Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition by Alvin Plantinga (PDF)

Description

In this long-awaited book, pre-eminent analytical philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The thesis of this book is that the putative conflict between science and faith is a will of the wisp. The real conflict is not between science and faith but between science and a ‘naturalistic’, materialist view of the world. Scientists are not permitted to include theistic beliefs in their accounts of reality; they must adhere to the tenets of what is, in many cases, itself a quasi-religion—a worldview and method which limits the utilization of specific material.When we look more closely we find that faith is quite commensurate with science. Science, like faith, assumes that there are continuities in our experience. We do not live in a chaotic, haphazard, unpredictable world. The conclusions of Galileo’s falling body experiments would be the same if he conducted them a week earlier or a month later. This divine underwriting of experience was assumed by nearly all of the great scientists of the renaissance and enlightenment.With Darwin comes an alteration, but only when Darwin is misread. Evolutionary science is fully commensurate with faith. Unguided evolution is not, but unguided evolution is not a part of evolutionary science. It is a metaphysical add-on, something introduced by contemporary atheists.Real evolutionary science actually conflicts with naturalism. How? A non-teleological evolutionary science fails to account for (and support) human beliefs. Selection may confer an evolutionary advantage but it does not reinforce belief. It simply contributes to the persistence of our gene pool. We may evolve in such a way that we become more ‘fit’ but that does not also mean that we are more ‘right’, that our beliefs are undergirded, confirmed and extended. Science depends upon belief and the confirmability and falsifiability of our beliefs. Unguided evolution cannot account for systematic belief, but theism can.In the course of examining these issues Plantinga looks at other aspects of contemporary apologetics, e.g. the ‘fine tuning’ argument and the possibility for explaining divine intervention without the disruption of continuity via the use of quantum mechanics. He is very direct and honest in his assessments of these various arguments, even when the chapters end on a limp note. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘I would like to be more dramatic and decisive and definitive but I have an obligation to tell what I believe to be the truth.’ His writing ‘voice’ is attractive, engaging and quite entertaining. He utilizes superb examples and interjects comic sidebars and asides.One of the interesting aspects of the book is its graphic design. The text appears in two founts with the main thrust of the argument in larger type than the detailed arguments which support it. Those arguments can become quite technical. While the overall thrusts of the book will be accessible to all interested readers, the formal demonstrations are complex, with lengthy equations and the application of logic that goes beyond simple syllogisms.Fundamentally this is an important book on an important subject by an important philosopher of religion. It will repay attention as it summarizes many contemporary issues and arguments.

⭐Alvin Carl Plantinga (born 1932) is a Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, who formerly taught philosophy at Calvin College. He has written many books such as

⭐,

⭐,

⭐,

⭐,

⭐,

⭐, etc. A collection of his writings is found in

⭐.He wrote in the Preface of this 2011 book, “My overall claim in this book: there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism… If my thesis is right, therefore… then there is a science/religion (or science/quasi-religion) conflict, all right, but it isn’t between science and theistic religion: it’s between science and naturalism.” (Pg. ix-x)He adds, “What there is, instead, is conflict between theistic religion and a philosophical gloss or add-on to the scientific doctrine of evolution: the claim that evolution is UNDIRECTED, unguided, unorchestrated by God… I argue that it is improbable, given naturalism and evolution, that tour cognitive faculties are reliable. It is improbable that they provide us with a suitable preponderance of true belief over false. But then [for] a naturalist who accepts current evolutionary theory … ALL of her beliefs have been produced by her faculties—including, naturally enough, her belief in naturalism and evolution. That belief, therefore—the conjunction of naturalism and evolution—is one that she can’t rationally accept.” (Pg. xii, xiv)He points out, “A… source of conflict has to do with the … claim that God has created human beings IN HIS IMAGE. This requires that god INTENDED to create creatures of a certain kind—rational creatures with a moral sense and the capacity to know and love him—and then acted in such a way as to accomplish this intention. This claim is clearly consistent with evolution… as conservative theologians have pointed out as far back as 1871. Thus, for example, Charles Hodge, the distinguished Princeton theologian… For example, God could have caused the right mutations to arise at the right time; he could have preserved populations from perils of various sorts, and so on; and in this way he could have seen to it that there come to be creatures of the kind he intends… What is NOT consistent with Christian belief, however, is the claim that this process of evolution is UNGUIDED… yet precisely this claim is made by a large number of contemporary scientists and philosophers who write on this topic.” (Pg. 11-12)He goes on: “God would have achieved the results he wanted by causing the right mutations to arise at the right times, letting natural selection do the rest. Another possibility: Thomas Huxley… suggested that God could have arranged initial conditions in such a way that the results he wanted would be forthcoming…. [Richard] Dawkins’s claim, of course, is that there is no such intelligent agent guiding the process; ‘the evidence of evolution,’ he says, ‘reveals a universe without design.’ What makes him think this is true? How does he propose to argue for this claim? Not, naturally enough, by … even arguing that the processes involved in those transitions were not in fact overseen or guided by such an agent… Instead, he tries to show that is it POSSIBLE that unguided natural selection should have produced all these wonders; it COULD BE that they have all come to be just by virtue of unguided natural selection.” (Pg. 16-17)He critiques Daniel Dennett’s book

