Video Transcript: Reasons for God (Dr. Alvin Plantinga)

Video Transcript: Reasons for God – Dr Alvin Plantinga

Unknown  

Alvin Plantinga is a lady American philosopher from the University of Notre Dame, where he is something of an institution having been there since 1982, is especially well known for his work in the philosophy of religion. And it's fair to say that planting error is one of the key reasons why we're experiencing or a nation's 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, in personal faith, I began by asking him why he believes there is a God.

Alvin Plantinga  

And my kids just like asking, well, 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. Just as I don't think the traditional arguments for God's existence, I don't think they are all that powerful, although they do have some force, but it just seems to me right, it seems to be that there really is such a person when I contemplate when I think about or say 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 found my find myself convinced that there is such a person as God.

Unknown  

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, that it is like an argument or like, philosophical proof or something of that sort.

Unknown  

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. My guess is ever since, of course, that 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. And what and Sam Harris, it seems to be their arguments are somewhat inferior to those of atheists maybe 50 60 years ago.

Unknown  

you argued that naturalism cannot be rationally believed a novel argument, I guess, for some, why cannot?

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. And 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 doesn't such give a give a hoot about what you believe I mean, 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 in any way modifies belief and 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 isn't like that. And these have to cause the right action, namely the tongue flipping, looking out and capturing the fly. Maybe the frogs got beliefs too, but it doesn't matter what they are. They're just as likely to be falses 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 go don't have to take it that for any particular belief, the probability that it's true is about a half. It's because likely be true is false. All you really know is that the creatures in question have, have evolved so that they act adaptively they act behave adaptively. But doesn't matter what the what beliefs, what 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.

Unknown  

There's a sense of not being able to trust your own cognitive.

Alvin Plantinga  

Yeah, your own cognitive faculties, right?

Unknown  

Then why? Some might say, Well, why should I trust my cognitive faculties that point me towards belief as well?

Alvin Plantinga  

Well, what I say is, 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 if you're not like that, if you just like everybody, just take it for granted that your faculties are reliable. That seems to me perfectly sensible. But if you combine that with thinking, accepting naturalism and evolution, that combination isn't sensible. That's the thought.