Plantinga’s Epistemic Externalism Approach for the Problem of Divine Hiddenness in

Theism: Knowledge about God as an Warranted Knowledge

Samuel Vincenzo Jonathan
Philosophy Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
smlvncnz@gmail.com

Herdito Sandi Pratama

Philosophy Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia
herditosandi@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
The problem of divine hiddenness is an interesting problem discussed in the existence of
God and philosophy of religious discourse. This happens due to the two dimensions that the
problem covers, which are (1) the epistemic dimension in the knowledge about God, where there
is a claim that it is possible for human, as the knower, to know about God and (2) ontological
dimension from the God Himself—in Peter van Inwagen’s term, moral dimension (Inwagen, 2009:
29)—that claimed by the philosophers and theologians, which says that God is loving. The divine
hiddenness of God as Deus absconditus is an evidence of the non-existence of God. It is not only
a philosophical problem that is discussed by the philosophers and theologians, but it also comes
from human’s “common sense”. The question that arises is; if God really exists, He should show
Himself more clearly and not hide in such a way.
The argumentation about divine hiddenness was first introduced by J. L. Schellenberg in
his writing, The Wisdom to Doubt. Begins from one of God’s attributes, which is His loving entity,
Schellenberg says that there are three implications that can be taken from His attribute, which are
(1) human, as His creation, should express love that they have not only to His creatures, but also
to God Himself in relational-personal love, which is the best thing that human could do; (2)
relational-personal love with God, which is probably the best thing that human could have; (3) the
creativity that God held in creating limited personal creation should be expressed in the pursuit of
value that can be realized in, through, and by them—which means, through His creation, human
can experience God directly.
Through these three points, it can be understood that human should be able to obtain a
meaningful relationship with God positively and perfectly. Not only that, God Himself should
ensure the possibility of such a relationship. If it is stated in a proposition, then:
(1) Undoubtedly, if God is present, every knower who (i) does not reject God and (ii)
consciously has a relationship with God is also in (iii) in a state to participate in such a
relationship (Schellenberg, 2004: 204).
That proposition is the conclusion of the attribute that God has as the loving God. Meanwhile, the
second proposition is taken from the human’s perspective as the knower, which is:
(2) Undoubtedly, a knower is in the state to share in a meaningful, conscious relationship
with God if he believes that God exists (Schellenberg, 2004: 204).
The conclusion taken from both propositions is:
 (3) Inevitably, if God exists, every knower who (i) does not reject God and (ii) is able to
have a meaningful, conscious relationship with God is also (iii) believes that God exists
(Schellenberg, 2004: 204).
In other words, God’s existence, supposedly, is evident for every human being; and on the
contrary, there is no human being that is not able to not see the evidence for God’s existence—
exactly as the first scenario.
The problem is that the opposite of what is stated in the proposition, there is a group of
people, even many groups, that is not able to see the evidence of God’s existence. For
Schellenberg, there are many disbelief in God, where the form is beyond the knower’s will or
inculpable (Schellenberg, 2005: 205). These people with the disbelief beyond their will (inculpable
non-belief) are the non-resistant non-believer (NN). NN is the people who have doubts against the
existence of an idea of God, a hidden personal entity. One of the intellectual reason from NN is
that there is not enough evidence of God’s existence. For them, if God truly loves the mankind and
wants to have a relationship with them, supposedly, the evidence that God gives should be clearer.
Therefore, the absence of the evidence is the main problem for NN. For that reason, I also define
NN as the subject that believes that there is no evidence that shows the existence of God, which is
why it is impossible for someone to have the knowledge about Him.
(1) NN has the knowledge of God’s existence if the knowledge is based on one or a collection
of evidence.
(2) However, there is no collection or one evidence of God or God’s existence.
∴ Therefore, NN does not have the knowledge about God.
Thus, the fourth proposition is:
(4) There are people who (i) do not oppose God and (ii) are able to have a meaningful,
conscious relationship with God without (iii) believing the existence of God (which is
NN). (Schellenberg, 2004: 206).
Consequently, through the third and fourth proposition, it can be concluded that:
(5) There is no God.
