Q&A: The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
Question
I recently came across Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, which claims that believing in both naturalism and evolution together is not rational. If I understood him correctly, his claim is as follows.
If we believe that evolution causes the fittest to survive, then that includes our brain as well, which developed over the years into our successful brain. So it could be that our brain is not more reliable but rather more adapted and useful for survival. Therefore, if one also believes in naturalism—that natural reality is the only reality that exists, and there is no intervention by a supernatural being—then one cannot trust the brain as a reliable source of information about reality, because it could be that everything it causes us to perceive and think, and all the cognitive abilities that arise from it, are only such as contribute to survival. And if you cannot trust the brain as a reliable source of information, then the belief itself in naturalism and evolution is no longer reliable for that same reason, and therefore they are not rational.
Do you have anything to say about that?
Here is the argument in detail
https://www.bethinking.org/atheism/an-evolutionary-argument-against-naturalism
Answer
I certainly do. I completely agree, and I’ve brought this argument in several places.
Discussion on Answer
He didn’t write that this is an argument against evolution. Read it again. This is an “exposing” argument, as I defined in the recent columns and in the fourth conversation in The First Foundational Principle. If you think your senses are reliable, then implicitly you believe in God. Of course, you can also choose not to think they’re reliable and not believe in Him.
Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t understand why this is an argument against evolution. At most, it means you can’t rely on our intellect and senses to determine what the source of creation is, but that still doesn’t mean God is the source, does it?
And besides, it is still possible that the senses are correct, even if that didn’t have to be necessarily so, no?