Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and … (2024)

My first Alvin Plantinga book! Plantinga, quite convincingly, argues that there is a conflict between naturalism and science. His argument centers around cognitive faculties and whether we know they are reliable given naturalism. Ultimately, Plantinga argues that the probability that our cognitive faculties under naturalism is low and under theism it’s high. Enjoyable read!

An odd number of stars, perhaps, from a life-long atheist.

When I reviewed Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," I called it a feisty, combative, interesting introduction to issues about the plausibility of religious belief, which alas the author seems to genuinely believe is original, decisive, and definitive. Anyone who knows anything about philosophy understand that none of this is even close to true about Dawkins' book, and that indeed it couldn't be, because his ignorance of the existing philosophical / theological literature on these topics is, judging from the text, near absolute. (My respect for Dan Dennett took a major dive when I heard the terms in which he praised the book. He knows better: why not say so?)

So: the many atheists and agnostics who have been impressed or persuaded by Dawkins' arguments need at least to chew and swallow this one undeniable fact: Plantinga - in the course of defending a traditional Christian-style theism as bizarre to me as the belief that thunder is caused by God's indigestion - deploys a level of clarity, care, and sophistication in his epistemological arguments that makes Dawkins look like an arrogant schoolboy who's simply unaware of the depth of his own ignorance.

To say this is not to defend any one of Plantinga's arguments, or conclusions. But anyone who has been impressed by Dawkins on these topics, or Dennett, should pull up a chair and watch the humiliating, comprehensive, over-the-knee thrashing Father Plantinga metes out to them in the first two chapters.

If nothing else, it ought to be food for thought. Dawkins and Dennett are both beguilingly good writers. But I repeat here a devastating aside on Dawkins by the philosopher Jerry Fodor: "whatever his virtues, a feeling for the hardness of hard questions pretty clearly isn’t among them." Precisely. And that feeling is among Plantinga's virtues.

This book is aimed at someone with a little familiarity with philosophy. For a book on a similar topic that is pitched at everyone's level you should look for John Lennox's "God's Undertaker".
That said the book reads well and you don't need a degree in Philosophy to understand the material that is presented.

The flow of the book seemed a little jilted and I got the impression that Plantinga collated a bunch of his previously published material together into a book. It's probably just me however and most people wont even notice.

I found Plantinga's treatment on the issue of miracles in this book was quite thorough. In fact Plantinga seemed to leave no objection unaddressed. Sometimes I found this a bit monotonous but I guess years of being a philosopher at the highest level has trained him to always present a watertight case.

Plantinga's treatment of defeaters in this book is also very valuable information.

I did however find his appraisal of the teleological argument as disappointing as it seem to be much stronger argument than Plantinga has presented it. He seemed to fall back to his safety zone of epistemology in seeing design as a properly basic belief. I can't see Robin Collins taking this approach with this argument.

Plantinga's EAAN is his centre piece for the deep conflict with natrualism and science. It is the final part of the book and I again confess to having yet again dodged looking at this argument.
EAAN seems very strong from first impressions but I still can't say I really understand it or it's potential weaknessess. So in short no review on that part. :)

On the whole a good addition to the bookshelf.

Oh yes and I forgot.
"This is a hopeless book, only people who already accept his arguments will find it convincing"
-Yeah of course I read it. That just isn't something everyone was say at infidels'R'us.

This book is aimed entirely at people who already agree with Plantinga's premise, which begs the question as to why he bothered writing it. Based on the reviews here, I guess it must be because the only people that read what he's written already DO agree, so it's an easy sale!

On the surface, this book should be interesting. There are numerous flaws in the naturalist philosophy, and certainly there are numerous religious scientists, so there IS room for concord. Where this book falls most apart is when he is aiming for certainty. His inability to recognize when he's drawing upon his own faith to form his arguments is appalling. Too many times he lists an argument as "self-evident", when what he is really suggesting is "if you are a Christian and looking to feel better about yourself...". And he is exceptionally partial when it comes to his use probabilities.

A lot of the flaws Plantinga has with his probabilistic arguments stem from the fact that he doesn't actually understand science. His entire breadth of scientific knowledge comes from reading philosophy texts and not actual scientific books. That right there invalidates nearly every one of his arguments as he misrepresents a number of scientific theories and misses the flawed logic in the conclusions he draws from them. Not being able to correctly grasp the notion of an open/closed system or quantum mechanics wouldn't be an issue if they weren't the entirety of his argument for accepting the possibility of miracles, for example. And his flawed understanding of evolutionary theory often sounds much too close to the picture "social" Darwinists use, seeing it too simply that every trait must be adaptive when so often they are vestigial or transformed from earlier links in the chain. A trait can stick around for generations as long as it is not MALadaptive - that entire notion is missing from the book's arguments. These sorts of basic failures of scientific understanding undermine him throughout the text, as anyone with a scientific background should be able to pick out the misrepresentations easily. I'd suggest he have his books screened by someone who doesn't actually agree with him, but that seems self-evident, no?

Apart from the flaws in his reasoning, there is the writing of the book itself that I found irritating as well. He too often draws on pseudo-math that neither helps his arguments nor the book's readability. I realize this is typical academic rubbish that philosophers like to draw on, but propositional logic is not helpful at all in this text, IMO. Between the nomenclature being counter to accepted mathematical standards and the rampant abbreviation when he goes off on these tangents, it completely muddles his point. And it acts as a further barrier for anyone that does not already think like him.

A second editorial flaw is the repeated use of in-text asides. These are supposed to be used for when he gets in the weeds of philosophical jargon, but they are often actually central to his thesis. While the use of this technique didn't necessarily affect the readability, it was inconsistent and simply felt silly.

