Book Review: Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga

The preeminent Christian philosopher presents his major statement and most popular position in this great work of Christian philosophy. It is not a short work and definitely not an easy work to digest. It will take the amateur philosopher (like this author) quite a bit of work and concentration to mine its truths. The book is broken into four sections, which are further broken down into ten chapters and those chapters into subsections; take that to say, this book is quite long and complex. It is definitely on the higher end of the “layman’s level” for apologetics and religious philosophy. Don’t let that stop you from trying to tackle this book. However, this reviewer recommends that you not attempt to listen to the audiobook version of this book (which, of course, is a recommendation from personal experience). The audiobook version is good, but there are times when it is confusing. A clear example, though from later in the text but is seen in several places throughout the book, is this line: “(1) P(R/N&E) is low.” The way the reader for the audiobook says that is, “one, the probability of ‘r’ given ‘n’ and ‘e’ is low.” That is a fine way to read that, but unfortunately, it’s difficult, without visual representations, to remember what ‘r,’ ‘n,’ and ‘e’ are. A clearer reading would be, “the probability of reliable cognitive faculties given naturalism and evolution, is low.” This is, incidentally, the most popular argument from Plantinga and from this book as a whole, the so-called “Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” (EAAN) Wikipedia has an article on it. There are also dozens, maybe hundreds of articles, blogs, and essays about this argument on various websites.

That argument, though central to the book is not the main point. The main point as he puts it in the preface is, “there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism.” Which, if it’s not obvious, is where the title comes from. Plantinga’s goal in this book is to show not just that there is but how there is deep concord between science and theism and deep conflict between science and naturalism. Essentially, that despite what many seem to think, even among Christians, the conflict is actually between science and naturalism (a strong form of atheism). Before he gets into why science and naturalism are in conflict, Plantinga lays out why so many see it the other way around. He lays out all the usual atheist champions and their positions on why science is on the side of atheism, none other than the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, Draper, and Kitcher (he had some nice alliteration going there). He lays out that position and concludes that it’s not evolution that has a conflict with theism, but rather the idea that evolution/natural selection is unguided.

The next major alleged conflict Plantinga tackles is God’s divine actions in the world, miracles. The problem is how God can intervene in a casually closed system, which is the way most people see the universe. However, there is a new picture in town, Quantum Mechanics (QM). To simplify Plantiga’s position, which is itself a somewhat simplified explanation of QM, God can, without directly intervening into a physical world, do any so-called miraculous act. God can do so by manipulating reality at the quantum level where everything is viewed in probabilities. To use Plantinga’s own example, because of the probabilities and uncertainties in QM, the fact that one’s body is on this side of the wall at this current time is a matter of probabilities and uncertainties and it is possible, though highly unlikely, that at the very next moment all the particles that make one’s body be suddenly and wholly present on the other side of the wall. There need not be anything miraculous except a manipulation of the probabilities of the placement of certain particles. To simplify it even more: the fact that you are where you are is a matter of chance. Your body being suddenly teleported to the moon is also a matter of chance, though a very low chance. For God to do the teleporting He only needs to make it so that one in a googolplex chance for your body to suddenly be on the moon be the outcome. Like God only need to make sure that the roll of that unimaginably large die come out the way He wants it to come out.

The next section confronts the concept of defeaters and the possible conflict between reason and faith. There has been much said about that conflict and this book only devotes a small section to that conflict before moving on section three on the deep concord between science and theism. This section focuses on only three sections: Fine-Tuning, Design Discourse, and the Deep Concord: Christian Theism and the Deep Roots of Science. He rounds out this section by concluding: “theistic religion gives us reason to expect our cognitive capacities to match the world in such a way as to make modern science possible. Naturalism gives us no reason at all to expect this sort of match; from the point of view of naturalism, it would be an overwhelming piece of cosmic serendipity if there were such a match. As a matter of fact, however, things are much worse than that for naturalism,” and the last section really shows why and puts the nail in the coffin.

The last section has already been touched upon above with the EAAN, which is the crux of the final section, and there’s not much need to rehash it. However, it might be useful to put the EAAN into simpler phrasing. That is, if naturalism is true and our cognitive faculties came about through random or unguided evolution, there’s no good reason to trust those faculties, which includes the faculties that leads one to believe in naturalism. Even more basically, if you believe in unguided evolution, you shouldn’t trust your cognitive faculties and naturalism.

To conclude, you should not be intimidated by this book. You should take the plunge into this deep and complicated work of a world-class philosopher. Take notes, reread tough sections, argue with the book, and you’ll definitely learn a lot and come out on the other side blessed and more confident in your faith.