⭐: “I’m sorry to say this is about as bad as philosophy … gets; … Dennett’s way of carrying on is an insulting expression of disdain for those who do serious work in this area… (Or perhaps it shows where blind allegiance to ideology can lead.) The question is whether there is a source of rational religious belief going beyond perception, memory, a priori intuition, induction, et cetera. This question has been widely discussed and debated for the last forty years, ever since Dennett was in graduate school. He airily ignores this lively and long lasting research project; instead he just tells absurd stories… whatever the reason, Dennett’s ventures into the epistemology of religious belief do not inspire confidence. First of all… contemporary philosophers HAVE come up with perfectly sensible defenses of the idea that there can be sources of knowledge in addition to reason… Naturally these defenses might be mistaken; but to show that they are requires more than a silly story and an airy wave of the hand.” (Pg. 45-46)He says, “[Philip] Kitcher

⭐] apparently thinks that given evolution, Christians and other theists would have to suppose that the point of the entire process was the production of our species; but why think a thing like that? According to the Bible (Gen 1:20-26), when God created the living world, he declared it to be good; he did not add that it was good because it would lead to human beings. 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 animal creation lies in their relation to humans.” (Pg. 57He argues, “classical science doesn’t assert or include Laplacean determinism. The laws don’t tell us how things always go; they tell us how they go when the relevant system is causally closed, subject to no outside causal influence. In classical science, therefore, there is no objection to special divine action… to get such an objection, we must add that the universe is causally closed, which is not itself part of classical science. Accordingly classical science is perfectly consistent with special divine action, including miracles… we have only conflict between religion… and a particular metaphysics according to which the universe is causally closed.” (Pg. 90)He suggests, “if Christian belief is true, the warrant for belief in special divine action doesn’t come from … current science or indeed any science at all; these beliefs have their own independent source of warrant. This means that in case of conflict between Christian belief and current science, it isn’t automatically current science that has more warrant or positive epistemic status; perhaps the warrant enjoyed by Christian belief is great than that enjoyed by the conflicting scientific belief.” (Pg. 120)Commenting on David Sloan Wilson’s

⭐, he says, “This sounds a bit as if he thinks of Calvinism as a project or activity that people undertake in order to achieve a common set of goals… In fact it is doubtful that Calvinism, or Roman Catholicism, or Christianity or for that matter Judaism or Islam are (wholly) intentional activities in that way at all… What is the purpose or aim of being a Calvinist? What is the purpose or aim of believing in God?… believing in God… typically doesn’t have any purpose at all. It isn’t that you believe in God… in order to achieve some end or other. You might as well ask me what my purpose or aim is in believing that I live in Michigan or that 7+5=12… they are not undertaken in order to achieve some end of other.” (Pg. 146)After discussing the suggested “fine-tuning” of the universe, he notes, “it doesn’t seem at all improbable that God would want to create life, both human life and life of other sorts; and if he wanted to create human life in a universe at all like ours, he would have been obliged to fine-tune the constants. On the other hand, on the atheistic hypothesis according to which these constants have their values by chance… it is exceedingly improbable that they would have been fine-tuned for life… given theism, fine-tuning is not at all improbable; given atheism, it is; therefore theism is to be preferred to atheism.” (Pg. 199) He adds, “The right conclusion, I think is that the FTA [fine-tuning argument] offers some slight support for theism… but only mild support. Granted: this is not a very exciting conclusion… It does, however, have the virtue of being correct.” (Pg. 224)He admits that “[Michael] Behe’s argument