The challenge of divine hiddenness can probably be answered—without considering the
degree of its truth— with the theodicy a la Augustinian, which says that in order to believe in God,
an individual should be willing to be the subject of affection, because love is a personal relationship
that is voluntary and cannot be forced. Some researches, in my opinion, try to answer the divine
hiddenness by adopting the theodicy a la Augustinian, for example, Travis Dumsday in Divine
Hiddenness and Creaturely Resementment (2011) tries to show that it is possible for God to delay
the revelation about Himself to some of the knowers. Besides Dumsday, Chris Tucker in Divine
Hiddenness and the Value of Divine-Creature Relationships (2008) reject the first proposition of
the divine hiddenness that Schellenberg offers. Through what he calls the value argument, he
shows that it is possible for God to “let” the some NN exist, without forcing them to have a
relationship with him (Schellenberg, 2008: 289). However, those argumentations don’t answer the
other dimension of the divine hiddenness problem, which is the epistemic dimension, of whether
the belief in God is permitted in the absence of the evidence—as the problem that arises due to the
divine hiddenness.
 The argumentation of the divine hiddenness, once again, simultaneously targets two
dimensions, which is the epistemic and ontological dimension from God Himself. In this chapter,
I will focus to particularly discuss the epistemic problem in believing God, related to NN, with the
question of whether it is possible for humans to believe in God in the absence of the evidence, in
His hiddenness.
Max Baker-Hytch in Epistemic Externalism in the Philosophy of Religion (2017) shows
that it is possible to discuss the philosophy of religion and the existence of God in the light of
externalism, but I, even further, apply externalism—and internalism—in discussing the problem
of the divine hiddenness. Through the justification theory, internalism and externalism, I will show
that these are one of the ways to answer if the belief in God is something that can be permitted or
not. In short, internalism is a viewpoint that believes that people can always choose by
introspecting themselves, by asking whether their belief and opinion can be rationally accounted
for or not (Sudarminta, 2002: 150), while externalism emphasises more on the distribution process
of external factors such as the reliability of the process of obtaining knowledge that usually
happens (Sudarminta, 2002: 154). With both of the justification theories, instead of showing the
argumentations that can support theism belief—such as cosmology argumentation, theology,
etc.—I “move backwards” and try to analyze the criteria that NN presents, for example, atheism,
and ask the propositions that they have, which is; what kind of value or criteria that they reference
in defining knowledge. Other than that, we should keep in mind that this chapter is trying to answer
the epistemic challenge from the divine hiddenness argumentation, not the ontological challenge.
The research method that is used in this research is through study, elaboration, and the
conceptual analysis of various texts that are related to the knowledge of God. Furthermore, this
research also uses the conceptual distinction of the knowledge of God itself. A distinction, quoting
Rescher, is a principle or method that is used to create division between existing objects by
producing a real descriptive difference (Rescher, 2006: 18). Meanwhile, conceptual distinction,
with adopting the understanding of distinction from Rescher, can be understood as the method that
is used to create division between existing concepts by producing a real descriptive difference.
Conceptual distinction requires a significant difference between the operational or functional
existence from a concept (Rescher, 2006: 18). Therefore, the analysis in this chapter will be
presented in the form of conceptual distinction towards justification perspective from the
knowledge of God by differentiating it into two forms of comprehension, which are internal and
external comprehension.v
EXTERNALISM AND INTERNALISM: A QUICK SURVEY
The debate on epistemology, as a study or a theory about the theory of knowledge, mainly
discusses how true belief can be transformed into knowledge. That debate, explicitly, takes place
in the justification theory from the knowledge discourse, which is between internalism and
externalism. Internalism believes that that the requirement for a true belief that can be recognized
as knowledge is a justification that takes place inside the knower, so it will be possible for the
knower to access it internally. On the other hand, externalism believes that internal justification by
the knower is not a condition required for a belief to transform into knowledge; reliability, or the
actual functioning, the external factors of the knowers—the human’s cognitive faculty (brain), the
cognitive environment, etc.—is the factor that determines the value of a belief.
Internalism is a justification theory a la traditional that has been developed since Greek
philosophy era, which is more than two thousand years ago. Unconsciously, most of the common
people are internalist. What does it mean? If Nicko, a theist who practices his religion, has a belief
about the existence of a transcendent figure who loves and takes care of him, then Hisyam, an
agnostic, will ask for Nicko’s accountability of his claim of knowledge, “If you believe in God,
then what is the evidence?” That question shows that Hisyam assumes that Nicko, as a knower,
has an internal justification which can be accessed by his own self and has a responsibility of the
knowledge that he claims. Justification, therefore, is a conscious matter that is under the control of
the knower.
