Chapter 2: Evolution and Christian Belief (Part 2)

I. Introductory Discussion

Darwin’s dangerous idea…is really the thought that the living world with all of its beauty and wonder, all of its marvelous and ingenious apparent design, was not created or designed by God or anything at all like God; instead it was produced by natural selection winnowing random genetic mutation, a blind, unconscious, mechanical, algorithmic process, he says, which creates “Design out of chaos without the aid of Mind”…More broadly, the idea is that mind, intelligence, foresight, planning, and design are all latecomers in the universe, themselves created by the unthinking process of natural selection.[1]

Plantinga: Why is Darwin’s idea dangerous?

à Dennett: Because if we accept it…we are forced to reconsider all our childlike and childish ideas about God, morality, value, the meaning of life, and so on.

Plantinga: Why so?

à Christians and other theists…reject the thought that mind and intelligence, foresight, and planning are latecomers in the universe. They reject this thought because they believe that God, the premier exemplar of mind, has always existed, and has always been involved in the production and planning of whatever else there is.[2]

Q1: Do you have any objections or reservations about the idea of a God who is capable of knowledge, who has aims and ends, and who can and in fact does act on what he knows in such a way as to accomplish these aims? What philosophical problems arise from assuming this to be the case?

Q2: Does anyone have objections or reservations about the idea of mind existing before, and/or independently from matter? What philosophical problems arise from assuming this to be the case?

II. Dennett’s Argument (for why Darwin’s idea is dangerous)

(1) All life really has come about by evolution (“if you still harbor doubts about it, you’re inexcusably ignorant”)
(2) The mechanism that underlies this process is Darwinism, which includes two steps: source of genetic variability (typically random genetic mutation), and natural selection
(3) This process is not directed or guided or overseen by any intelligent agent

Q3: What is this argument supposed to prove? Does it?

Plantinga: The idea that this blind naturalistic process gave rise to language and mind, including out artistic, moral, religious, and intellectual proclivities is at least extremely doubtful, perhaps even preposterous.[3]

à Plantinga develops this objection in more depth in chapter 10. I’ve also posted a link to an episode of Unbelievable? in which Plantinga debates his so-called “Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism.”

Plantinga: Darwin’s idea is dangerous to theism only if it is somehow attractive, only if there are good reasons for adopting it and rejecting theism. Why does Dennett think we should accept Darwin’s dangerous idea?[4]

à Dennett offers two lines of argument:

(1) It is possible that all the variety of the biosphere be produced by mindless natural selection (reprise of Dawkins’ argument)

“Given certain controversial assumptions about logical possibility (for example, that it is possible that mind come to be in a mindless universe), we don’t know that Darwin’s dangerous idea is astronomically improbable.”[5]

Plantinga: Does the theory of natural selection really show what Dennett says it does – that every feature of the world, including mind itself “can be the product of a blind, unforesightful, nonteleological, ultimately mechanical process of differential reproduction over long periods of time.”[6]

à Locke says no: Locke believed it impossible in the broadly logical sense that mind should have arisen somehow from “incogitative matter”…[M]inds can only be produced by other minds. Or by Mind.”[7]

Plantinga endorses Locke’s view on p. 40.

Plantinga: [N]eo-Darwinian scientific theory hasn’t shown that Locke is wrong or that God does not exist necessarily; it hasn’t even shown that it is possible, in the broadly logical sense, that minds rise from “pure incogitative matter”.

