Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism: The Debate

A debate between philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Stephen Law.

Richard Dawkins has said that "the theory of evolution made it possible to be an intellecually fulfilled atheist". But what if belief in evolution becomes irrational on atheist naturalism? Alvin Plantinga is one of the foremost Christian philosophers in the world and is leading a resurgence of Christian philosophy in North America. He has formulated the "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" which proposes that if evolution is true then it provides a defeater for rational belief on a naturalistic framework. Can we trust our beliefs to be true if they have been produced by minds that are themselves the products of unguided evolution - a process that is geared towards producing beliefs for survival, not necessarily for truth? He explains the force of the argument and debates its implications with Stephen Law, atheist and Senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop college, University of London. Stephen is also Provost of the Centre for Inquiry UK. Plantinga also states where he stands on Intelligent Design, the problem of evil and a few other things besides.

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[herbatorres]

Have you ever though about putting these in podcast form?

[rfvidz]

@herbatorres I actually got these from podcasts. I figured I put them in video make them more accessible.

[herbatorres]

Thanks for putting these up.

[rfvidz]

@herbatorres You're welcome.

[LittleSn00py]

Can you upload the discussion between Plantinga and Putnam?

[rfvidz]

@LittleSn00py You're a step ahead of me. Yeah, I plan on putting that up. I have a bunch more Plantinga videos coming soon (over 20 of them!). So stay tuned.

[Hektor88]

@TheBeardedMan01 Look up 1 Kings 22:20-23, and Exodus 9:12. God is deceptive, according to the Bible. So, Biblical theism refutes cognitive abilities of the theist, because anything you believe may be a "spirit of deception" or a "hardening of the heart," INCLUDING your belief that Biblical theism is true! One can escape this by saying "those verses aren't literal," or whatever, but then you're being inconsistent with your belief.

See, it's easy to play these games.

[Satarack]

Dr. Law's "water to the south" example isn't really a good one for his case. Quite simply, it is only contingently true that there was water to the south; so the belief was true, but in other circumstances would be false. If this person was a Nomad, and travelled somewhere else and got thirsty; would he still find water if he travelled south? Not necessarily. It was only to the south at the last location, not the current location.

[StygianDysnomia]

@tifforo1 Exactly. We already know our human intuitions tend to be faulty on small scales like quantum mechanics, so I think this argument could be applied to theism as well. Either way, what's true is true, regardless if we like it or not.

[tifforo1]

If naturalism is correct, the human brain is imperfect. If naturalism is incorrect, the human brain is still known to be imperfect. We have to use our brains as our center for processing information either way.

[tifforo1]

@TheBeardedMan01

One of the main objectives of human investigation and inquiry is to determine and check which of the conclusions of our cognitive processes are correct.

[TheBeardedMan01]

@tifforo1

It doesn't attempt to disprove atheism. Did you listen to the debate?

Alvin Plantinga's argument is that if evolution is true then it undercuts our belief in naturalism. It undercuts our belief in naturalism because of the very thing that may bring a person there, his cognitive abilities, are in question.

[TheBeardedMan01]

To build on my previous post:

Stephen Law claimed that a theist would equally be put into the same problem. In that by using his cognitive abilities he discovered that God doesn't exist and could therefore conclude that his cognitive abilities are not reliable.

The main problem with this is that this isn't a problem for a theist, but rather for the atheist who is know questioning his reliability of his cognitive abilities. So Stephen Law's argument is invalid as it is not a theist but an atheis

[TheBeardedMan01]

Stephen Law presupposes that his cognitive abilities are true. And he try's to refute Alvin Plantinga's argument against the reliability of our cognitive abilities by using his cognitive abilities, the very thing that is in question! it is a circulatory argument, and is as a result fallacious. However, Alvin Plantinga doesn't make the same mistake. rather, he has a bases for his belief on the reliability of his cognitive abilities.

[IR17171717]

@ApologeticsArsenal also read 'knowledge of god' its a debate in book form

[wearestarstuffsagan]

its an argument (week as it is) against beliefs, not just naturalism, but all beliefs