Transcript: Reasons for God

Video Transcript: Reasons for God – Dr Alvin Plantinga

Host  

Alvin Plantinga is a leading American philosopher from the University of Notre Dame, where he is something of an institution, having been there since 1982. He's especially well known for his work in the philosophy of religion. And it's fair to say that Plantinga is one of the key reasons why we're experiencing a renaissance of interest in a philosophical defense of Christianity. His argument made in the 1970s, that established that there is no logical inconsistency in believing in an all powerful, loving God, despite the reality of suffering, was something of a turning point in philosophy. Plantinga has written numerous books and people write books about him and his work. I was fortunate enough to meet him at Notre Dame where we talked about God, Richard Dawkins, and personal faith. I began by asking him why he believes there is a God.

Alvin Plantinga  

In my case, it's like asking, "Why do you believe there are other people?" Or, "Why do you believe there's a past?" I can't give a proof that there's been a past or a proof that there are other people. I don't think the traditional arguments for God's existence are all that powerful, although they do have some force, but it just seems to me right, it seems to me that there really is such a Person. When I contemplate, when I look at the mountains, when I look at the tree tops in my backyard, when I go to church, when I read the Bible, on many other occasions, I just find my myself convinced that there is such a person as God.

Host    

There's a very deep sense of a personal experience of that reality for you.

Alvin Plantinga  

Yes, it's more like a personal experience than it is like an argument or like a philosophical proof or something of that sort.

Host    

There are plenty of increasingly wealthy authors who are willing to argue against God's existence. Do you say this is a last gasp of intellectual skepticism? Or is it the renaissance of unbelief?

Alvin Plantinga  

I don't think it's the last gasp of anything. Unbelief has been with us since the days of the Old Testament. The psalmist says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" So apparently, there was atheism then. And there has been atheism ever since. Of course, it rises and falls and more or fewer people are involved in it. It's different in different parts of the world. So I don't think it's the last gasp of anything. I don't know if it's much of a renewal of anything, either. It seems to me that current versions of atheism allow the Four Horsemen of Atheism Dennett and Dawkins and Hitchens andSam Harris, it seems to me their arguments are somewhat inferior to those of atheists maybe 50-60 years ago.

Host    

You argued that naturalism cannot be rationally believed--a novel argument, I guess, for some. But can't it?

Alvin Plantinga  

Well, that's it's sort of a complicated argument. But the basic idea is, if you are a naturalist, you will also be a materialist about human beings, you'll think human beings are material objects, that there isn't any immaterial soul or self or person or ego. And you'll think that a belief is something like a structure of neurons in your nervous system or in the brain and the like, which will have two kinds of properties. The belief will have neurophysiological properties and in virtue of having those that can cause behavior, various kinds. But the belief will also have a content property, it'll be the belief that P for some proposition P. 

What evolution is interested in is adaptive behavior. It doesn't give a give a hoot about what you believe. All it cares about, it rewards adaptive behavior, and punishes maladaptive behavior. So evolution will modify those neurophysiological properties in the direction of greater adaptiveness, so that they'll cause adaptive action more frequently, let's say. But it doesn't follow that it in any way modifies belief in the direction of truth. Evolution doesn't care about true belief. Imagine a frog sitting on a lily pond, its tongue flicks out, it captures a fly, and have to be various indicators in the frog, indicating just how far away the the fly is, what its velocity is, and the like of that. And these have to cause the right action, namely the tongue flicking out and capturing the fly. Maybe the frog's got beliefs too, but it doesn't matter what they are. They're just as likely to be false as to be true.

The same I would say goes more generally. If you accept naturalism and materialism, that combination, then it seems to me you're going to have to take it that for any particular belief, the probability that it's true is about a half. It's could as likely be true as false. All you really know is that the creatures in question have evolved so that they act adaptively; they behave adaptively. But it doesn't matter what the beliefs they've got are. And if that's the case, then the probability that one's beliefs are reliable will be low. Given naturalism and evolution, that probability is low.

Host    

There's a sense of not being able to trust your own cognitive faculties. Some might say, 'Well, why should I trust my cognitive faculties that point me towards belief as well?'

Alvin Plantinga  

Well, if you don't believe in God, or if you're a naturalist, and you also accept evolution, then you've got a reason not to think your faculties are reliable. If you're not like that, if you just take it for granted that your faculties are reliable, that seems to me perfectly sensible. But if you combine that with accepting naturalism and evolution, that combination isn't sensible. That's the thought.