Self-refuting Pluralism

In Timothy Keller's new book The Reason for God, he evaluates the objection to Christianity:  "Religious belief is too culturally and historically conditioned to be 'truth.'"  He explains that the objection itself is self-refuting, since that view of religion would also be culturally and historically conditioned to be "truth." 

He quotes a clever rebuttal from Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga:

Suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would have been quite different.  [But] the same goes for the pluralist....If the pluralist had been born in [Morocco] he probably wouldn't be a pluralist.  Does it follow that...his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process?

The objection turns out to be a dismissal instead of a conclusion following careful consideration.  It's a way to end the conversation, rather than engage it.  It can't survive it's own terms.  It's surprising how often this happens. 

Keller concludes: 

The reality is that we all make truth-claims of some sort and it is very hard to weigh them responsibly, but we have no alternative but to try to do so.

Comments

[Jeffrey J. Stables]

Melinda, I'm a little confused by your third paragraph. Are you saying that the pluralists's objection to Christian theism is a dismissal, or that Plantinga's objection to pluralism is a dismissal?

[Aaron Snell]

Jeffrey,

Melinda doesn't come around these parts (the comments) much, so I'll take a stab. The objection she called a "dismissal" was the one she noted in the first paragraph - "Religious belief is too culturally and historically conditioned to be 'truth.'" In this conext, Plantinga wasn't giving an objection to pluralism but rather a rebuttal to to the original objection. Hope that helps!

[Jeffrey J. Stables]

Thanks, Aaron, that makes sense.