The redoubtable Calvinist philosopher Alvin Plantinga has a review in the Times Literary Supplement (July 21) of a book by the British philosopher Anthony Flew. Flew thinks believers in God have the burden of proof. But why so? asks Plantinga.
The thought seems to be that atheism is the baseline or default position: anybody who departs from it labours under a burden of proof.
But a chief lesson of the history of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hume is that good arguments for our fundamental beliefs are hard to come by. For example, there don’t seem to be any good arguments for the existence of other minds; nonetheless, nearly all sane people believe in other minds, and do so with complete propriety. (Of course, there is the occasional solipsist: I once met one whose younger colleagues told me, "We take very good care of Dr So-and-so: when he goes, we all go".)
Funny.