For internalism, a belief can be transformed into knowledge if the knower internally
justifies and realizes his belief rationally. How reasoning from internalism related to justification
is:
A knows P if and only if,
(i) A accepts P.
(ii) A has an adequate evidence to justify P.
(iii) P is right, or P is knowledge.
Point (ii) can also be filled with “A does his epistemic work”, knowing that internalism cannot be
separated from evidentialism and classic epistemic deontologism—that humans have the
responsibility for their belief.
Externalism is a justification that is newly developed in the 20th century, at the same time
with the development of psychology and cognitive science. Alvin Goldman himself is the pioneer
of externalism, which is reliabilism and a cognitive science specialist. A counterexample from
Gettier gives three choices for epistemologists to define knowledge. First, to find the fourth factor
or other factors, other than justification, to complete the right and justified belief, or second, to
eliminate justification and then replace it with other condition, or three, to reject the
counterexample that Gettier presents. Externalism chooses the second choice, which is to eliminate
justification factor and then replace it with the work of the knower’s external factors, which one
of them and the most important one is its cognitive faculty. One of the epistemologist who presents
externalism justification theory is Alvin Plantinga.
Plantinga believes that cognitive malfunction causes the knowledge that humans have to
be not warranted. A knowledge is warranted if it has a warrant; a warrant is something that
differentiates knowledge from non-knowledge (Boyce & Moon, 2016: 2987). Therefore, a thing
or a condition, which he undoubtedly believes to provide warrant over knowledge, that is a
cognitive tool for humans, should be freed from cognitive malfunction. He calls that condition a
proper function. Human’s cognitive faculty should be able to function properly.
The concept of proper function is a concept that can be found in daily lives, and it is closely
related to human’s common sense. Humans with their common sense realize that if they find
something that is not in accordance with what they understand—for example, an anomaly—, then
there is something that caused that anomaly. Moreover, that concept heavily inclines towards
naturalistic interpretation (Plantinga, 1993: 6). When a human organ functions properly, it
functions in a certain form. For example, the shortness of breath that is caused by asthma. Asthma
caused a malfunction in the respiratory tract, where it cannot properly function, and it resulted in
the inflammation and the narrowing of the respiratory tract. On the other hand, if someone is not
affected by asthma, it means that their respiratory tract functions properly. Similar to the asthma
case, a cognitive malfunction caused the cognitive faculty to not function properly, so it is possible
to generate or not to generate, an unwarranted belief. Therefore, the actual condition of the function
is to generate a warranted knowledge.
(a) S has to have a cognitive faculty that functions properly.
The actual functioning is not enough to assure the knower of their knowledge. It is possible
for the cognitive faculty to properly functions without producing knowledge with enough
assurance. Plantinga gives a counterexample for a knower who has a properly functioning
cognitive faculty, where he also receives a certificate for his functioning faculty (Plantinga, 1993:
6). All of the sudden, without the knower’s knowledge, he is moved to an environment, where it
is completely different from earth, a planet that orbiting around the Alpha Centauri. The condition
of the environment is quite different. An elephant cannot be seen by the human, but it does not
generate the same radiation that is not the same as on earth. That radiation caused human to form
a belief that there is a trumpet that goes near the knower. If the Alpha Centaurian elephant comes
closer to the knower, it will be exposed to the same radiation and will form a belief where there
is a trumpet that goes near it. There is nothing wrong with the knower’s cognitive faculty ability,
it properly functions, but the belief has a low degree of warrant for the knowers. The problem is
not caused by the belief that is wrong. For whatever reason, the knower’s belief has a low degree
of warrant.
The reason is that even though the cognitive faculty of the knower is properly functioned,
it is functioning in an environment that does not suit the functioning of his faculty. Therefore, other
than a proper function, it also needs other components that give an assurance to humans’ belief,
which is a suitable environment for their epistemic ability. That environment should be designed
to suit human’s cognitive faculty—through the work of God or evolution.
(b) S has to have a cognitive environment that is suitable for the cognitive faculty design.
