Plantinga's defence of religion

A Philosopher Defends Religion
September 27, 2012
Thomas Nagel

Review of

Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism
by Alvin Plantinga
Oxford University Press, 359 pp., $27.95

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defends-religio...

aka

http://bit.ly/QmoQHW

FWIW, I couldn't help noticing that Plantinga's contention that our senses and intellectual faculties are generally reliable because God made them so was also held by
al-Ghazali at a somewhat earlier date.

I came away from the essay with the feeling that Nagel considers the gulf between theists and atheists somewhat unbridgeable. If so, that would be too bad, but it could very well turn out to be the way things are.

And yes, I agree with Nagel that if I were ever to experience the Nicene creed as expressing truths, I would be way more likely to think I was suffering cognitive degeneration than that I was receiving the gift of divine insight.

But the essay itself is fairly enlightening and seems to live up to the promise of delineating "where the conflict really lies".

A decent article, but I would take issue with this statement drawn from it:

"The interest of this book, especially for secular readers, is its presentation from the inside of the point of view of a philosophically subtle and scientifically informed theist"

Plantinga is decidedly not a scientifically informed theist. He demonstrates time and again with his arguments concerning evolution that he doesn't actually understand the theory of evolution, and those misunderstandings cause him to come to hilariously ludicrous positions.

Some philosophers will be remembered in the future. Plantinga is not likely to be one of them, and if he is, it will be because his books were so amusingly silly.

As far as "theory" is concerned, the gulf between theists and atheists IS unbridgeable.

In "practice"--well, we gotta muddle along somehow...

I hope you read Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, it's quite a jolly romp.

I am sure you also agreed with Nagel's last paragraph

I say this as someone who cannot imagine believing what he believes. But even those who cannot accept the theist alternative should admit that Plantinga’s criticisms of naturalism are directed at the deepest problem with that view—how it can account for the appearance, through the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry, of conscious beings like ourselves, capable of discovering those laws and understanding the universe that they govern. Defenders of naturalism have not ignored this problem, but I believe that so far, even with the aid of evolutionary theory, they have not proposed a credible solution. Perhaps theism and materialist naturalism are not the only alternatives.

and will also enjoy his new book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.

>3 LolaWalser: In "practice"--well, we gotta muddle along somehow...

Thanks, Lola. I think this sentiment should be emblazoned in bright red letters at the beginning (and repeated every few posts) of every "Let's Talk Religion Thread"...

~5

Very, ah, English sentiment.