Naturalism and evolution are often considered two mutually supportive theoretical concepts. However, Alvin Plantinga begs to differ. He is saying that the very notion of the conjunction between naturalism and evolution is counterproductive. If you were to believe that naturalism and evolution should be mutually supportive, then your cognitive faculties would be unreliable. If your cognitive faculties are unreliable you have a reason not to believe in naturalism and evolution itself. It's counterproductive. Theism is the belief in omnipotence; that there is a true greater being who created everything in the universe. Naturalism is the school of thought that holds that everything that has ever come into existence was created through naturalistic causes. Everything that does not have natural origins is excluded, for example the idea of God. Evolution is the concept postulated by Charles Darwin. Darwinism or “evolution” is the theory that everything that exists today is the result of years of random genetic mutations and natural selection to create what is known today. Evolution is unguided and consists of random and thoughtless events. These concepts create the conflict posed by Plantinga whereby the conjunction between naturalism and evolution does not exist. The reason for being is due to our own cognitive faculties such as truth, memories and experiences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Dawkins is a naturalist who praises Darwin by stating that atheism is finally supported by Darwin's theory of evolution. Plantinga says Dawkins is wrong because this causes doubts in cognitive faculties. Darwin had doubts as did Plantinga during his speech. Doubt consists in the conditional probabilities of cognitive faculties and their reliability. He explains these conditions as a series of four events through which this could occur. For example, in one case evolution is believed to be naturalistic and the result of blind mechanisms based on random genetic mutations. What is the purpose? In this case it should be about survival. The probability that human cognitive faculties are reliable is relatively low because in this case it is very unlikely that our true beliefs determine this event. Here the faculties are unreliable because they are not correlated; they are non-existent for evolution. In this case, if human beliefs are supposedly about survival, there are doubts and reasons to defeat both naturalism and evolution altogether. This raises an important question: what can you be absolutely sure of? Nothing; you can't be sure of anything. We believe what we trust ourselves to believe and if you don't trust yourself there is no reasoning for it. There is no sensitivity in this; if one wants to accept naturalism and evolution together and support cognitive beliefs, then there will be no rational reasoning for it. However, there is a reason why this conflict exists. It exists solely to defeat itself. There is no answer to this question since one must be truly omnipotent to know everything. We as humans have our own true beliefs and for both naturalism and evolution to be valid, we must trust our cognitive faculties. Plantinga claims that if we were to believe that naturalism and evolution are contingent on each other, this would make our cognitive beliefs false. If we make our cognitive faculties unreliable, our beliefs about evolution and naturalism are invalidated and are the result of our cognition and the creation of the earth. Please note: this is just one.
tags