{"id":934,"date":"2011-04-15T13:44:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T17:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=934"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:29:19","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:29:19","slug":"reason-conversion-and-plausibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/04\/reason-conversion-and-plausibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Reason, Conversion, and Plausibility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

That\u2019s the title of my most recent entry over at\u00a0The Catholic Thing<\/a><\/em>. Here\u2019s how it begins<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is an odd thing to explain to other Christians why one moves from one theological tradition to another, since you know (or will eventually discover) that the reasons that seemed so compelling to you seem less than adequate to others.\u00a0I believe that the reason for this is that each of us approaches these sorts of questions with a plausibility structure, about which we rarely reflect.<\/p>\n

What do I mean by a \u201cplausibility structure\u201d?\u00a0I mean by this those beliefs that we virtually never question but nevertheless help us to assess other beliefs that we are asked by others to entertain.\u00a0That is, before we look at any controversial or contested issue \u2013 such as in politics, religion, ethics, etc. \u2013 we already have in our minds a bunch of other beliefs that we consider \u201cobvious,\u201d and it is those other beliefs that constitute our plausibility structure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\ufeff\ufeffContinue reading>>><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the title of my most recent entry over at\u00a0The Catholic Thing. Here\u2019s how it begins: It is an odd thing to explain to other Christians why one moves from one theological tradition to another, since you know (or will eventually discover) that the reasons that seemed so compelling to you seem less than adequate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,30,32,54,55,127,146],"tags":[175,22270],"class_list":["post-934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-catholicism","category-christianity","category-evangelicalism","category-faith-and-reason","category-return-to-rome","category-the-catholic-thing","tag-conversion","tag-the-catholic-thing"],"yoast_head":"\nReason, Conversion, and Plausibility<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the title of my most recent entry over at\u00a0The Catholic Thing. 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