I can understand why the people that praise this book do so, since I'm sure if you think like him you found this more entertaining and less hair-pulling, but I cannot for the life of me believe it could convince someone not already on his side. If this changes any perceptions you have about the world, I sincerely question how much you've ever thought about it in the first place.

I do not recommend this to anyone. There are too many problems with this book I couldn't even begin to mention. I am a realist by the way. If you want something more serious on this subject perhaps try reading Michael Behe's Darwin Devolves, and for philosophy you could read Wolfgang Smith's book against Teilhard de Chardin, Teilhard's thinking is similar to that of Plantinga, so the book of Wolfgang Smith, a renowed physicist is a jewel.

Most people think there is a basic antagonism between faith and science that has to be overcome if one is to be both a theist and a scientific practitioner. Alvin will say, au contraire. It is in fact the naturalist who has the real problem.

Plantinga carefully works this out over 352 pages. He begins with the areas often thought to be in contradiction, particularly the questions of evolution and the questions of miracles, and demonstrates that in neither case is there a logical contradiction or conflict. He then goes on to discuss evolutionary psychology and biblical criticism and through a discussion of the nature of "defeaters" shows that even in these areas, the sources of conflict are superficial at best and do not "defeat" theistic belief.

The third section of his book is perhaps some of the most delightful where he paints a picture of the concord between theism and science--focusing particularly on the often taken for granted fact that our cognitive abilities and the intellectual tools like mathematics that we have developed to study the world map so well with physical reality. This would just make sense in a theistic explanation of the world but is in fact difficult to explain on naturalistic terms.

And this brings us to the last section where he shows that the contention that evolutionary naturalism is in fact self-defeating, in that it undercuts the basic idea that we can trust our rational processes by showing them a mere artifact of evolutionary processes--unreliable at best for anything other than survival. And so he argues that where the conflict really lies is between science and naturalism.

This book is well worth the effort to work through Plantinga's careful reasoning about these things and gives the lie to the popular stereotypes that place science and faith at war rather than in concord.

Excellent long-awaited statement on the deep concord and superficial conflict between science and theism by eminent philosopher Alvin Plantinga. This is his fully developed evolutionary argument against naturalism, as he includes sections showing the superficial conflict between science and theism (miracle objections, etc.) and also the harmony between them both (rise of science in Christendom, reason and rational system held by God, etc.). Overall a wonderful text, and one I'll most likely refer to in the future.

الأطروحة التي يحاول الكتاب إثباته هي:
هناك تعارض سطحي بين العلم والأديان التوحيدية، لكن ثمّ تناغم عميق بينهما. وهناك تناغم سطحي بين الطبيعانيّة والعلم، لكنّ ثمّ تعارض عميق بينهما.

الكتاب على أربع أقسام:
- التعارض المدّعى بين العلم والدين
- التعارض الحقيقي لكن السطحي بين العلم والدين
- التناغم العميق بين العلم والدين
- التعارض العميق بين العلم والطبيعانيّة

القسم الأول تناول نظرية التطور وعلاقتها بالدين، واستنتج أن المعارِض الوحيد هو إضافة ميتافيزيقية على النظرية مفادها أن العملية لم تكن تحت إرشاد الصانع، وتناول أيضا مسألة المعجزات من حيث الفيزياء الكلاسيكية ثم الكمومية.

القسم الثاني ناقش علم النفس التطوريّ والنقد التاريخي للكتاب المقدس (Historical Biblical Criticism)
الذي استنتجه أن التعارض وإن كان موجودا، لكنه ليس إلا نتيجة التعويل على بعض المقدمات دون جميعها، بالتالي الانتقال من المقدمات قد يوصل إلى نتائج لا تتناغم مع مجموع الاعتقادات الصحيحة، وإنما تتناغم فقط مع الجزء التي انطلق منه.

القسم الثالث تعرض لبرهان النظم والصيغ المختلفة له مع بعض الاعتراضات، وفي نهاية الأمر وافق بلانتنجا على وجود ضعف في تلك الصيغ. بعد برهان النظم، صار إلى الكلام في توفير الأديان التوحيدية الأساس الرصين التي منه يقوم العلم الطبيعي والرياضيات والعلوم بشكل عام.

القسم الرابع هو محاولة لقلب الطاولة، فاستخدم التطور البيولوجي مع النظرة المادّية المتأصلة في الطبيعانية، للتوصل إلى أن احتمال إنتاج قوانا الإدراكية لاعتقادات صادقة ضعيف جدا، طالما أن تلك القوى إنما بقيت لكونها تكيّفت مع البيئة وأثبتت صلاحها من هذه الناحية.

الكتاب منتظم في أفكاره وتسلسله، تبويبه جميل، ووجود فقرة تلخّص كل فصل ممتازة. أما السخرية وخفة الظل التي تسللت بين الفقرات فهي ممتعة، وأسلوب بلانتنجا لطيف جدا.

بعض مواضع الكتاب كانت تقنيّة، لذلك قد يفيد الاطلاع على كتب منطقية على الطريقة الغربية. لكن حتى لو حذفت هذه المواضع لن يتأثر تسلسل الكتاب وأفكاره.

