Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism Author: Alvin Plantinga | Language: English | ISBN:
B005X3SAHY | Format: PDF
Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism Description
This book is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates -- the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
Plantinga examines where this conflict is supposed to exist -- evolution, evolutionary psychology, analysis of scripture, scientific study of religion -- as well as claims by Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Philip Kitcher that evolution and theistic belief cannot co-exist. Plantinga makes a case that their arguments are not only inconclusive but that the supposed conflicts themselves are superficial, due to the methodological naturalism used by science. On the other hand, science can actually offer support to theistic doctrines, and Plantinga uses the notion of biological and cosmological "fine-tuning" in support of this idea. Plantinga argues that we might think about arguments in science and religion in a new way -- as different forms of discourse that try to persuade people to look at questions from a perspective such that they can see that something is true. In this way, there is a deep and massive consonance between theism and the scientific enterprise.
- File Size: 540 KB
- Print Length: 376 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0199812098
- Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 11, 2011)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005X3SAHY
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,003 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Alvin Plantinga is back for his third very resilient attempt at confuting naturalism via the theory of evolution.
From his science vs. religion exposition, Plantinga relaunches his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) in this popular-level volume: "Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism." Much has changed in twenty years, from the non-theistic cast to the bombastic rants of the New Atheists, but the big change is the sundry ways atheists have attacked theism including the philosophically na?ve abjuration of Plantinga's EAAN.
As a high-volume reviewer of apologetic books, I am regularly sent books and E-files that I review on Amazon. The prominent and the unknown scholars behind these philosophical and apologetic works claim to defeat non-theism and attempt to argue faithfully for Christian truth.
Some contain arguments that lack precision as they often take too much for granted when approaching sophisticated unbelieving thought. I have not given their contentions much weight, but their apparent unsupported disputations make books like "Where the Conflict Really Lies" that much more gratifying.
Herein, Alvin Plantinga offers insightful analysis that defies many of our presumptions of what science is and how religion relates to it.
Much of the territory Plantinga surveys will be familiar to philosophers, epistemologists, and apologists, yet less theoretically oriented readers are likely to find it assessable and intriguing--and often related with creditable simplicity.
The central proposal of this work is that the true conflict is not between theism and science, but is between naturalism and science.
Some Christian theists, in selected ways, feel a bit troubled by nominated aspects of modern science.
This book ties together several areas that Plantinga has been writing on and doing lectures on college campuses over the past several years. He goes methodically through the current discussions on quantum mechanics and evolution and discusses the relevance each has for naturalism and theism. The book progresses towards Plantinga's conclusion that naturalism is in conflict with science where he further develops his evolutionary argument against naturalism. The book contains the latest developments in science and many of the footnotes will reveal that the articles and books cited are current within the last decade (for instance, Robin Collins recent formulation for the fine tuning argument in the Blackwell companion to Natural Theology).
What I appreciate most about the book is Plantinga's ability to separate what he believes are the facts from what would make the best argument. He is rather candid in his assessment of probability theory concerning the various fine tuning arguments that may surprise or disappoint some theistic readers but this is a major strength of the book; Plantinga puts forth what he believes are the limits of some of the theistic arguments which makes the book all the more rigorous in its approach. Even for those that disagree, Plantinga's careful approach should provide the reader with ample material to assess their position. In other words, Plantinga does not seek to automatically stack the deck in his favor.
Lastly, a great feature of the book is the separated fonts throughout the books' arguments; the primary material is presented in one font and the more advanced philosophical discussions are in another font so that the reader can decide whether they want to skip ahead or not, thereby easily benefiting readers of various philosophical or scientific levels.
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