Contemporary defenders of the argument are Richard Swinburne, William Alston, Alvin Plantinga, and Alister Hardy.
In essence, the argument's structure is as follows:[citation needed] As statements 2 to 4 are generally treated as uncontroversial,[citation needed] discussion has tended to focus on the status of the first.
Some principal arguments that have been made in favor of the premise include: On the other hand, the following reasons have been offered for rejecting the premise: American analytic philosophers Alvin Plantinga and William Alston developed arguments for accepting knowledge gained from religious experience based on drawing analogies with knowledge gained from sense experience.
[9] Plantinga argues that just as the knowledge gained from sense experience is regarded as properly basic despite being unsupported based on foundationalism in the mould of Descartes, religious experiences should be accepted as providing properly basic knowledge of God.
[9] Alston argues that if sets of practices used to form beliefs produce conclusions that are coherent over time both internally and with other belief-forming practices, they should be accepted.