How to crack a nut: arguments against rationality in religion

In my last epistemology post, "What does it mean to say religious beliefs are properly basic?", I proposed that religions beliefs could be properly basic in a way parallel to sense perception beliefs. (Not all religious beliefs would be of this kind mind you, but at least some could be.)

This issue is a pivotal one since it is widely assumed by critics of religious belief that those people who believe in God apart from arguments are somehow epistemically substandard, irrational, unjustified, believing out of turn. And once you believe that somebody is irrational to begin with, you are unlikely to hear much else that they have to say.

My example in the last post of a religious person with a properly basic belief about God concerned "Albert" (and here I'll lazily quote myself):

As Albert prays, he senses strongly that God loves him and thus comes to believe "God loves me" with the same immediacy that he comes to believe "It is sunny." My argument is that absent defeaters, the latter can be as basically justified as the former. In other words, some religious beliefs can be justified in the same way that some sense perception beliefs are justified.

So did I expect the atheists to jump on board with my proposal? Sadly no, and they responded as expected. Gaga, the first out of the gate with a response, offered comments that argued for a disanalogy between sense perception and divine perception:

Seeing an apple on the table is a perceptory experience but it's not, in a sense, a personal experience.
I can call a buddy of mine and ask for confirmation that there is, indeed, an apple on the table.
You can claim that both me and my buddy and everyone else that I can cram into the room all have a faulty perception, but the description of the experience that everyone gives is highly consistent with the proposition that there is a thing that we all agree to call 'table' and on it an 'apple' rests.

This objection assumes a criterion of proper basicality here without explicitly stating it. This is the frustrating thing about many objections to the proper basicality of religion belief. They opt to assume rather than articulate the assumption (which thereby makes it vulnerable to conceptual analysis and defeat). But I cannot let that stop us. In order to assess whether there is a noteworthy objection here, we really need to decide what the assumed criterion of proper basicality is.

With that, I'll have to go out on an interpretive limb. It seems to me that Gaga identifies the difference between sense perception and divine perception as being falsification: you can appeal to the perception of others, or do further investigations, which could conceivably show a sense perception belief to be false. But if Albert concludes "God loves me", well that's all there is to it. Case closed. And if this is not such that it can be falsified, then it is not such that it can be properly basic.

Based on that analysis, let me suggest that Gaga's proposed principle of proper basicality is this: "No belief can be properly basic unless it is in principle falsifiable."

We can ask two questions here. First, is it really true that Albert's belief is not falsifiable? Second, is it true that Gaga's criterion of proper basicality is a good one?

Let's consider the first question. Gaga throws up his hands at the outset, convinced that any given belief Albert would come to hold about God is not falsifiable. But why think that this is true? There are, for instance, a range of undercutting defeaters to Albert's belief that God loves him. One could argue, for instance, that Albert believes God loves him because he was raised a Christian; this might not show the belief to be false, but it could undermine Albert's reason to think it true. (Thus, it would provide an undercutting defeater for Albert's belief.) Or one could provide a defeater to the existence of God altogether, for instance by appealing to the logical problem of evil. If it could be shown conclusively that God cannot exist, then this would provide a rebutting defeater for Albert's belief that God loves him.

In other words, Albert's belief could conceivably be falsified in a variety of ways, and thus it is falsifiable no less than the beliefs of sense perception.

But what about the more basic question: is this a viable definition of proper basicality? Note that Gaga simply states this criterion; he does not argue for it. As a result, one is left either agreeing with him or not. In response, I would begin by asking whether Gaga believes his own criterion of proper basicality can be falsified. If not, then it cannot be properly basic, which means that Gaga presumably has some reasons for holding it. If so I'd like to know what those reasons are.

Perhaps I can make this easier. I believe that his principle is falsifiable, not because I believe it is properly basic, but rather because I believe it is false. Here's one reason why: I believe that "I exist" is properly basic for me. But since I know I exist, I also do not believe it could be falsified. (Put it this way: I cannot conceive of any evidence that would convince me I don't exist.)

Lest you think this objection works only for me, be assured that it applies to you as well: The statement "I exist" is as unfalsifiable for you as it is for me. There is no evidence I could give you to show that you don't exist.

So this first objection to the properly basic nature of Albert's belief about God fails. In the next post I'll consider another.