Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69.3 (2010): 193–204
1 On Plantinga on Belief in Naturalism1 Troy Cross Introduction Naturalism, according to Alvin Plantinga, is the thesis “that there is no such person as God or anything at all like God” (2011b, 435; see also, 2002a, 1; 2011a, vix), and one could be forgiven for thinking that what Plantinga calls his “Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism”, or “EAAN”, which he has refined and defended for over two decades, is an argument against that thesis (1991, 1993, 2002a, 2002b, 2011a, 2011b). But that would be a mistake. The conclusion of the EAAN is not about the truth of naturalism but about the rationality of believing naturalism to be true: it is that one cannot rationally and reflectively believe that contemporary evolutionary theory is correct about our origins while also believing that neither God nor anything like God exists.2 The difference between truth and rational belief is important here. Consider Moore’s paradoxical sentence: “I don’t believe it’s raining but as a matter of fact it is” (Moore, 209). Nothing prevents that sentence, or others like it, from being true. If you 1 For instructive conversations on this topic I am indebted to John Bang, George Bealer, Mark Bedau, Eliyah Cohen, Bryan Cross, Augie Faller, Emma Handte, Elad Gilo, Nick Gigliotti, John Hare, Jordan Horowitz, Paul Hovda, Alexander Pruss, Margaret Scharle, Derek Schiller, Mackenzie Sullivan, and Carol Voeller. I also wish to thank audiences at Reed College and the University of Nebraska Omaha where I presented early versions of some of this material. Anthony Nguyen gave me many helpful comments on a draft.
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