You don’t have to be a theist to think that there’s something wrong with presuming that mind can come from matter, or that it arrived so late on the scene. Atheist philosophy Thomas Nagel also thinks that for mind to exist in the robust form that we observe today, it must have been around in at least some nascent state from the very beginning.[8] 

It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are expected to abandon this naïve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation, but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true. There are two questions. First, given what is known about the chemical basis of biology and genetics, what is the likelihood that self-reproducing life forms should have come into existence spontaneously on early earth, solely through the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry. The second question is about the source of variation in the evolutionary process that was set in motion once life began: In the available geological time since the first life forms appeared on earth, what is the likelihood that, as a result of a physical accident, a sequence of viable genetic mutations should have occurred that was sufficient to permit natural selection to produce the organisms that actually exist?[9]

If contemporary research in molecular biology leaves open the possibility of legitimate doubts about a fully mechanistic account of the origin and evolution of life, dependent only on the laws of chemistry and physics, this can combine with the failure of psychophysical reductionism to suggest that principles of a different kind are also at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.[10]

[W]ith regard to evolution, the process of natural selection cannot account for the actual history without an adequate supply of viable mutations, and I believe it remains an open question whether this could have been provided in geological time merely as the result of chemical accident, without the operation of some other factors determining and restricting the forms of genetic variation.[11]

The feature that Plantinga is making an effort to highlight here is Dennett’s claim about mind arising from naturalistic processes (see quote above).

Q4: What do you think is the appropriate response of scientists to the intractability of the consciousness problem? Should it prevent them from endorsing unguided evolution (Darwinism)? Is it possible to endorse unguided evolution while remaining agnostic with respect to the question of consciousness?

Plantinga: Even if it were logically possible, is it also biologically possible?

“Shall we state of affairs is biologically possible if it is compatible with biological laws? Or with the conjunction of biological law together with some earlier total state of affairs?...Or should we instead think (with Dawkins) of biological possibility as simply a matter of less than astronomical improbability?”[12]

Plantinga: Even granting that it is biologically possible (on any analysis above), it does not follow that it is unguided, or that it would be biologically possible to have happened without guidance.[13]

(2) If there is no such person as God, then, setting aside a few unlikely possibilities, natural selection is unguided; and there is no such person as God[14]

Plantinga: Why is belief in an anthropomorphic God (where this is taken to mean a God who is capable of knowledge, who has aims and ends, and who can and in fact does act on what he knows in such a way as to accomplish these aims) childish, or irrational, or anyway obsolete.[15]

à Dennett’s Argument against the rationality of belief in God
(1) Traditional theistic arguments don’t work

(2) Rational belief in God would require broadly scientific evidence
(3) There isn’t any other source of warrant of rationality for belief in God or for religious belief generally

Plantinga: There aren’t good arguments for the existence of other minds or selves, of the past, or an external world and much else besides; nevertheless belief in [these things] is presumably not irrational or in any other way below epistemic par.[16]

Q5: Are things different with belief in God? If so, why? What makes the difference?

On pp. 45-51, Plantinga considers a series of “arguments” that takes aim against the theist’s purported justification for religious belief.

Plantinga: “Dennett’s way of carrying on is an insulting expression of disdain for those who do serious work in this area.”[17]

Perhaps Dawkins and Dennett expects us to assess their arguments within a larger context of evidence than Plantinga has so far acknowledged, including the evidence that Christianity (popularly construed) is false. Plantinga has politely excused himself from having to defend himself against these charges because the version of Christianity he is championing is one that denies a young earth account and biblical literalism. But perhaps it is unfair of Plantinga to interpret Dawkins and Dennett as though they were approaching the problem from the same context. Presumably, a much weaker argument is needed to defend the evolutionary account on a robustly literalistic interpretation of Christianity than on Plantinga’s qualified version.

Q6: Do you think Plantinga is being fair in his representation of the target and larger context of Dawkins’ and Dennett’s criticisms? Is their project as ambitious as he represents it?

Q7: What is Plantinga so upset about? Are Dennett’s arguments an affront to the hard work of serious philosophers and theologians? What do the arguments crafted by serious philosophers and theologians have to do with the Christian majority, if they don’t in fact support their beliefs via these means?

à Again, it appears that Dennett might be addressing a different target than that which Plantinga is justly defending. Plantinga may have effectively stopped the conversation between himself and Dawkins and Dennett when, in that single paragraph back in chapter 1, he chose not identify himself with the Christian majority. I feel that we are all intuitively aware of what Dennett is objecting to, and – good philosophy or bad – recognize that it is deserved when taken in the appropriate context. There’s no doubt that Dennett falls short of proving the stronger case against the rationality of theism and religious justification, but do his arguments fare any better taken as critiques against the Christian majority? Alternatively, might the more sophisticated defenses provided by serious philosophers and theologians extend also to the majority, upholding their cause as well?

