Welcome to our discussion of Alvin
Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and
Naturalism. This week we will cover the
Preface through Chapter 1: Evolution and Christian Belief. I’m going to post
these in two installments, however, just to space it out a bit.
Just a quick word before we get started. As you’ll soon
discover, everything is presented in a kind of abbreviated, bare-bones format.
That’s not how I wanted to do it, but because of time constraints, that’s
unfortunately how it came out. Should be enough, though, to facilitate
discussion. For the most part, I just provide quotes or short summaries of
passages that I think are significant with a few notes of commentary. I have
focused primarily on the arguments contained in each section, as well as
important definitions, thesis statements, and other articles that feature in
the arguments. Some of the peripheral material is interesting, too, or at least
relates to larger discussions that I think are interesting, so I’ve included a
few of these too. The really important parts to pay attention to are the
questions, which I’ve marked with a Q#:.
Ideally, we’d touch on them all in subsequent discussion, but if you’re
strapped for time, feel free to just pick the ones that most interest you (or
propose your own and address those instead). I also include citations, so if
you need more context, I highly encourage going back to the book. Alright, here
we go…
Preface
Thesis: There is superficial conflict but deep concord
between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep
conflict between science and naturalism.[1]
Naturalism: “I take naturalism to be the thought that there is
no such person as God, or anything like God. Naturalism is stronger than
atheism: you can be an atheist with rising to the full heights (sinking to the
lowest depths?) of naturalism; but you can’t be a naturalist without being an
atheist.”[2]
Q1: Any objections to
the definitions above?
On pp. x – xi, Plantinga offers two possibilities for the
reason that the new atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher
Hitchens, and Sam Harris) “deal with their opponents not by way of reasoned
argument and discussion, but by way of ridicule and ‘naked contempt.’”[3]
These are:
(1)
Their atheism is adolescent rebellion carried on by other
means.
(2)
They know of no good reasons or arguments for their views, and
hence resort to schoolyard tactics.
James Croft offers a third alternative:[4]
(3)
“What the new atheists are really trying to do is not to
engage with theologians like Plantinga and other people like that…and
demonstrate that their arguments are false at a theological level. What they’re
really trying to do is engage in the culture war, particularly in the United
States, in which a particular form of very conservative Christianity has
extraordinary influence over public policy and people’s lives, and what they’re
saying is that influence has to end, and all around the world, there are
conservative forms of religious belief that are harmful to human flourishing,
and are immoral because of that. And I see their critique primarily as a moral
critique, based on a certain set of human values. And so I actually feel that
their philosophical argumentation is sometimes rather beside the point. What
they’re really engaged in is a process of social critique.”[5]
“[Insofar as their project is
intended to be philosophical at all,] I think that they’re [merely] trying to
show religion is false on the same level that someone like Timothy Keller is
trying to show that Christianity is true. I think they’re aiming themselves
towards at a mass-market readership who are not trained in philosophy. And like
the vast majority of successful apologists in the United States or around the
world, they are not professional theologians. They are people who make
arguments that are broadly understandable to the vast majority of people. In my
experience, most people…do not believe what they believe on the basis of highly
complex theological arguments. They believe them on the basis of the very
flawed forms of arguments that today’s theologians themselves reject. And so I
think that there is a valuable project in popularizing the critiques to the
sorts of arguments that are actually persuasive to most people.”[6]
Q2: Do you think
Croft’s suggestions have merit? Is that what the new atheists are up to, you
think? Regardless of whether or not this is what the new atheists are doing, do
you think that the project Croft describes (of popularizing the critiques of popular
apologetic arguments) is a valuable one? Why or why not?
On pp. xi – xii, Plantinga warns of the trap of becoming too
impressed with the power of science, and consequently treating it as “a sort of
infallible oracle.”
Some treat
science as if it were a sort of infallible oracle, like divine revelation – or
if not infallible (since it seems so regularly to change its mind), at any rate
such that when it comes to fixing belief, science is the court of last appeal.
But this cannot be right. First, science doesn’t address some of the topics
where we most need enlightenment: religion, politics, and morals, for example.
Many look to scientists for guidance on matters outside of science, matters on
which scientists have no special expertise.[7]
There are really two claims here that I’d like to discuss. First, Plantinga suggests that it is an error – more precisely, he calls it an “unfortunate side effect” of scientific successes – that some people form a dogmatic attachment to science. But…
Q3: Granting that
some people do treat science in this way, why should we consider that fact
unfortunate? Is it unfortunate because the attachment is to science
(rather than to some variety of theism, for instance)? Or is it because any
dogmatic attachment whatsoever is unfortunate? If it’s the former, why might
dogmatism with respect to theistic worldviews be preferable to dogmatism with
respect to non-theistic ones? If he means that all dogmatism is unfortunate,
are we to conclude that Plantinga considers religious faith to rest on
something more solid than dogmatism? If so, what provides that foundation?
Of course, what Plantinga ultimately ends up objecting to is
not scientific dogmatism per se, but with treating science as “the court of
last appeal” in the fixing of beliefs. So let’s address this claim.
Q4: If not science,
what (if anything at all) should we treat as the final authority in the fixing
of beliefs? Do you think Plantinga would be comfortable with people treating
science as the final authority in empirical matters at least, since this is
special domain of science?
Q5: Many theists
think that their religious texts (the Bible, the Qur’an, etc.) should be
treated as the court of last appeal in the fixing of beliefs, at least in
relation to moral matters, and often in other domains as well. How far do you
think this confidence should extend? What are the potential dangers of treating
science and religious texts respectively as authorities in the fixing of our
beliefs about various subjects?
The second claim Plantinga makes in the passage above is
that “science doesn’t address some of the topics where we most need
enlightenment: religion, politics, and morals, for example.” But certainly
there have been scientists that have
attempted to address these topics: at least for the past 40 years or so, the
disciplines of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have been attempting
this (examples include E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology and Human Nature, Andrew Newberg’s Why God Won’t Go Away, Denis Dutton’s The Art Instinct, Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal, and others). So…
Q6: Are the author’s
listed above doing real science when they write on these subjects? If not, what
are they doing? If so, then what does Plantinga mean by science?
Maybe Plantinga wants to make the stronger claim that
science cannot (legitimately) address
these topics, i.e., that such topics do not fall within the magisterium of the
natural sciences. But…
Q7: Why should we
think that is true, especially given the fact that so many scientists appear to
be doing just that? What are some reasons to doubt that science can address the
topics of morality, politics, and morals? What are some reasons to think the
opposite?
(Just to give my 2 cents, I think he’s probably making the
stronger claim, and since this is a peripheral issue, it makes sense that he
wouldn’t include an argument to support it. Nonetheless, in the absence of an
argument, I don’t think he’s given the reader any reason to accept this
stronger claim.)
