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Paper   IPM / Philosophy / 11601
School of Analytic Philosophy
  Title:   Alston on Belief and Acceptance in Religious Faith
  Author(s):  H. Vahid
  Status:   Published
  Journal: The Heythrop journal
  Vol.:  50
  Year:  2008
  Pages:   23-30
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
In this paper, I shall examine William Alston's influential view that the cognitive element in religious faith should be identified with ?acceptance? rather than ?belief?. Although I am sympathetic to Alston's reluctance to regard belief as essential to faith, I shall argue that one can redescribe the cases that Alston invokes in support of his claim in terms of the standard notion of degrees-of-belief without loss. It will be further argued that, given Alston's constraints, his notion of acceptance, if not identical to belief, is at least a species of belief.

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