Dennett: [I]f you can’t show by reason that a given proposed source of truth is in fact reliable, then it is improper to accept the deliverances of that source.[18]

à Plantinga: “It is no part of reason to insist that there can’t be any other source of true or warranted belief; it is perfectly in accord with reason to suppose that there are source of truth in addition to reason.”[19]

Q8: In his book Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga argues that religious belief doesn’t require justification because, like beliefs grounded in our perceptions, it is “properly basic.” What do you think about the claim that faith is noninferentially justified, i.e., without appeal to reason?[20]

Alston’s double standard objection: [W]hy insist that it is irrational to accept religious belief in the absence of an argument for the reliability of the faculty or belief producing processes that give rise to it?...Is there anything but arbitrariness in insisting that any alleged source of truth must justify itself at the bar of rational intuition, perception, and memory? Perhaps we have several different sources of knowledge about the world, and none can be shown to be reliable using only the others.[21]

Q9: The topic of justification in epistemology is huge, but would anyone like to share any initial thoughts or comments on the question of whether religious belief that doesn’t ultimately appeal to reason is justified? Is it only arbitrariness that leads some to insist that any alleged source of truth must justify itself at the bar of rational intuition, perception, and memory? For example, maybe the faculties that produce religious belief deserve to be held more suspect than certain others for the wider disparity in the judgments it produces, as well as the ease of tricking it or artificially reproducing the effects it treats as evidence, etc.

Descartes performed a lot of the groundwork for contemporary debates surrounding the subject of epistemic justification, so maybe some of his comments on the subject would be helpful. For Descartes, the reliability of the faculties of knowledge was a high-stake issue, reflecting back on the nature of God, whom he believed created us. As Descartes saw things, if our faculties were inadequate to guarantee reliable judgments when exercised properly, then it would amount to an infringement on our free will, and God, who made us that way, would be blameworthy for it. What, then, are we supposed to make of our epistemic failures?

One primary strategy that Descartes employs in his Fourth Meditation theodicy is to distinguish between errors of the benign and vicious sorts. In brief, benign errors are those errors in judgment that derive from what might be called “justifiably imperfect design” (i.e., allowances to err), in that they are conditioned upon man's finitude.[22] This class extends over such errors as those that arise from the natural limitations of the intellect, as well as from the soul's conjunction with the body.[i] Vicious errors, on the other hand, are those errors in judgment that derive from “unjustifiably imperfect design” (i.e., determinations to err), and are conditioned upon man's infinite element, i.e., the will.[23]

[In] matters regarding the well-being of the body, all of my senses report the truth much more frequently than not. Also, I can almost always make use of more than one sense to investigate the same thing; and in addition, I can use both my memory, which connects present experiences with preceding ones, and my intellect, which has by now examined all the causes of error.[24]

In the case of our clearest and most careful judgments, however, this kind of explanation would not be possible, for if such judgments were false they could not be corrected by any clearer judgments or by means of any natural faculty. In such cases I simply assert that it is impossible for us to be deceived. Since God is the supreme being, he must also be supremely good and true, and it would therefore be a contradiction that anything should be created by him which positively tends towards falsehood...Hence this faculty must tend towards the truth, at least when we use it correctly (that is, by assenting only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive...).[25]

Plantinga: “[E]volution and theism, contra Dawkins and Dennett, are compatible: this means, as I am using the term, that there are no obvious truths such that their conjunction with evolution and theism is inconsistent in the broadly logical sense.”[26]

Q10: Insofar as his arguments are built to address the question of logical consistency, is Plantinga’s project narrow enough to successfully defend Christianity from the charges of incompatibility with science?

III. Draper’s Argument

Q11: Does evolution constitute evidence against theism?