At least there are two components that enable human to have a warranted belief. First, a
properly functioning cognitive faculty, and second, a cognitive environment that is suitable for its
faculty design. Both of those components are still not able to give enough assurance to the
knowledge that humans have. It is possible for the knower to have both components but still does
not have an unwarranted belief.
For example, according to Freud, a religious belief or a belief about the existence of God
is a universal obsessive neurosis that is received by humans because it contains illusion, the
fulfillment of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent human’s desire (Plantinga, 1992: 12). Freud
does not say that a religious belief comes from human’s cognitive malfunction, but it is rather
generated from the fulfillment of the oldest human’s desire—possibly, precisely, primordial. That
fulfillment, Freud believes, is not merely without function, but it is able to make humans to explain
things beyond their reason when they face threatening, terrifying things, or things that leave them
with no hope. Nevertheless, formed from those components—a proper function and the
environment that is suitable for the cognitive faculty—, religious belief in Freud perspective is not
capable to be called a warranted belief.
Therefore, other components are needed to gain trust from the warrant knower. That
cognitive faculty, in Freud perspective, is aimed not to obtain the right belief, but to obtain survival,
or the ability to face the terrifying world (Plantinga, 1993: 13). It is a component design plan that
completes both of the previous components in order to give assurance of the human’s belief.
The design plan is also an important condition in the Plantinga’s warrant concept. To make
it easier to understand, the design plan can be compared with a building blueprint. In order to build
a house properly, we have to compare the physical house with the existent blueprint, the print of
the building plan, which has been drawn by the architect of that house. Similar to the building and
its blueprint; the building properly functions and the blueprint is the proper functioning. Human’s
cognitive faculty cannot be measured—whether it works properly or not—without certain criteria
that can be compared with it. Those criteria are the design plan that shows human’s cognitive
faculty to the truth.
The design plan or the purpose that, for example, lungs have is to regulate the oxygen that
is inhaled by the human through the air to enter the blood cells. Meanwhile, the oxygen that inhaled
by the human has a design plan to give the human a reliable information about their environment,
their past, their minds, and other minds. Cognitive faculty can obtain a belief even though the
design plan that does not direct them to the truth, or obtain the belief because of the form of an
unintended by-product from damage-control. However, if, and only if, that cognitive faculty has a
design plan that directs human cognitive faculty to the truth, it is possible for the human to have a
warranted belief.
(c) The design plan that caused the formation of belief p is aimed at the truth.
For Plantinga, those three components—a properly functioned human’s cognitive faculty
in a cognitive environment that is suitable for its faculty, also has a design plan that directs the
belief to the truth—is not enough to give assurance to the belief. Plantinga gives an example of a
God, who is still an infant deity—the term that Plantinga takes from David Hume’s writing,
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion—, who designs a group of rational human beings, that
has the ability to think, believe, and obtain knowledge. Due to the God’s circumstances, who is
still an infant deity, most of the belief that they generate is mistaken and absurd. However, it does
not mean that those three components for the assurance are not fulfilled; even though it is fulfilled,
their condition will not be perfect, which caused the belief that they generate does not have
assurance.
According to Plantinga, the latest design plan of cognitive faculty has to be good; that the
objective probability of a belief should be true, where the cognitive faculty functions properly
according to the design plan, is high (Plantinga, 1993: 17). Therefore, the fourth component that
completes the other three components in order to give assurance to belief is:
(d) The design plan that caused the formation of belief p, according to the statistic (or
objective), has high probability. Therefore, the generated belief in that condition will
be true.
For that reason, it can be concluded that, at least, there are four components that needed by the
knower to give assurance to belief, which are:
(a) S has to have cognitive faculty that function properly;
(b) S has to have a cognitive environment that is suitable for cognitive faculty design;
(c) The design plan that caused the formation of belief p is aimed at the truth;
 (d) The design plan that caused the formation of belief p, according to the statistic (or
objective), has high probability. Therefore, the generated belief in that condition will
be true (Plantinga, 1993).
