Speaker contrasts views in age-old debate

November 9, 2009 by Danielle Decuir 

Lecture outlines naturalism, evolutionary theory

In an overcrowded Barrick Museum Auditorium, people sat on the floor and pondered the meaning of life.

Alvin Plantinga, a John O’Brien professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, traveled to UNLV Thursday to present his lecture “Science and Religion: Where the Conflict Really Lies.”

The event, which was co-sponsored by the UNLV philosophy department, the Thomas Aquinas Catholic Newman Center and the UNLV geosciences department, outlined naturalism, evolutionary theory and the relationship of those ideas with the idea of theism.

“There are various alleged conflicts between science and religion,” Plantinga said. “[I] argue that contemporary evolutionary theory is not incompatible with theism.”

Plantinga discussed where humans and other living organisms come from, prospects of life after death and how living things relate to one another.

“In the Bible, it says that God has created human beings in his image,” Plantinga said. “That’s what I am thinking of when I think of theistic beliefs.”

Plantinga said that when people think about the compatibility of theism and evolution, they have to think of the four evolutionary theories.

“The four evolutionary theories include descent with modification, Darwinism and natural selection, Christian evolutionary beliefs and scientific evolutionary beliefs,” Plantinga said. “When we ask if they are compatible with theism, we have to think of each one individually.”

Plantinga said he believes the conflict between religion and evolution is non-existent, but, he added, the idea of naturalism is not so well-suited to religious belief.

Plantinga suggested that there is a conflict between naturalism and the Christian belief of evolutionary theory.

“A naturalist is an atheist,” Plantinga said. “You have to be an atheist to be a naturalist, but you don’t have to be a naturalist to be an atheist.”

Audience members Nydia and Brian Segal shared their views about how the world came to be.

“I don’t think that there is an incompatibility between science and religion,” Brian Segal said. “I believe that the world came to be by way of the Big Bang Theory, followed by the planets being split from the sun and Darwinian evolution as far as life is concerned.”

Nydia Segal said she doesn’t believe human beings have an ability to comprehend who or what created the universe.

“I can’t say that I know for sure, but I hope that there is a god,” she said.

She added that she believes her religious upbringing shaped her view of the night’s topic.

“I was raised in a Christian family that very much believed that there was a god,” she said. “As an adult, I got away from those ideas and now I am trying to get back to them.”

Brian Segal said he discovered his own views on religion and evolution as he got older.

“My family was Jewish and thought of the world according to the Old Testament,” Brian said, “but in my teen years, I discovered that none of it made sense and came to my own conclusions about the world.”

Plantinga made it a point to mention that God’s intent is unknown.

“It may very well have been God’s intent to make the world random, seemingly unguided and chaotic,” Plantinga said.

Plantinga referenced Richard Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker” and examined Dawkins’ claim that the world was not made by a god’s intent, but instead by randomness.

“Dawkins claims that ‘the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design,’” Plantinga said.

He added that he believes Dawkins’ book is a valuable piece of literature.

Plantinga disagrees with Dawkins’ logic and said that the randomness theory is poorly supported.

“The only reason he [Dawkins] gives to support his view is that no one has yet disproved his theory that the world was created by an unguided series of Darwinian processes,” Plantinga said.

The lecture was part of the University Forum Lecture Series.