Draper: Evolution is evidence favoring naturalism over theism (evolution is more likely – at least twice as likely, Draper argues – on naturalism than on theism, i.e.,

P(E/N) is much greater than P(E/T)

à In chapter 10, Plantinga provides an argument along the lines of P(E/N) is much less than P(E/T).

Plantinga: According to classical definitions of God, which hold that theism is noncontingent (i.e., if true, then necessarily true), and the theorems of model logic, which hold that if possibly necessary, then necessary, Drapers argument entails that theism is true.[27]

Let “S” be the proposition that “some relatively complex living things did not descend from relatively simple single celled organisms but rather were independently created by a supernatural person.”

P(E/N) is much greater than P(E/T) if and only if (-S/N) x P(E/-S&N) is much greater than P(-S/T) x (P(E/-S&T)[28]

IV. Why Do People Doubt Evolution?

Q12: What accounts for the facts that only about 25% or Americans believe that human beings have descended from ape-like ancestors and are concerned bout the teaching of evolution in the schools and want to add something as a corrective, etc.[29]

à Miller claims that it is their rugged and self-reliant individualism; they aren’t going to let a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals tell them what to believe.[30]

Objection: But it’s not that American’s aren’t believing anyone at all, which of course is what robust self-reliant individualism would entail. I recently posted an article to this effect on the group’s wall.

Q13: Plantinga says that the association of evolution with naturalism is the obvious root of the widespread antipathy to evolution in the United States, and to the teaching of evolution in the public schools.[31] Do you agree with this assessment?

Quote on p. 57 about the harm done to science. (See question below)

V. Kitcher’s “Enlightenment Case”

Kitcher: [T]hose evangelicals that rally behind intelligent design “appreciate that the Darwinian picture of life (which goes well beyond current evolutionary science) is at odds with a particular kind of religion, providentialist religion.” Providentialist religion is the idea that God “cares for his creatures” and “observes the fall of every sparrow and is especially concerned with humanity.”[32]

Plantinga: Exactly what problem…does evolutionary theory pose for providentialist religion?

à Kitcher: current evolutionary science exacerbates the ancient problem of evil.[33]

à Plantinga: There is nothing in Christian thought to suggest that God created animals in order that human beings might come to be, or that the only value of nonhuman animals lies in their relation to humans.[34]

Q14: On the interpretation of Christianity that Plantinga is endorsing, i.e., Christianity as compatible with evolutionary theory (in which humans, or creatures very much like humans, are understood as the intended goal of the evolutionary process), is this statement true? Is Plantinga trying to have his cake and eat it too?

Plantinga’s Theodicy:

(1)  God wanted to create a really good world; among all the possible worlds, he wanted to choose one of very great goodness.

(2)  But what sorts of properties make for a good world? What are the good-making properties for worlds? Many and various: containing rational creatures who live together in harmony, containing happy creatures, containing creatures who know and love God, and many more. The most important is the overwhelming display of love and mercy of Christ’s death on the cross.

(3)  Therefore, all the best possible worlds can be expected to contain incarnation and atonement, or at any rate atonement.

(4)  But any world that contains atonement contains also a great deal of sin and suffering (given that the remedy is proportionate to the sickness).[35]

Q15: Does anyone have any comments of objections to the theodicy presented above?

Q16: Why does Plantinga say that the story of Jesus dying for our sins in the greatest story that could be told? Do you agree with his statement?

Plantinga: Perhaps no theodicy we can think of is wholly satisfying. If so, that should not occasion much surprise: our knowledge of God’s options in creating the world is a bit limited. Suppose God does have a good reason for permitting sin and evil, pain and suffering: why think that we would be the first to know what it is?[36]

Q17: Do you think the problem of evil provides a route to disproving theism, or is such a route blocked by the finitude of our knowledge?

Q18: Plantinga seems to admit that the theodicy that he presents might not be satisfying to everyone. If that’s the case, then why think that he has succeeded at all in weakening the force of Kitcher’s argument?

