and what are not.

Humans figure out which beliefs are true or false, fairly regularly. Evolution does not entail global skepticism.

Since evolution is not a belief producing process successfully aimed at the production of true beliefs, then we have a defeater for all beliefs that we hold including naturalism.

You've yet to show that.

I am sure you understand Plantinga's argument.

I do. I also explained why it fails.

You said it yourself at the beginning... "Evolution is not literally "concerned" with anything" - time for you to eat your words.

I don't have to eat any words. My statement was correct: ""Evolution is not literally "concerned" with anything" since evolution is not a mind. That was what I was pointing out. Evolution no more has concerns than gravity has concerns. However, that doesn't change the fact that evolution (in the form of natural selection) can select for true beliefs due to the causal effects of those beliefs. Evolution does not have to be "concerned" about anything in order to do that, anymore than gravity has to be concerned about a falling plane in order for gravity to cause planes to fall.

I am not really interested in arguing about whether a frog's behaviors are regulated by beliefs or not.

Then why did you bring up the example of a frog's behavior when discussing evolution selecting for beliefs? How does it make sense for you to do that, if the frog's behaviors are not causally regulated by beliefs?

Certainly, it would help if the frogs believe that the flies are a food source - this does not mean that they do. Like I stated previously, evolution can produce true beliefs, but why would they be necessarily true?

They don't need to be necessarily true. That is a strawman you're running, if you think that's Plantinga's argument. Plantinga is not claiming that the following is a necessary truth:

1: if a belief is selected for, then the belief is true

Instead, it suffices for the belief to be more likely to be true, the more rounds of selection that the belief makes it through.

Please read Plantinga's presentation of his argument and some of the literature that sprung in response the argument. No one peer-reviewed commentator I've seen (including Plantinga) says that his argument involves claim 1 being a necessary truth. No one. Instead Plantinga's argument is read in at least one of two ways: that evolutionary processes are unreliable when when it comes to producing true beliefs (this is often called the process interpretation of Plantinga's argument) or that evolutionary processes are no more likely to produce true beliefs than beliefs (this is often called the probabilistic interpretation). These two interpretations are equivalent to one another, if "reliable process" just means "a process that produces more true beliefs than false ones"). In any event, neither interpretation involves claim 1 being a necessary truth.

I am certain you would be a lunatic to argue that evolution can produce necessarily true beliefs.

You're playing loose with language here. Do you mean that evolutionary processes cannot result in organisms with necessarily true beliefs? If so, then you're wrong. For example, evolutionary processes can result in organisms that belief that "1 + 1 = 2". Or maybe you instead mean that I would be lunatic to claim 1 above is necessarily true? If so, your claim suffers from the problem I noted above; namely: you're strawmanning Plantinga's argument and claim 1 does not need to be necessarily true in order for an evolutionary naturalist to defend their position.

This is all the theist needs to show in order to have a defeater for the acceptance of naturalism.

False. Your claim makes no sense. Do you really think that all theists need to do is show that it's possible for an evolutionary naturalist to be wrong? Do you think that suffices for a defeater? If so, then I have a defeator for theism right here... it's possible that theism is false.

Yes, it's possible for natural select to select for a false belief, just like it's possible that a deity is deceiving theists into having a whole bunch of false beliefs. The mere possibility of that is not a defeater for theism nor evolutionary naturalism, anymore than the fact that it's possible that the universe began 5 minutes ago serves as a defeator for Big Bang cosmology. Showing that "X is possible" is only a defeator for positions that claim that "X is necessary". And evolutionary naturalism has never been committed to the claim that 1 is a necessary truth. To say otherwise is to strawman evolutionary naturalism.

Further, this is just one frog who holds the wrong belief. What if you are that frog? Well you might die because you don't have the right belief, but what if it was a less important belief? Would evolution select for that? I don't see any reason it would.

Evolution is more likely to pick up on the belief, the more rounds of selection that belief goes through. Furthermore, evolution can select for reliable cognition that results in more than true beliefs than false beliefs, even if evolution didn't select for a particular belief that results from such cognition. Thus a particular "less important belief" (as you call it) might be more likely to be true in virtue of being produced by a reliable cognitive system that was selected for by evolution, even if that particular "less important belief" was not itself selected for.

Further, there are any number of beliefs I could imagine that the frog could replace his belief that "the fly is a food source" with that would enable him to continue to search for and catch the fly. This means that the frog doesn't need to have a true belief for it to be selected in future generations and to enable the survival of the frog...

And in different circumstances, those beliefs would have causal effects that differed from those of the true beliefs. Those different causal effects would give natural selection further chances to select the true belief over those other beliefs.

Anyway, of course it's the case that it's logically possible to have another belief. But again, that's irelevant here since the standard is not necessity. Instead, it's likelihood.

It also might be in your interest to read the following paper I previously linked you to (you seemed to have ignored it in your response to my post):

Stephens, Christopher L. "When Is It Selectively Advantageous to Have True Beliefs? Sandwiching the Better Safe than Sorry Argument."

Yes, I was saying that based on the time I have the rest is not worthy of a response. It was not meant as an insult.

Whatever.