Faith and Reason - Ronald Nash

Noetic Structures

The term noetic structure comes from 'noeo' in Greek which means to think or to understand.  The term was coined by the philosopher and epistimologist Alvin Plantinga.

Everyone has a noetic structure.

Main Features of a Noetic Structure

I. A person's noetic structure is the sum total of everything they believe.

II. A person's noetic structure also has the relationships between their different beliefs.

III. The beliefs in a noetic structure are held with differing degrees of certainty, firmness and conviction.

IV. Beliefs in a noetic structure have differing levels of influence over other beliefs in that structure.

V. Noetic structures can be thought of as a spider-web, with links between beliefs and the firmly held beliefs in the centre of the web.

VI. Unimportant, peripheral beliefs can be doubted or abandoned without causing any other changes in the noetic structure.

VII. Changes to important, central beliefs will also cause a dramatic shift in the rest of the noetic structure.

Noetic structures are important to understand when talking about worldviews.

The above notes were taken from Ronald Nash's book Faith and Reason.  It contains a very nice overview of some interesting apologetics and philosophy concepts.  I recommend you buy it if you want to learn more.