WARRANTED KNOWLEDGE ABOUT GOD IN DIVINE HIDDENNESS
First, how internalism faces the challenge from divine hiddenness problem? In general,
most of the people are internalist—I believe. Internalism, which what this chapter means is the
Chisholm’s internalism, understands justification as a condition where someone, as the knower,
does his epistemic work well or with an evidence (Plantinga, 1993), where both of them are one
thing that can be accessed internally by the knower. An epistemic work is a work that is done by
the knower using his cognitive faculty, more or less, as an effort to think. Whereas, an evidence is
one thing that caused the knower to have the tendency to believe a proposition (Plantinga, 2008:
175). For example, the evidence of the statement that someone has stolen a cell phone from another
person is the stolen cell phone, which is located in the thief’s pants pocket. Through the evidence,
people will have a tendency to believe that the thief has stolen the cell phone.
Through the short explanation written in the previous paragraph and chapters, there are two
things that are probably done by an internalist in answering the challenge from NN, which says
that there is no collection, or one evidence that shows the existence of God, or about God, which
are (1) doing their epistemic work, thinking in such a way, related to the existence of God or (2)
showing the existence of God through the existent or innovative argumentations. If using the
analogy of the game of hide-and-seek in the third chapter, an internalist that is playing hide-and-
seek has a job to think hard, finding, where they could be, by evidentially showing it, the presence
of their friend.
Imagine if there is a theist who believes and that he knows, and even personally knows
about God. Then, an internalist and an NN will challenge the claim that is presented by the theist
by asking for his intellectual accountability, which is through his epistemic work, reflectively
thinking about God—which can only be accessed by the theist himself—and second, through the
evidence about the existence of God. If the theist answer that he simply believes that he has the
knowledge about God, then, for the internalist, that theist feels as if he has the knowledge, when
he actually does not—he is wrong. On the other hand, if the theist is successfully done his
epistemic work in such a way, as good as possible, and able to show the evidence of God’s
existence, which has the value of “4” in Chisholm epistemic hierarchy, then it is true that the theist
has the knowledge about God.
The problem is that the subject of the internalist bearer, as an internalist and an NN, does
not see what the theist offer to be something that allows the theist, or himself, to be a theist. Once
again, internalism is a justification theory that is loosely formed. It is possible for a knower to have
the wrong belief and at the same time, justify his wrong belief, weighing that a knower only has
to do his epistemic work and give a convincing, possibly subjective, evidence. This is caused by
the epistemic malfunction that possibly happens in someone’s cognitive faculty, or indeed, that
person has been conditioned in such a way, that there is no other evidence, for example, in the case
of brain in a vat. Because internalism only considering whether it fits the evidence, in that
condition, it is possible for the knower to seem to have a knowledge. According to the internalist,
the theist has done those things—even though, probably, the internalist is the one who has done
those things. In the end, the internalist is still an NN, and what the theist has offered does not
change where the internalist stands. The internalist is still an NN who does not see the evidence of
God’s existence and God still does not give enough of the evidence of his existence, It is not
surprising if the internalist’s knowledge about God does not have a positive epistemic status, or in
Plantinga’s term, not warranted.
If Chisholm’s internalism, through epistemic work and evidence as a justification theory
and, in my opinion, an epistemic virtue, is not able to answer the demand from NN, then, is
externalism, specifically Plantinga’s externalism, able to answer and show if the knowledge about
God is warranted? Beforehand, I will shortly explain the concept of proper function from
Plantinga’s externalism. Externalism, as discussed earlier, eliminates the third factor of
knowledge, which is justification and changes it with something more stringent, which is a warrant
that can be identified as the proper functioning. The proper function, as the condition is (1) not
able to stand on its own, but rather exists at the same time with the three other conditions, which
are; (2) S has to have a cognitive environment that is suitable for cognitive faculty design; (3) the
design plan that caused the formation of belief p is aimed at the truth; and (4) the design plan that
caused the formation of belief p, according to the statistic (or objective), has high probability, so
the generated belief in that condition will be true. For him, those conditions, the proper function,
protect the knower from the cognitive malfunction that allows the knower to gain non-knowledge
through his cognitive faculty.
Seeing those conditions as the principle of externalism, then, how externalism sees the
knowledge about God in order to answer the divine hiddenness? John Calvin, a theologian from
Geneva, states that even though in the beginning it is only a speculation, actually, humans have a
sense of divinity that allows them to have the knowledge about God, at least in the simplest form
even if it is not complex yet (Calvin, 2006: 43). What humans can know about God is real for
them, because God has declared it for them that for what is not seen from Him, which are His
eternal power and His divinity, can appear to the mind of His creation since the world was created,
so humans cannot have excuses. The sense of divinity is not solely about how God expresses
Himself through the world that He created, but human’s cognitive ability, supposedly, enable them
to obtain the knowledge about Him.
