Read Online Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga - Free Book Online

theistic arguments—the ontological argument, the cosmological arguments, theargument from (or better,
to
) design—don’t work. Next, he assumes that rational belief in God would require broadly scientific evidence and proposes or rather just assumes that there isn’t any other source of warrant or rationality for belief in God or for religious beliefs generally.
    Dennett mentions only one of the theistic arguments, the design argument, and even there he ignores the work of Richard Swinburne, the preeminent contemporary exponent of the argument, who over a period of at least thirty years or so has produced a powerfully impressive, and highly developed version of this argument. 17 Now Dennett makes quite a show of being serious and forthright where others give in to conventional politeness: “I know it passes in polite company to let people have it both ways and under most circumstances I wholeheartedly cooperate with this benign arrangement. But we’re seriously trying to get at the truth here.” 18 If we
are
seriously trying to get at the truth, however, it might be good to consider or at least mention the most important contemporary work on the subject.
    But suppose Swinburne’s arguments are indeed unsuccessful, and add that the same goes for all the other theistic arguments—for example, the moral argument as developed by George Mavrodes and Robert Adams, and the cosmological argument as developed by William Lane Craig, and all the rest. 19 Does it follow that one who believes in God is irrational, unjustified, going contrary to reason, or in some other way deserving of reprimand or abuse ordisapprobation? No. After all, one of the main lessons to be learned from the history of modern philosophy from Descartes through Hume is that there don’t seem to be good arguments for the existence of other minds or selves, or the past, or an external world and much else besides; nevertheless belief in other minds, the past, and an external world is presumably not irrational or in any other way below epistemic par. 20
    Are things different with belief in God? If so, why? What makes the difference? This topic—the question whether rational belief in God requires argument or “scientific evidence”—has been central in philosophy of religion for a long time. Dennett apparently thinks philosophical theologians, some of whom hold that scientific evidence is
not
required for rational religious belief, are thereby committed to flouting rational judgment. He addresses this topic in a truly remarkable passage:
The philosopher Ronald de Sousa once memorably described philosophical theology as “intellectual tennis without a net,” and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgment was up. We can lower it if you really want to. It’s your serve. Whatever you serve, suppose I rudely return service as follows: “What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. That’s not much of a God to worship!” 21
     
    That’s a memorable description, all right, particularly if you call to mind the work of such classical philosophical theologians as Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and Jonathan Edwards, or such contemporary philosophical theologians as Robert Adams, William Alston,Eleonore Stump, Richard Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, all of whose work, in terms of intellectual rigor and cogency, compares very favorably with that of Dennett (or, for that matter, de Sousa). As a matter of fact this canard is also irrelevant; the question is about the epistemology of religious belief, and in particular whether rational theistic belief requires the presence of cogent theistic argument; it is not about the real or alleged intellectual vices of philosophical theologians.
    But what prompts Dennett to bring up his miserable ham sandwich in the first place? What is his point? It’s not entirely easy to tell. The topic is the