By MICHAEL RUSE - THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Added: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:56:22 UTC

A year or so ago, in the Chronicle, I had a rather sharp exchange with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, formerly (for some twenty years) at Notre Dame and now returned to Calvin College, where he was first a student and then for many years a faculty member. I accused him of being a believer in so-called Intelligent Design Theory, the idea (promoted by among others the biochemist Michael Behe in his Darwin’s Black Box) that every now and then a designer intervened in the natural course of events to create biological entities or features that supposedly could not have been produced by such processes as natural selection. The bacterial flagellum (a tail on cells used as a propeller) is a favorite example.

Plantinga objected to my characterization of him.

Ruse claims I am an “open enthusiast of intelligent design.” (“Open” enthusiast? Is enthusiasm for intelligent design supposed to be something you should shamefacedly conceal, like addiction to watching soap operas?) Another missed distinction. Like any Christian (and indeed any theist), I believe that the world has been created by God, and hence “intelligently designed.” The hallmark of intelligent design, however, is the claim that this can be shown scientifically; I’m dubious about that.

He concluded:

Finally, Ruse suggests [Thomas] Nagel, [Jerry] Fodor, and I don’t take science seriously and have no interest in it. Nonsense. Modern science—say, physics, from the 17th century to the present—is widely and justly celebrated as a magnificent and unparalleled intellectual achievement: perhaps mankind’s most splendid effort along these lines. The fact is, I like science better than Ruse does.

Now, Plantinga has given us a full-length treatment of his views on science and its relationship to religion. I can only say that either he has changed his mind in the last year or, shall we say, he was not being entirely forthcoming. There is a chapter of the book on Intelligent Design Theory and I challenge any independent person to read it and not conclude that Plantinga accepts this theory over modern evolutionary theory, especially the dominant modern Darwinian evolutionary theory. But read the chapter yourself if you have doubts about what I claim. Make your own judgment.
Read more

Philosopher Sticks Up for God

By: Jennifer Schuessler
The New York Times
There are no atheists in foxholes, the old saying goes. Back in the 1950s, when the philosopher Alvin Plantinga was getting his start, there were scarcely more religious believers in academic philosophy departments.

Growing up among Dutch Calvinist immigrants in the Midwest, Mr. Plantinga was used to intense theological debate. But when he arrived at Harvard as an undergraduate, he was startled to find equal intensity marshaled in favor of the argument that God didn’t exist, when classmates and teachers found the question worth arguing about.

Had he not transferred to Calvin College, the Christian Reformed liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Mich., where his father taught psychology, Mr. Plantinga wrote in a 1993 essay, he doubted that he “would have remained a Christian at all; certainly Christianity or theism would not have been the focal point of my adult intellectual life.”

But he did return, and the larger world of philosophy has been quite different as a result. From Calvin, and later from the University of Notre Dame, Mr. Plantinga has led a movement of unapologetically Christian philosophers who, if they haven’t succeeded in persuading their still overwhelmingly unbelieving colleagues, have at least made theism philosophically respectable.
Read more

TAGGED: BOOKS, REVIEWS