In the light externalism, what John Calvin speculates about the sense of divinity arguably
becomes clearer (Clark & Barret, 2011). The knowledge about God, in externalism’s perspective,
can be identified as one of the knowledge that is generated by human’s cognitive faculty naturally,
based on the potential that they have. Therefore, the knowledge about God is generated by a
cognitive faculty that properly function in a cognitive environment that is suitable for the cognitive
faculty design that caused the cognitive faculty aims for the truth with high statistical probability.
In general, the knowledge about God is the knowledge that “randomly” exists in the knower’s
cognitive faculty, similar to other knowledge—testimony, a priori knowledge, inductive, etc.
Externalism, contrast with internalism, believes that the knowledge about God is justified without
awareness from the knower. The knower does not need epistemic effort in such a way to show the
justification from the knowledge that he has. The evidence and even the epistemic work are two
conditions that the knower does not need.
That concept might be a foreign thinking for common people, including us, that used to the
rationality concept a la the era of enlightenment. Rationality is understood as something that
begins with doubts. Every proposition or belief that humans receive—everything, anything, not in
particular; proposition about the external world, the existence of others, even the doubt itself—
should be reflected and doubted first, so then the knower is allowed to hold that belief. That is the
concept that is criticized by an “anti-enlightenment” philosopher from the enlightenment era in
Scotland who is the first and cruelest critic of David Hume, namely Thomas Reid (Clark & Barret,
2011). For Reid, and also for me, knowledge has to emerge from human common sense. Three
Reidian epistemology principles, in my opinion, influence externalism, specifically Plantinga’s
epistemology, which are (Greco, 2002); (1) not all that human knows come from evidence; (2)
external objects are known through perception, not evidence; and (3) the evidence that comes from
senses is no more reasonable from what is demonstrated (which is, mind).
I believe that common-sense philosophy a la Reidian influence Plantinga’s epistemology,
particularly related to the way he put his trust into human’s cognitive faculty. Human’s cognitive
faculty that properly function, which are freed from cognitive malfunction, is a faculty that should
be trusted as it is. Human’s cognitive faculty is one thing that should be understood as innocent
until it is proven guilty.
Completed by Reidian’s philosophy of common sense, the knowledge about God, once
again, can be categorized as a form of knowledge that exists “as it is” in the knower’s cognitive
faculty, which is why the implication is that it is possible for everyone to have the knowledge
about God. Indeed, the fact shows that God is a hidden entity, humans cannot found Him under
the bed. However, in His hiddenness, God is not really hiding. The knowledge about God exists,
or obtained, through human common sense—no more or less. The challenge from NN that says
that there is no collection, or one, evidence that shows the existence of God, or about God, is not
the right point for humans to begin their journey in order to know about God. NN and every human
being have to start from their common sense. I believe that a hiddenness is something that humans
hope for from an entity such as God. Quoting Paul K. Moser, when someone is finding God in the
right way, he will find Him, so that he will find an incomparable knowledge and even, a new life
(Howard-Snyder & Moser, 2002).
Besides those things, Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is a study that tries to explain
how pan-culture dimension from human cognitive dimension vis à vis with social and natural
environment of human, forming and demanding religious thoughts and action on human (Barrett,
2011: 230), also parallel with Plantinga’s externalism, which is evolusionistically, essentially, a
religious belief or the knowledge about God is shaped by the human’s belief-forming faculty
without accompanied by carefulness of the human himself (Barrett & Church, 2013: 319).
Externalism, in line with CSR, believes that religious belief is obtained through the proper
functioning of human’s cognitive faculty, also without the carefulness of the human himself. It is
not a form of cocoklogi, but the reality is what Calvin has said about human’s divine sense is not
merely a speculative thing, but rather a human’s cognitive ability, “God faculty”.
CSR shows that human’s cognitive faculty essentially generates the knowledge about God.
Therefore, if someone rejects the knowledge about God as a warranted knowledge, indirectly, he
also rejects the warrantedness of all of the knowledge that is formed by his cognitive faculty. This
reduction to the most absurd level (reductio ad absurdum), in my opinion, is possible to do in order
to weigh in the knowledge about God that is not generated by the usual cognitive faculty, but rather
generated by the same cognitive faculty that generates other beliefs, which is the faculty of belief
formation.