Many Christians perceive science and religion as eternal enemies; many atheists would heartily agree with that viewpoint. In this book Alvin Plantinga argues : “there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism”. The book is not necessarily an easy read, but delves deeply into the subject area with clear, reasonable and philosophical argumentation. Christians should have a particularly high regard for science, and Plantinga is one of the clearest thinkers of our time in this area.
In Part 1 he first discusses evolution and clearly shows that the idea of unguided evolution is not scientific: the ‘unguided’ is a metaphysical claim. The issue of supernatural miracles and divine intervention is discussed starting with the old deterministic view: whatever occurs in the world can be accounted for by other events belonging to the world. This view presumes a universe that is a closed system: again this is a metaphysical claim not belonging to science. This scientific view has largely been replaced by two new large revisions: relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Indeterminism is one of the pillars of quantum mechanics; for a given set of initial conditions there are probabilities assigned to possible outcomes. Plantinga argues that there is no inherent conflict between quantum mechanics and divine intervention, and that even the most stunning miracles are not clearly inconsistent with the laws of science.
Part 2 deals with superfifical conflict: the new ‘science’ of evolutionary biology. This science tries to explain how human behaviour and human traits developed from a nauralistic perspective. Traits like morality, religion, appreciation of beauty are explained from the evolutionary benefits they provide to the survival of our genes. Since altruism clearly works to the decrement of personal evolutionary fitness, this is seen as a failure of rationality: this point of view is very far removed from a Christian perspective. Religion is seen as a system with a purpose: to unify and coordinate a population to achieve a common set of goals by collective action.
The deep concord between science and religion is the subject of Part 3. The fine-tuning of the universe as the basis of the anthropic principle: we are here to observe the values of the constants only because they have the values they do have. In discussing Intelligent Design he argues that Paley’s watchmaker is not a conclusion reached by argument, but by perception: some things in nature strongly suggest that its parts were put together for a purpose. Plantinga talks about design discourse rather than design argument. He demonstrates that science emerged in Christian Europe, and was fostered, promoted and nurtured. Modern science has been called a legacy of Christianity. The “unreasonable efficacy of mathematics in the natural sciences” (Wigner) is another manifestation of the deep concord between science and theistic religion Our world is mathematically describable in terms of fascinating underlying mathematical structures of astounding complexity but also deep simplicity.
In Part 4 the deep conflict between naturalism and (evolutionary) science is explored. Naturalism might not be a religion in the strictest terms, but it does offer a master narrative: it tells us what reality is like, where we fit in, how we came to be. Plantinga argument circles around the reliability of our cognitive abilities. If our memory, our reasoning, perception, intuition, induction all evolved with the ultimate purpose to enhance the organism’s chances of survival, then what reason is there to assume that any of these abilities is reliable? He delves deep into the conflict and concludes that one can’t rationally accept both naturalism and evolutionary science.

I'm very familiar with the work of William Lane Craig, and he regularly mentions Alvin Plantinga, and I therefore had high hopes for this book.

Unfortunately I found the book very nearly unreadable.

I'm sure there are lots of very good arguments and insights in this book, but the writing style and content was too dense, cluttered, and unfocused for any of the good stuff to get through.

Here's a list of the biggest problems I had with this book:

1. Too Many Repeating Sentences - The author regularly repeats the same sentence, multiple times, with slight variations and a few terms rearranged. Instead of these repetitions making his point clearer, his point instead becomes muddied because he keeps rephrasing his words.

2. Too Many Statements in Parentheses - There are parenthetical statements (statements enclosed in parentheses) galore. So many, in fact, that I had to stop reading them so that I could understand the points the author tries to make.

3. Too Many "Advanced Level" Discussions - The book uses two slightly different size fonts to distinguish between "popular level" content and more advanced level content. Popular level content is the majority of the book, but only marginally outweighs the advanced level stuff. There are large swaths of discussions on advanced probability theory and similar topics. And when I say "advanced", I mean ADVANCED! My head hurt after attempting to read the first such section--and I consider myself relatively competent at grasping high-level concepts. The effect this has is that nearly a third of the book was unreadable for me. I don't understand why this book needed to include these sections. The advanced concepts should have been left for a separate book.

4. Too Many Footnotes - Footnotes occur frequently and are often several paragraphs long. Again, this eventually just turns into filler material that is tangential to the subject I'm interested in. When I first started reading this book, I began reading the footnotes because they sometimes had useful information, but the result of having so many long footnotes is that the reader's focus and grasp of the subject matter is ruined.

Just to reiterate, I think there are lots of FANTASTIC points being made in this book. I just wish it were much, much easier to understand these points. Hopefully in the future Mr. Plantinga can find an editor who will help in the worthy cause of distilling Mr. Plantinga's writing into something that is clear and powerful.

Or it could just be me... :(

Confession: I didn't read every word of this book, skipping in particular the tiny print sections and footnotes.

WTCRL is very clearly organized. Each section follows the previous one in an orderly progression, logically sequencing Plantinga's arguments. And Plantinga does a superb job of describing where the reader is in the process, often writing: Here's what I will tell you...then later, here's what I am telling you...and then later, here's what I told you... At each step, the author makes clear where he is in his progression through the regular use of these summaries. Well done!

So why the two-star rating?

Imagine the margins of my book: I draw a single line for "that's an interesting or enlightening idea"...a question mark for "that doesn't seem to make sense"...and an exclamation point for "are you kidding me--that's absurd." Now flip through my book and find the question marks and exclamation points rapidly increasing in frequency, so by the end of the book my conclusion is "I'm not buying." And my overall conclusion is: Though thought provoking, comprehensive, and yes, very well organized, this book didn't appeal to me all that much. By the end, I felt I ought to read it, not I want to read it.

Aside: Suppose you trying to decide whether to read this book. Well, here's a test: If you are comfortable with persuasive arguments beginning with "because we human beings have been created in the image of God," then read on. If you are uncomfortable, then proceed with caution. You may be scribbling quite a few question marks and exclamation points in the margin of your book.