 

à Plantinga: The real question here is whether this aspect of our world provides believers in God with a defeater for such belief.[37] That, in turn, depends on the strength of the case for theism…

Q19: Why does the question of whether the existence of evil provides a defeater for religious belief depend on the case for theism?

Plantinga: Why do people accept theism in the first place?[38]

à “Christians believe the Bible is trustworthy because they believe its ultimate author is God – but they would have to be benighted indeed if they also believed that there is such a person as God because the Bible says so. The sources of theistic belief go much deeper. Christian theology and current science unite in declaring that human beings display a natural tendency to believe in God or something very much like God.”[39]

If I’ve understood him correctly, Plantinga seems to be offering an argument in defense of Christian’s faith in the Bible along these lines:

(1) Christians believe the Bible is trustworthy because they believe its ultimate author is God

(2)  Christians believe the Bible is authored by God because of more immediate religious experiences, including their natural tendency to believe in God or something very much like God

Q20: Granting Plantinga’s claim that “To know in a general and confused way that God exists is implanted in us by nature”, does this provide the foundation we need to support/justify faith in the divine authorship of the Bible, or any of the specific details it elaborates about God?

Q21: Granting that the question concerning why people accept theism is still important to establishing Plantinga’s point, why do you think people accept theism? Do you think the case for theism thus elaborated is sufficiently strong to block the objection that evil provides a defeater for religious belief?

The Enlightenment Case Against Supernaturalism (ECAS) – Comprised of three arguments:

(1) The argument from evil (addressed in Plantinga’s )
(2) The argument from pluralism (addressed in Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief)
(3) The argument from historical biblical criticism (chapter 5)

Plantinga: [T]he [ECAS] isn’t really relevant; we are thinking about the bearing of evolutionary theory on religious belief, but the [ECAS] has little to do with evolution or with science more generally.[40]

Additional Discussion Questions (if we have time)

Let’s talk about tone.

In this chapter, Plantinga often uses sarcasm to weaken the force of Dennett’s arguments, at some points seeming to represent him as alarmist. Examples include:

(1)  P. 37 – Christians raising their children to doubt evolution[41]

(2)  P. 46-47 – Christians claiming to possess knowledge not justifiable by reason[42]

(3)  P. 54-55 – Americans rejecting the consensus of scientists about evolution[43]

Q22: Do you think that Dennett’s concerns about the resistance of theists to scientific doctrines are exaggerated or alarmist? Why or why not?

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[1] P. 33-34.

[2] P. 34.

[3] P. 37.

[4] P. 38-39.

[5] P. 42-43.

[6] P. 39.

[7] P. 39.

[8] “My guiding conviction is that mind is not just an afterthought or an accident or an add-on, but a basic aspect of nature” (Mind and Cosmos, 16).

[9] Mind and Cosmos, 6.

[10] Ibid., 7.

[11] Ibid., 9.

[12] P. 41.

[13] P. 41.

[14] P. 43.

[15] P. 43.

[16] P. 45.

[17] P. 47.

[18] P. 49.

[19] P. 49.

[20] Plantinga provides a more elaborate defense of the justification of religious belief in his book “Warranted Christian Belief.”

[21] P. 50-51.

[22] Lex Newman, “The Fourth Meditation,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Sept., 1999), 562.

[23] CSM II, 39-40.

[24] CSM II, 102-103.

[25] CSM II, 102-103.

[26] P. 51.

[27] P. 52.

[28] P. 53.

[29] P. 55.

[30] P. 55.

[31] P. 56.

[32] P. 57.

[33] P. 59.

[34] P. 60.

[35] P. 61.

[36] P. 62.

[37] The subject of defeaters is covered in more detail in chapter 6.

[38] P. 62.

[39] P. 62-63.

[40] P. 65.

[41] P. 37.

[42] P. 46-47.

[43] P. 54-55.

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[i] Intellectual imperfection consists in man's limited access to empirical data (CSM II, 39) while sensory and appetitive imperfection consists in dispositions of the body (ibid., 56, 58-61).