If the knowledge about God is the original position of human’s cognitive faculty, on the
contrary, the absence of the knowledge about God in the knower’s cognitive faculty can be
identified as a form of cognitive malfunction—remembering that every affirmation is a negation
(omnis affirmatio est negation) (Rescher, 2006: 4). The absence of the knowledge of God, quoting
Plantinga, is caused by the dysfunction of the divine sense of the knower. How can a knower’s
divine sense experiencing dysfunction and not properly working? Similar to what common people
know, the world that humans live in does not seem perfect—which more often makes us hopeless.
In the world that seems imperfect; crime, death, a child’s death, suffering, plague, and other
distressing matters are possible to happen. I believe the world that seems imperfect is experiencing
a dysfunction, where the world does not properly function, and for now, no one knows how the
world works—except by hoping. The impact of this dysfunction takes on various aspects,
holistically, including towards the human beings themselves. Humans have a tendency to do
something that disadvantages others, and even themselves, for example, by being greedy, unable
to control their emotions, unfaithful, and other disadvantaging forms. That dysfunction also
impacted the divine sense that humans should have. Therefore, NN is one of the subjects that
affected by noetic impact from the dysfunction that caused themselves to be unable to have the
knowledge about God.
Consequently, divine hiddenness is not a problem for externalism. Even though God is
hidden, it possible for humans, essentially, to know Him, even in the “absence of the evidence”,
because human cognitive ability has a possibility to have a knowledge about Him. The warranted
knowledge about God is not obtained through the epistemic work and the evidence that is given
by the knower but rather obtained through the functioning of the proper cognitive faculty. For
Schellenberg, NN is the defeater from the possible knowledge about God. However, in the
beginning, NN made mistakes, an evidence is not something that NN needs, or even humans, to
have the knowledge about God, but solely, and the only way is through the common sense of
human’s cognitive faculty. NN does not only made mistakes in the beginning but also, possibly
has an intellectual cognitive dysfunction.
This chapter carries externalism epistemology in answering the problem of the divine
hiddenness; one new perspective in perceiving the problem of the divine hiddenness. The
externalism itself, either on the epistemology in general or the epistemology of religious
epistemology, is not a new thing; Alvin Goldman, who is the pioneer of an externalism, which is
reliabilism, has already conveyed the idea since 1975. However, using externalism perspective, in
particular, Plantinga’s externalism, in answering the problem of epistemic dimension in divine
hiddenness is a step that in my opinion, has never been taken by the epistemologists or religious
philosophers before. Through this perspective, quoting Bertrand Rusell, I have enriched the
intellectual imagination (Russell, 2005: 28) of the theist, as someone who affirms the possible
knowledge of God, that in His hiddenness, it is possible and permitted to have the belief in God.
On the other hand, I also have shown the consistency of externalism in the epistemology of
religious epistemology in answering one of the epistemic challenges, which is His hiddenness, in
believing God.

CONCLUSION
Plantinga’s externalism is able to answer NN’s demand, even though it is through the
answer that NN hopes for. However, the answer should satisfy NN, that in fact, God is not that
hidden, and the cognitive faculty of NN and every human being has the cognitive ability to
apprehend God. The absence of evidence is not the right reason for someone, which is the NN
themselves, to suspend their belief or knowledge about God. The adoption of sensus divinatis and
philosophy of common sense allow the knowledge about God to be warranted. CSR, as a finding,
help to complete the possibility of cognitive ability to generate the knowledge about God.
Therefore, Plantinga’s externalism shows that the knowledge about God is a warranted knowledge.
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Samuel Vincenzo Jonathan. Born in Jakarta, April 26, 1997. He finished his undergraduate at
the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia. Currently teaching
at Universitas Pelita Harapan College as a theory of knowledge subject teacher. He put interest at
epistemology (theory of knowledge), philosophy of religion, and Christian theology.
Herdito Sandi Pratama. Born in Jakarta on August 4, 1986. He is a lecturer in Department of
Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia at both the undergraduate and graduate
levels. He specializes in teaching philosophy of economics, philosophy of science and
methodology, epistemology (theory of knowledge), and analytic philosophy. He is the Head of
Postgraduate Study Program of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia.