Bill Vallicella has been reading Alvin Plantinga's new book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism and posting reviews of it chapter by chapter. Here are the links so far; I'll update this post as more are forthcoming.
Notes on the Preface
Notes on Chapter One
Plantinga versus Dawkins: Organized Complexity
Updates:
Can God Break a Law of Nature?
(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)
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6. Naturalistic Origins Thesis: "life itself developed from non-living matter without any special creative activity of God but just by virtue of processes described by the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry. . . ."
ReplyDeleteReal conflict between Christian belief and evolution first arises with respect to the sixth thesis, the Naturalistic Origins Thesis. Here is the source of the incompatibility according to Plantinga. If the sixth thesis is true, then Christian belief is false.
I disagree strongly here with Plantinga. James mentioned already that abiogenesis can only strengthen the teleological argument because it shows that life was woven into the universe's fabric. This is what the laws of physics and chemistry were made to produce.
That's an interesting perspective, Matko; I've never heard anyone suggest that before. I'm not sure what I think of it.
ReplyDeleteAlvin Plantinga recently wrote in one of his many apologist rants: "You really can’t sensibly claim theistic belief is irrational without showing it isn’t true." And that is exactly what's happening now!
ReplyDeleteThe first wholly new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teachings of Christ is published on the web. Radically different from anything else we know of from history, this new teaching is predicated upon a precise and predefined and predictable experience and called 'the first Resurrection' in the sense that the Resurrection of Jesus was intended to demonstrate Gods' willingness to real Himself and intervene directly into the natural world for those obedient to His will. Thus a direct individual intervention into the natural world by omnipotent power to confirm divine will, command and covenant, "correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries." So like it or no, a new religious claim, testable by faith, meeting all Enlightenment criteria of evidence based causation and definitive proof now exists. It would appears as if God intends to make fools of us all. More info at http://www.energon.org.uk
http://soulgineering.com/2011/05/22/the-final-freedoms/
"http://www.energon.org.uk"
ReplyDeleteEnergon? Awesome, I loved the Transformers.
"http://soulgineering.com/2011/05/22/the-final-freedoms/"
I have no doubt that a tremendous amount of gin was involved in thinking this up. Soul, I'm not as sure of.