⭐] … is by no means airtight. Behe has not demonstrated that there are irreducibly complex systems such that it is impossible or even monumentally improbable that they have evolved in a Darwinian fashion—although he has certainly provided Darwinians with a highly significant challenge. We have some of the same problems as with the fine-tuning argument… we don’t have a good way to ascertain the probability of these irreducibly complex systems, given the Chance hypothesis, and we also don’t have a good way to evaluate the probability of these phenomena, given an intelligent designer.” (Pg. 231-232) Nevertheless, he states, “Behe’s design discourses are in fact rather successful: his account of the structures he describes certainly do produce the impression of design.” (Pg. 259) He concludes, “Behe’s design discourses do support theism, although it isn’t easy to say how much support they offer.” (Pg. 264)He asserts, “bare LOGICAL POSSIBILITY is not enough: it is logically possible that the horse, say, sprang into being from the unicellular level… in one magnificent leap. What the Darwinian has to show… is an unguided evolutionary path which is not PROHIBITIVELY IMPROBABLE. Have the Darwinians actually accomplished this? Have they shown, for example, that it is not prohibitively improbable that the mammalian eye has developed in this way from a light sensitive spot? They have NOT shown this. The typical procedure… is to point to the various sorts of eyes displayed by living things, lining them up in a series of apparently increasing adaptive complexity, with the mammalian eye at the top of the series. But that of course doesn’t actually show that it is biologically possible… that later members of the series developed by Darwinian means from earlier members.” (Pg. 254-255)He points out, “The scientific theory of evolution … is entirely compatible with the thought that God has guided and orchestrated the course of evolution… in such a way as to achieve the ends he intends… On the other hand… there is the claim that the course of evolution is not directed or guided or orchestrated by anyone; it displays no teleology; it is blind and unforeseeing… This claim, however, despite its strident proclamation, is no part of the scientific theory as such; it is instead a metaphysical or theological add-on… the scientific theory … deserves the respect properly accorded to a pillar of science… And the confusion of the two… deserves not respect, but disdain.” (Pg. 308-309)He suggests, “Now it is not clear that naturalism, as it stands, is a religion… But naturalism does serve one of the main functions of a religion: it offers a master narrative, it answers deep and important human questions… Naturalism [says] … there is no God, there is no immortality, and the case for genuine freedom is at best dicey. Naturalism tells us what reality is ultimately like, where we fit into the universe, how we are related to other creatures, and how it happens that we came to be. Naturalism is therefore in competition with the great theistic religions… Suppose we call it a ‘quasi-religion.’ … the truth is that there is a science-religion conflict, all right, but it is between science and naturalism, not science and theistic religion.” (Pg. 310-311)He argues, “The basic idea of my argument could be put (a bit crudely) as follows: … the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low… if naturalism and evolution were both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable… So my belief that naturalism and evolution are true… shoots itself in the foot and is self-referentially incoherent; therefore I cannot rationally accept it.” (Pg. 314) But he presents the obvious counter-argument using zebras as an example: “If this structure isn’t properly correlated with the presence of predators, the zebra won’t be long for this world… And don’t those mechanisms have to be accurate, reliable, if the zebra is to survive?” He replies, “We can include these indicators under the rubric ‘cognitive faculties.’ The important point to see here, however, is that indication of this sort does not require BELIEF. In particular, it does not require belief having to do with the state of affairs indicated; indeed it is entirely compatible with belief INCONSISTENT with state of affairs.” (Pg. 328)There are many critiques of evolutionary theory by Christians (of various sorts) out there; Plantinga’s is perhaps distinguished by his greater level of philosophical argumentation in his analysis of the arguments. His book will interest most studying evolutionary theory and its critiques.

