Critical Survey of Bernard Blanshard’s Religious Epistemology

Abstract

Brand Blanshard is one of the contemporary famous philosophers, especially because of his Ideas on religious epistemology. He defends rationalism and evidentialism in religious epistemology and therefore criticizes fideism. He holds that rationality is the main character of all kinds of beliefs, including religious belief. But, in his Idealism, Blansahrd finds a place for the source of being and universe, which stands in sharp contradiction with traditional concept of God. In this paper we show that some times, his evidentialism is very radical and in compatible with contemporary steams. Some of his claims are not acceptable, such as this assertion that today scientific approach is absolutely dominate and religious approach is absolutely condemn.

Keywords

• evidentialism
• absolute idealism
• religious belief
• brand blanshard