Thursday, June 25, 2020

Does the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism Defeat God's Beliefs

How can Alvin Plantinga's EAAN be refuted? - Quora

My Philosophy Paper on Plantinga's EAAN got published 😀


Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that the naturalist who accepts evolutionary theory has a defeater for all of her beliefs, including her belief in naturalism and evolution. Hence, he says, naturalism, when conjoined with evolution, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally accepted. This is known as the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN).  If the EAAN is framed in terms of objective probability and theism is assumed to be non-contingent, then either theism is necessarily false or the EAAN is unsound. Neither option is attractive to the proponent of the EAAN. Perry Hendricks (Religious Studies 1-5, 2018) has responded to Wunder's criticism, showing that the EAAN can be salvaged and, indeed, strengthened, by framing it in terms not of naturalism (N), but of a proposition that is entailed by N that is also consistent with theism. We will show that once Hendricks' solution to Wunder's objection is accepted, a puzzle ensues: if the EAAN provides the naturalist with a defeater for all of her beliefs, then an extension of it appears to provide God with a defeater for all of his beliefs. After bringing out this puzzle, we suggest several ways in which the proponent of the EAAN might solve it, but also show some potential weaknesses in these purported solutions.

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I went into the Frank Turek Cross-examined Facebook Group and the first 2 people that tried to respond resorted to claiming that God doesn't have beliefs! 😀



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