Alright, a couple of things to keep in mind in approaching this book. First, this is not friendly reading to the average joe off the street. You need some understanding of basic biology, physics, statistics, philosophy, theology, and maybe mathematics or else Plantinga will quickly lose you. Second, if you are looking for a book that says definitively that the Christian God is real, this is not your book. Plantinga does not set out here to argue for the existence of a particular God. Instead, his objective is to show that, contrary to what many prominent atheists have claimed, current scientific theories do not demand that one give up theism. In fact, he goes further and argues that science and religion actually compliment each other while science and naturalism are philosophically at odds. In this, I feel he was successful.

Points off for some convoluted and repetitive language. Plantinga sometimes takes such a roundabout way of arguing that it can be difficult to follow his point. Other times he argues in formulaic language, substituting variables for different ideas, and that can be a little tricky to keep track of too.

Good points though for, like I said, being successful in his argument. Also, I have to like this book at least a little for its presentation of an intriguing idea during the exploration of the proposal that God works at the quantum level:

"Just as it could be that God causes collapse-outcomes and does so freely, so it could be that we human beings, dualistically conceived, do the same thing. Suppose human beings, as the vast bulk of the Christian tradition has supposed, resembled God in being immaterial souls or selves, immaterial substances--with this difference: in their case but not in his, selves intimately connected with a particular physical body. Suppose, further, God has endowed human selves (and perhaps other agents as well) with the power to act freely, freely cause events in the physical world. In the case of human beings, this power could be the power to cause events in their brains and hence in their bodies, thus enabling them to act freely in the world. And suppose, still further, the specific proximate events human beings can cause are quantum collapse-outcomes....If so, our action in the world (though of course vastly smaller in scope) resembles divine action in the world; this would be still another locus of the imago dei." -p. 119-120

I don't know if this proposition is unique to this book or if it has been suggested elsewhere but this is the first time I had heard it. It's probably my favorite take on the idea of what it means to be made in God's image. Of course, there's no way to know if it's correct, but I like to think about it. It tickles my fancy.

Ultimately a good overview of the idea that science and religion are not enemies. I think this is a very important idea to grasp. I think Plantinga gives a good explanation of the damaging effects of buying into the superficial war betwen science and religion in his chapter on evolution:

"First, their (mistaken) claim that religion and evolution are incompatible damages religious belief, making it look less appealing to people who respect reason and science. But second, it also damages science. That is because it forces many to choose between science and belief in God. Most believers, given the depth and significance of their belief in God, are not going to opt for science; their attitude toward science is likely to be or become one of suspicion and mistrust. Hence these declarations of incompatibility have unhappy consequences for science itself." -p. 54

1. When did you read this work?

Days, where I used to live close to Boston.

I was visiting a friend at Harvard University.

The Room was unkempt, with pungent smell.

Pungent smell? It was an unwashed sock, close to the bed.

2. So, What happened?

Curious as always. I found this in his book case.

I grew up with, "Conflict-Thesis" between, Science and Religion.

This is popular narrative, which is not examined.

Sadly, it is not True [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Source:

[1] Ronald Numbers, Historian of Science
[2] James C. Ungureanu, Historian of Science
[3] Ian Barbour, Science and Religion Scholar
[4] Alistair McGrath, Science and Religion Scholar
[5] Peter Harrison, Historian of Science
[6] Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, The Whig Interpretation of History

3. Well, What is Plantinga saying?

Plantinga, is a Philosopher. He's quite accomplished, you know?

He approaches, question of, "Conflict between Science, Religion" from his field of inquiry.

He says, Real Conflict is between, Naturalism and Evolution.

To show, what he means by it,

Plantinga presents, "Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism."

In a Gist, EAAN argues, our cognitive faculties are programmed to survive, and not aim at true beliefs.

Thus, Naturalism becomes self-defeating, with assumption of evolution being true.

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

Most cogent and well written.

Some brief notes from my reading thus far:

1- We can and should make a distinction between evolution generally and Darwinism, with its questionable belief in a purposeless cosmos.

2- There is a great diversity of beliefs within evolutionary sciences. Moreover, this fits with the nature of our main modern scientific methodologies. They need not and should not be made into crude dogmas.

3- Perhaps because of said crude dogmas, many contrary arguments are ignored and have not been refuted for as long as we have known about evolution. (Plantinga gives examples like Locke's)

4- These naturalist dogmas have misinterpreted and/or misrepresented probability, percentages, and timescales in favour of reified concepts.

5- There are a number of philosophical mistakes in many of these pop science books- post hoc ergo propter hoc, strawman, begging the question, etc. Plantinga gives specific examples from a close reading and clear citing of the texts themselves.

Plantinga’s arguments and thoroughness is impressive. “One can’t rationally accept both naturalism and current evolutionary theory; that combination of beliefs is self-defeating. So then there is a deep conflict between naturalism and one of the most important claims of current science. My conclusion, therefore, is that there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic belief, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism. Given that naturalism is at least a quasi-religion, there is indeed a science/religion conflict, all right, but it is not between science and theistic religion: it is between science and naturalism. That’s where the conflict really lies.”

It is easy to see why Plantinga is so well respected. In this work he sets out to illustrate that the Christian worldview and the teachings of the Scriptures are not in contradiction with what has been observed through science. In doing so he exhibits immense intellectual honesty as he resides on the argument of the experts (both Christian and non) and even points out where certain arguments have flaws (such as the fine tuning argument). By doing this Plantinga sets himself of to be seen as a respected thinker who is truly seeking to present truth over an agenda. The conclusion of this work is that it is not Christianity and science that is at odds, rather, scientism and naturalism that are in conflict.

