The following emerged out of a series of comments I exchanged with professor of historical theology Randal Rauser, on his blog:

Randal: Even as I say all this, I don’t think, as you apparently do, that a religious privileging has to be justified. I take each religion as properly basic absent defeaters.

James: I am not completely following you here.

Randal: When I say that religious beliefs are prima facie properly basic, I meant that they do not need any evidence to be justified: i.e. a person does not need arguments or evidence to hold those beliefs.

All that would change if a sufficient defeater of the truth of the belief should arise.

There you have it, folks.

He doesn’t think that his religious beliefs require any justification, evidence, or arguments to believe as true unless somebody can come along and present an argument against that belief.

This might be a good lesson (we shall see) to not engage in debate with theologians. Clearly they do not like to be bothered with defending the beliefs they already (ahem) know to be true.

James: What about your religious beliefs (or religious beliefs in general) makes them “properly basic” such that, in your own words, they “do not need any evidence to be justified?” If it is not because they are sufficiently obvious to most people most of the time (which is clearly not true), then what is it?

Will I get a straight answer or will I be sent spinning around in circles some more? Stay tuned…