Regarding the End of the World.

[a response to Gary Gutting's NY Times blog, Epistemology and the End of the World]


I moderately disagree with this article - if we buy into what he's saying, I think the scope of the argument may quickly broaden to the point where we lose any sort of certainty that's not grounded in what Gutting considers to be epistemically grounded rationale.

This includes, I suspect, not only future and even theologically dubitable events (as the Rapture distinctly is), but also present and even past warranted belief, including concepts such as salvation, the existence of God, the revelation of God to man, etc. I think that his argument easily applies to the status of Scripture, belief in my own spiritual experiences, etc.

So, yes, Camping's predictions are indeed "ill-advised". But Gutting has just pointed out the obvious; Camping's predictions failed. He provides no alternative schema for justification.

What would be interesting would be his providing a counterexample, some sort of spiritual belief that does turn out to be warranted or grounded. That would draw a clear line dividing epistemically warranted and unwarranted spiritual belief. But he doesn't - leaving me suspecting that he would a priori regard all spiritual belief as resting on epistemically shaky grounds.