You don't need to know much about Aquinas or Anselm to follow Plantinga's thoughts on the real debate, but a bit of background helps. Bertrand Russell pictures an ancient world created in six days but aged billions of years in his Analysis of the Mind. Aquinas argues the universe's intricate design, with irrational things contributing to mutual order. It's not random, he says; it's the work of a powerful, rational God. Aquinas uses an analogy: just as a visitor sees human effort on a farm, they see God's effort in the world. This teleological proof says an intelligent being directs everything to its end, and that's why we call it God.
Hume steps in, saying proving God's existence is beyond human reason. He supports the teleological proof, drawing analogies between nature and human-made stuff, seeing order and design. Even seemingly irrational things must have a purposeful origin. Hume agrees this proof is persuasive but doubts we can know the cause from the effect. He warns against ascribing more perfection to gods than what's observed in the world, suggesting imperfect gods. You can't humanize God based on creations; nature's laws differ. Even if these proofs confirmed God's existence, Hume says it's a hollow hypothesis. His arguments align with theism but don't point to a specific deity.Plantinga tackles the ontological argument, claiming God's existence is logically necessary. He challenges Anselm's argument, introducing a possible world without God. To Anselm, that which nothing greater can be conceived exists both in the understanding and as a thing, because if it exists only in the understanding, it can be thought of as greater by also existing as a thing. Since it cannot be greater than itself, it must exist in reality. Kant says imagining coins existing doesn't mean you have them. Plantinga proposes his version, using modal logic to show if God's existence is possible, it's actual. His argument isn't conclusive, but it supports theism, especially if naturalism seems off. Plantinga disputes the claim that evolution is random, responding to Dawkins and Dennett's objections. He says God could've used evolution, finding no logical reason to rule out divine involvement. He argues the laws of physics don't make the universe causally closed, and miracles don't violate those laws; they're additional factors. God can act without breaking laws, influencing indeterministic events. In conflicts between Christian belief and scientific theories, Plantinga argues these are philosophical or theological, not strictly scientific. He says evolutionary psychology can't explain morality and religion origins, and biblical criticism lacks reliable methods. These conflicts are resolvable, he concludes.
Discussing the fine-tuning argument, Plantinga says physical constants and conditions are improbable under naturalism but not theism. Reviewing scientific literature, he argues it's a valid design discourse, unaffected by objections from Dawkins and others.
Plantinga challenges naturalism, saying it undermines cognitive reliability. If naturalism and evolution are true, our beliefs' truth probability is low. Trusting our scientific reasoning is like trusting monkeys with microscopes. He concludes theism, believing in a personal God, is a better explanation for our cognitive faculties and a more scientific worldview.

You may have heard that there is a conflict between science and religion. Promoting such a war has enabled many on both sides, fundamentalist creationists and fundamentalist atheists, to sell a lot of books. Even for those not on the extreme, there is a feeling and a fear that somehow faith in God is at odds with belief in science.

Of course, there is no such conflict. But philosopher Alvin Plantinga wants to go one step farther then saying there is no conflict between science and religion. He argues that there truly is a conflict, but it is between science and naturalism.

Before he gets there, he tackles the alleged conflict between faith and science. This takes two forms, the idea that Darwin's theory of evolution somehow refutes Christian faith and the idea that it is impossible to believe in miracles in a world of science. Such conflicts simply do not exist. Not only do they not exist, but promoting such conflict actually hurts science:

As a result, declarations by Dawkins, Dennett, and others have at least two unhappy results. First, their (mistaken) claim that religion and evolution are incompatible damages religious belief, making it look less appealing to people who respect reason and science. But second, it also damages science. That is because it forces many to choose between science and belief in God. Most believers, given the depth and significance of their belief in God, are not going to opt for science; their attitude towards science is likely to be or become one of suspicion and mistrust. Hence these declarations of incompatibility have unhappy consequences for science itself. - Plantinga, Alvin (2011-11-11). Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (p. 54). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

In the second part of the book Plantinga looks at two areas where there appears to be a superficial conflict: evolutionary psychology and scriptural scholarship. While there may be small conflict, the claims of those two disciplines do not provide a defeater for belief in God.

Speaking of "defeaters", it is important to grasp the understanding of basic beliefs for Plantinga. Over and over again he speaks of many beliefs we hold with no evidence, things like perception, memory, and that other people have minds. When we see a sheep on a hill far ahead we do not form an argument that there is a sheep. We simply see it and believe it is there. This belief is justified. In the same way, believing other people perceive the world how we do and remembering what we had for breakfast do not require arguments and evidence. A defeater is something that would prove such beliefs wrong. If someone says of our seeing the sheep, "that's my dog Skip," we now have our belief defeated.

Plantinga argues that belief in God is just such a basic belief. We do not need evidence to prove our belief in God, it is rational to believe in God in a basic way. But can such a belief be defeated? No such defeater has been found. Plantinga argues that evolution is definitely nowhere close and the topics of part two, though there is superficial conflict, are not near being defeaters either.

Then in part three he discusses areas where there is concord between science and faith, making the claim that is extended in part four, that belief in science has much more justification for theism then naturalism.

Finally, part four is the height of the book. Here Plantinga takes science, the belief in evolution, and naturalism, the belief that there is nothing outside of nature. For Plantinga, you cannot sensibly believe in both evolution and naturalism. For if all we are is nature, then our evolution is driven solely by survival. We desire to feed, survive and reproduce. Survival, not truth, is what is most important.

