First, Ken Ueda says that theistic evolution is a contradiction and that evolutionary naturalism is redundant. He thinks this because, “The theory of evolution is a scientific theory and thus an expression of an inherent understanding that we are limiting our premises to natural causes and the natural world” and furthermore, that “All scientific theories are naturalistic”.
Unfortunately, what Ueda doesn’t seem to understand is that there is a distinction between “methodological naturalism” and “philosophical/metaphysical naturalism.”
When one speaks of scientific theories, these are inherently methodological in that the scientific enterprise is only looking at natural or physical causes and explanations for what we observe around us. But methodological naturalism does not say one way or another as to whether or not there is a God. Hence, theistic evolution is not at all a contradiction. It is simply the belief in theism as well as the current evolutionary theory which does not state one way or another that there is a God.
Furthermore, neither is evolutionary naturalism redundant because it is not just a methodological approach to investigating the natural phenomena of evolution. Rather it is the philosophical position/worldview that both evolution is true and that furthermore there are no supernatural entities which are ultimately responsible for the evolutionary process.
I’m not making these distinctions up folks. One can find these relevant issues in Paul Draper’s article in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion. Even Kenneth Miller (no friend to ID theory, but a theist nonetheless) in his speech at SMU last year made this distinction!
Second, Ueda says that the biggest problem with the argument is premise (1) which states that “If evolutionary naturalism is correct, then our cognitive faculties aim at survival-conducive beliefs rather than truth-conducive beliefs.” He says that I attempt to make survival-conducive beliefs and truth-conducive beliefs mutually exclusive. Presumably, he thinks I attempt to do this because I have not given an argument for the truth of (1). Well first of all, I never said that survival-conducive beliefs cannot be true as well. In fact, I explicitly denied such a claim when I said that “The theist, on the other hand, may adopt some sort of intelligence-guided evolution.” Think about it. If I adopt theistic evolution and hold that our cognitive faculties are aimed at true beliefs, I will quite naturally add that these are survival-conducive beliefs as well. We are, after all, still here aren’t we?
Furthermore, Ueda seems to think that I have not provided an argument for the truth of premise (1) when in fact I did. Perhaps I should have elaborated more. I said that “there are a potentially infinite number of false beliefs which can be survival conducive (consequently, there are a potentially infinite many more false beliefs than true ones which may be selected for survival).” What follows from this is that there is good reason to think that our cognitive faculties, while being aimed at survival-conducive beliefs, will not target true beliefs since, quite literally, the odds are one against [a potential] infinity. Hence, Ueda has not provided us with any good objections against premise (1).
Third, Ueda then says that I, a theist, must deny evolution because he continues to discuss how evolution entails naturalism (the philosophical position), and I have already shown how he has not made a distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical/metaphysical naturalism.
Finally, Ueda says that I might be making a mistake in that I might be claiming that if something is improbable then it is impossible. I’d like to see where I said that. I don’t see how this is even relevant to Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. Neither I (nor Plantinga) ever claim that naturalism is impossible. Of course it’s possible. Rather, the argument says that if one endorses evolutionary naturalism then one should abstain from belief in naturalism, at least if one holds to an externalist form of epistemology (theory of knowledge) as I said last time.
Given that we did not see (unless I am mistaken) any good objections to Plantinga’s argument, and unless I see any other objections worthy of further discussion, I would like, for next time, to discuss the argument for the self-referential incoherence of naturalism from an internalist perspective, thus justifying my claim that no matter what form of epistemology one holds, [belief in] naturalism is nothing more than an irrational muddle.
Jesse Cohen is a junior philosophy and religious studies double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