⭐This is the first book by Alvin Plantinga that I’ve read and am very pleased with it. Currently I’m in the last chapter but have read enough to give it 5 stars. I think he has done his best to be fair to different points of view.

⭐Somewhat confusing and deep at times. But, this text succinctly but thoroughly explained how science is really at odds with naturalism, and deeply concordant with Christian thought.

⭐Found this from William Lane Craig’s works and must say that it is refreshing to see intellects of this caliber that have not been caught up in the nihilism of the popular culture.

⭐Does a person who has faith have any justification for their beliefs? Well, yes, though there may be things that would defeat their beliefs. Some try to define faith in such a way that inference to the best explanation doesn’t exist, because that is more practical in making atheistic converts, but (wouldn’t there be no defeaters since theists then, at least respectable theists don’t define faith that way) that is just crafty salesmanship. Do you believe in other minds, the past, etc…prove it?Plantinga goes into an explanation for why everything from Critical Bible Scholarship to evolution does not threaten faith and he lays out the why quite well.He aims at modest goals versus complete dogmatics in explaining the existence of evil or other weighty subjects… Highly recommend…

⭐This is a good survey ov the metaphysics (and metabiology) of the new athiests and the plausibility of theism as a foundation for scientific understanding. Basically, if naturalism is true, then ‘truth’ does not exist. It’s a bit like the argument against scepticism. It’s a bit repetitive, though, and the logical arguments need careful attention. These also involve (not very convincing) analyses about relative “likelyhoods”, which are pretty technical. For my part, I think he’s right that science would be impossible on the usual crude and vague idea of naturalism, but mabey “matter” is more mysterious than we ever imagined.

⭐Jedem, den das Thema interessiert, kann man Plantingas – der sicherlich zu den bedeutendsten Religionphilosphen unserer Tage zählt – Werk empfehlen. In seinen Kapitel wendet er sich mehreren Themen zu, die im Kontext Wissenschaft und Religion (oder manchmal auch aufgefasst als Wissenschaft vs Religion) als problematisch erachtet werden, z.B. was die Evolution angeht oder “interventionstisches” Handeln Gottes. Neben meiner Meinung nach überzeugender Argumentation, dass der Konflikt – wenn es überhaupt einen gibt – zwischen Wissenschaft und Religion oberflächlicher Natur (die Übereinstimmung beider jedoch tiefgreifend ist) ist und sich diese Verhältnisse in umgekehrter Form auf den Naturalismus und Wissenschaft beziehen lassen, widment Plantinga die letzten 50 Seiten seinem Evolutionsargument gegen den Naturalismus, nutzt also etwas, das häufig als Stütze des Naturalismus verstanden wird, um zu argumentieren, dass der “Glaube” Evolution und Naturalismus zusammengenommen rational unhaltbar und somit nicht vertretbar ist. Ich finde das Buch vor allem im Vergleich anderer philosophischer SChriften wirklich angenehm (im Sinne von leicht) zu lesen und dürfte auch mit etwas mehr Aufwand von Lesern ohne philosophische Vorbildung gut verstanden werden.

⭐

⭐This book is a great work by Alvin Plantings. Essentially Plantinga is attempting to give reasonable evidence for his thesis which is; to show that there is deep Concord between religious faith and science and deep conflict between naturalism and science. While this book by no means gives conclusive proof for the existence of God it certainly gives enough philosophical reason to believe there is Concord between religion and science. While it won’t sway the atheist (and nothing can except God alone through his holy spirit) it is a great work of apologetics and should be added to the collection for further evidence to suggest the reliability of Christianity.

⭐Such a great book ✨

⭐Great book. Should give pause to any thoughtful naturalist

Keywords

Free Download Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition in PDF format
Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition PDF Free Download
Download Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition 2011 PDF Free
Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition 2011 PDF Free Download
Download Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition PDF
Free Download Ebook Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism 1st Edition