We assume that our cognitive faculties are reliable. But what I want to argue is that the naturalist has a powerful reason against this initial assumption, and should give it up. I don’t mean to argue that this natural assumption is false; like everyone else, I believe that our cognitive faculties are, in fact, mostly reliable. What I do mean to argue is that the naturalist—at any rate a naturalist who accepts evolution—is rationally obliged to give up this assumption. - Plantinga, Alvin (2011-11-11). Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (p. 326). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

One objection to Plantinga's argument is that it seems obvious that true beliefs would ensure survival. He admits this is true, but says it is irrelevant. His argument is not about how things are but how we would expect things to be if naturalism and evolution were both true. We cannot assume naturalism (materialism) is true from the outset. If we imagine it being true we imagine a world where all that matters is survival and truth is irrelevant. He says:

It is by virtue of its neurophysiological properties that B causes A; it is by virtue of those properties that B sends a signal along the relevant nerves to the relevant muscles, causing them to contract, and thus causing A. It isn’t by virtue of its having that particular content C that it causes what it does cause. So once again: suppose N&E were true. Then materialism would be true in either its reductive or its nonreductive form. In either case, the underlying neurology is adaptive, and determines belief content. But in either case it doesn’t matter to the adaptiveness of the behavior (or of the neurology that causes that behavior) whether the content determined by that neurology is true.29

Plantinga, Alvin (2011-11-11). Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (p. 340). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

In a natural world your desire to get a drink of water is driven by your biological need for water. Any true beliefs you have about water, or false ones, are irrelevant. Believing in naturalism and evolution thus provides a defeater for naturalism in that you have no good reason to hold it is true.

Plantinga's argument is long and detailed, so I hope I did a halfway decent job of illustrating it here. I first encountered some of these ideas of basic beliefs and defeaters in his book Warranted Christian Belief. I found this book much better, more approachable for a non-specialist in philosophy. That said, there were parts of it that were definitely a chore. I am grateful for people like Plantinga who make such arguments, but I am more grateful for those who can distill them down to be made understandable for normal, average people. I work my way through books like this because I think it truly helps me in ministry, but I can't say I enjoy reading them as I do some other Christian thinkers like David Bentley Hart or James KA Smith.

Overall, a good and challenging read that has much that can be useful in helping those who have questions about faith and science.

I had been looking forward to reading this book since I saw it was on the Apologetics syllabus here at RTS Jackson. I've wanted to read something by Plantinga for some time -- and especially since reading the chapter on his thought in Morely's Mapping Apologetics. What I didn't expect was to enjoy the book as much as I did!

Plantinga's central argument is that, despite assertions to the contrary, Christianity is extremely compatible with science, and that naturalism is not. He makes his case very convincingly; he does not overstate his conclusions. (He actually ends chapter 9 saying, "I realize this is a wet noodle conclusion"!) He soundly defeats supposedly scientific arguments against theism and cogently demonstrates where others may present some sort of defeater to theism, but that the theist still has epistemic warrant to continue believing in God.

I was surprised by how funny Plantinga is. That levity prevented the book from becoming boring (which I'm sure it easily could have been). He also helpfully distinguishes the more difficult-to-follow technical sections with a smaller font so that readers, like myself, who are not well-versed in modern philosophical jargon, can easily skim or skip. (I still attempted to read them, but I cannot claim to have understood the words that passed in front of my eyes.) The large-print sections of the book are by no means light reading, but they're also not totally inaccessible.

Is religion in general – and Christianity in particular – locked in an eternal struggle with science? Are they as discordant as often portrayed?

Alvin Plantinga spent much of his career examining science in the light of Christian theism and has brought his considerable philosophical gifts to bear on the alleged conflicts in Where the Conflict Really Lies. The short answer is no, there is no conflict. But he goes further. His premise is that “There is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and religion, in particular theistic religion, and superficial concord but deep conflict between science and naturalism.” Concord and conflict inform the four-part structure of the book.

In Part I (Alleged Conflict), he shows the conflicts often alleged (especially by the New Atheists) to exist between science and theistic religion are superficial. They are not genuine conflicts. Specifically, he looks at Darwinian evolution and miracles.

Chapters 1 and 2 examine evolution and theistic belief. Dawkins, Dennett, et al., assert the incompatibility between evolutionary biology and Christianity because the random mutations of evolution mean that God had no part in it. However, “random” indicates the merely the absence of physical mechanisms which cause mutations. Evolution could be guided by God in other ways. The belief in unguided evolution is an assumption made by naturalists, not a vital part of evolutionary theory.

In chapters 3 and 4 he examines “divine action in the world” (i.e., miracles). The alleged conflict between science and the miraculous is not real because neither classical physics nor quantum mechanics conflicts with miracles since they assume closed systems. If the system is not closed, miracles can occur. It’s the addition of the requirement of a closed system that conflicts with Christian theism, not science itself.

In Part II (Superficial Conflict), Plantinga examines evolutionary psychology and historical Scripture scholarship. Here there is genuine conflict, but it is superficial, meaning that it does not present any defeators to the Christian faith. Since historical criticism adopts the uniformitarian principle of science, it rejects miracles. However, the assumption of uniformitarianism is not necessary for historical criticism. Likewise, though evolutionary psychology can explain how certain beliefs arose, that fact does not tell us whether those beliefs are true or not. Plantinga shows that any conflicts that exist derive from the addition of unjustified assumptions, not from science itself.

In Part III (Concord), Plantinga asserts there is indeed deep concord between science and theistic religion in that some of the deliverances of science provide significant evidence for theistic belief. Here he examines the fine-tuning argument which he believes offers (only mild) support for theism. He also examines intelligent design arguments.

His most important contribution in this section concerns the mechanism by which Christian theism shares deep concord with science. He does this by examining what must be true for the science to have any validity at all. What conditions does science require? Our cognitive faculties must properly align with the world, nature must follow predictable laws consistently, and we must have the cognitive abilities to understand all of this. All science depends on these foundational conditions, and these conditions are in concord with Christian theism because of its teaching that we are created in the image of God. Because we are created in God’s image, we can be confident that our faculties are reliable and designed to understand the world He created.

In Part IV (Deep Conflict), Plantinga makes perhaps his most powerful point. There is deep conflict between science and naturalism. Any concord between them is superficial. He demonstrates this by means of his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. Natural selection, in a naturalistic worldview, would not favor reliable cognitive faculties because, according to naturalism, our faculties did not evolve with a goal to produce true beliefs but to help us survive and reproduce. Those are the only goals of evolution, not truth detection. Adaptions that help us survive may produce beliefs that are false. Our cognitive faculties are not necessarily reliable. They might be, but we don’t have grounds for believe that they are.

Evaluation

Plantinga is a pleasure to read because his prose is so clear and his arguments easy to follow if not understand. Though he was trying to make his case understandable for the non-philosopher, at points it would be hard for a layman to follow without the commitment of considerable time and effort.

His evolutionary argument against naturalism is very helpful as is his development of the concord between Christian theism and science (as regards the foundations of all knowledge). These are powerful arguments and I appreciate them. They form the most valuable part of the book for me.

In the end, I believe Plantinga did much to prove his thesis that science is not in conflict with Christian theism. My problem is with his definition of Christian theism. It is not likely to resonate with many who consider themselves Christians. By his definition, Christians who believe in a young earth, six literal days of creation, or the creation of man by direct act of God are excluded. That kind of theism is definitely in conflict with science. Since a great many Christians do believe these things, none of his arguments on this count will help them or be usable by them. For many devout Christians the conflict is real and irreconcilable. Plantinga just excluded them without so much as an explanation.

He does not seem to be positing anything like historic Christianity. By his understanding of guided evolution, there was no Adam created by direct act of God, which is a central tenet for many Christians. If there was no actual first Adam, what does it mean to say Christ is the second Adam. For many (most?) Christians, there is a real conflict, and they are not willing to revise their theism to accommodate the deliverances of science. For those Christians, this book will be of limited value and will likely be seen as an untenable compromise of Biblical religion.

Carefully argued with an interesting mix of confidence and humility that is very endearing. He’s also funny. But tldr I think his blunting of the Dawkins crew’s claims is pretty powerful. I’m not as convinced on his “naturalism is self defeating” piece. I’ve read it in various places now and think I got a better grasp of it this time, but it still feels like too big of a knock out punch to swing for and that maybe an atheist philosopher could argue against it well but I haven’t looked for that counter argument yet.

Denne bog er noget for sig. Alvin Plantinga er en utrolig klog og velformuleret mand, men jeg tror jeg er for dum til at forstå ham. Jeg lærte noget, men det er nok en bog man skal læse et par gange for at få det hele med.

I really enjoyed the content of this book, but really disliked the way he put it together. I think he was trying to appeal to too broad of an audience, and the tone switches from conversational to deep philosophical arguments didn’t really work. (Even with his efforts to mitigate this with marking the more rigorous passages). The structure of the book didn’t flow particularly natural either. If you constantly have to remind your reader where you are, you might have a structure problem.

Overall this book definitely had some great content, but was a somewhat painful read.

Alvin Plantinga is Notre Dame professor emeritus in philosophy and winner of the Templeton Prize. He is America's preeminent Protestant Christian philosopher. I've previously read his Warranted Christian Belief. Plantinga's argument here is that “there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism.” He denies significant conflict between science and theistic religion in part by suggesting that "scientific" conclusions thought to be at odds with theism tend not to be science at all, but theological or philosophical add-ons to scientific conclusions. Along the way, his careful and precise arguments make the arguments of folks such as Richard Dawkins take on the air of a man noisily eating spaghetti with his bare hands. Overall, the book is heavy sledding for an amateur but well worth reading.

There are so many problems with this book. Plantinga routinely commits the fallacy of "An author somewhere claimed P, or uttered a statement implicitly assuming P; therefore, P." (Unless, of course, there's disagreement between different authors—then he'll just tell you who was right.) His grasp on probabilistic reasoning is also slippery, which is worrying considering that it forms the basis of his final argument. Sometimes he jettisons the notion of probability entirely, as he does when considering how to update his beliefs upon receiving low-probability evidence: the answer, apparently, is to binarily keep or reject each of his remaining beliefs? Come on—there are whole fields of study devoted to this issue!

Between these issues with the content and the, um, innovative typography (are four separate sizes of type necessary? Also, Schrödinger's name is misspelled both in the text and in the index), this book has lowered my opinion of Oxford University Press.

This is a very difficult read and one that I found mostly excruciating. I generally stop reading a book like this, if it has not fully engaged me within the first one hundred pages, but every time I was about to stop reading this, something would again tweak my interest to continue. Nevertheless, such a monotonous series of repetitive arguments becomes quickly tiring, ultimately requiring periodic “vacations” from the book and thereby extending it.

I guess my dislike of the book centered around its mission to prove God through a series of mathematical formula or logical expressions. For me, God fully transcends academic computations, when recognized in the action of love. In comparison to the abstraction of love, no amount of ciphering is going to bring one into a full knowledge of God. That happens only when one immerses themselves fully in actions of love. There is a point in your faith journey where mathematical and logical intellectual arguments of this nature cease to be interesting, or even relevant, against the knowing fullness of life experiences in Christ.

However, this book is very helpful in repelling the lies promulgated by atheists, who routinely attribute most of the world’s ills to religion, pointing to the Crusades, witch hunts, wars, and terrorisms. Plantinga rightly points out that even though the world’s religions have much to repent, the suffering, death, and havoc attributable to religions pales to utter insignificance in comparison to that from atheistic and secular ideologies in the 20th century alone. Through an ardent display of logic, Plantinga relegates the atheistic position to nothing more than adolescent rebellion.

Of interest is Plantinga’s contention that we are made in the image of God by virtue of the fact that we are able to know and understand something of ourselves, our world, and of God. It is an image that is constituted by righteousness and holiness. It is an image that believers recognize, subscribe to, and seek to emulate.

Plantinga acknowledges that, to the extent that modern science seeks out goodness, it is indeed a reflection upon the divine nature. Plantinga quotes Albert Einstein in saying: “a proper scientist is a real seeker after truth”. Plantinga insists that, for science to work, there must be regularity and predictability in the world and such scientists have to “believe” in that exhibited order to proceed in any rational manner. It is an “order” orchestrated by God, as cited by the greatest of minds, like Newton and Einstein. Indeed, the further science probes, the more it sees that it is in fact a very sublime order.

Plantinga successfully attacks the contention that natural selection in evolution is blind and unguided, effectively showing that the much greater probability lies in a process that is superintended and orchestrated. Plantinga asks, “is it really possible that unguided natural selection could generate all of the stunning marvels of the living world?” Plantinga frames the absurdity of an assumption that somehow cosmic radiation, x-rays, chemical agents, etc. have more validity for promoting evolutionary mutations than divine intervention. Plantinga remarks that: “the contention that all of creation just came about by happenstance is about as probable as the assembly of a flight-worthy Boeing 747 by a hurricane roaring through a junkyard”. Perhaps even more intricate is the human eye. The eye alone is so intricate as to render it totally improbable that it could have come into being by happenstance. So, the contention that matter could somehow randomly produce an entire thinking intelligent being is simply untenable. Why, other than for the mere sake of rebellion, would anyone want to believe that the entire living world has been produced by mindless natural selection? Again, it amounts to nothing more than adolescent rebellion!

The traditional theistic arguments are much more tenable: the ontological argument that, because it can be perceived, it must be; the cosmological argument, that “cause” and “effect” presupposes an original cause; and the design argument, that the sheer intricacy of a thing implies a designer. These arguments are the reason that the vast majority of Americans reject atheism and some 80-90 percent believe in God.

Perhaps cosmology is the most prolific of these arguments. It is certainly beyond the scope of this review to endeavor to explain the cosmological argument fully, but, in a nutshell, it is the perception that all things are preceded by a cause so there must be an original cause. For some reason, we tend to accept the fundamentals of causality, but fail to recognize the power that causality bestows upon us, which is the power to influence tomorrow by what we do today. Because we exist and can act, we have the power to cause. That is an enormous power that permits us to create a world of our choosing. The question is whether we prefer to create a heaven or a hell? If we believe in causality, we must believe that the Kingdom of God is available to us, whenever we choose to welcome it in.

Plantinga suggests that divine intervention could direct mutation events in evolution to purposely give rise to sentient beings bequeathed with the power to, by their very presence, manipulate the direction of causation. And yet, the general person is ignorant of the vast power they possess in this regard. The general person allows themselves to be guided and directed by laws imposed upon them by governments, in which they truly exert very little influence. But laws are laws only if obeyed. If widely disobeyed, laws are ineffectual and powerless. Examples of such ineffectual laws include prohibition, abortion, substance abuse, speed zones, etc. More dramatic would be the laws imposed by the Hitler regime. Plantinga would ask the atheist why society needed God to stop the atrocities at Auschwitz, when it was clearly within the power of society to stop these atrocities by standing collectively against them? Cosmological awareness beckons mankind to awaken from the stupor of tolerating indecent evils!

So the question remains: what sort of world do humans create? Misery is largely the result of human creation through abuse, hoarding, greed, torture, slavery, environmental destruction, rudeness, etc. To change it, we must cease creating miserable circ*mstances. Just as we exert control within our body, we must similarly exert control in the world. We have to cease being docile by believing only what others want us to believe. Godly righteousness must be our guide, not social acceptance, not propaganda, and certainly not unjust laws. Our nature is the “image” of God because we have an intellect that is able to imitate God. We can make what we will of the world. Why not make heaven?

Supernatural Selection

Alvin Plantinga arguments lost my interest by the third chapter. I confess that I skimmed the rest to at least see what I would be missing if I ended early. Plantinga attempts to address the conflict between science, religion, and naturalism over the long fought creation vs. evolution debate. She deals more with the philosophical conflict than the actual scientific evidence. Choosing to focus on the philosophical issues instead of scientific claims caused me to concluded that this book would not be as beneficial. Evolution as a scientific issue needs to be addressed by science. Yes, there are philosophical and theological pillars that uphold either an evolutionist or a creationist position. Yet, the battle is not so much over philosophy, but science. Perhaps at a latter time I shall revisit this book, but for now I can only give it three stars based on what I encountered.

Good discussion on the ways science, religion and naturalism intersect and the various tensions and conflict between them. The thesis of the book is excellent. Particularly good was Plantinga's interaction with the works of Dawkins and Dennet in which he was both erudite and very funny, very similar to Berlinski's Devil's Delusion. The section on evolution, evolutionary pyschology , and higher criticism was helpful in their clarification of the issues. His comments on ID good but Meyer's discussion in Signature of the Cell is probably more helpful on a few of the critical points e.g. nature of historical science which Plantinga seems to ignore. The final section on where naturalism leaves epistemology is probably more thorough than any other I have read.

This is an important book. Plantinga unravels the assumption that science and Theism are at odds. Actually Naturalism is a self defeating position. It would be interesting to overhear a conversation between Plantinga and some of the popular Naturalists who seem to be dismissive of Theism and very confident of their conclusions.

Briljant!