The Perceived Relationship Between Naturalism and Evolution and Why It is Self-defeating

Naturalism and evolution are often thought of two theoretical concepts that support each other. However, Alvin Plantinga begs to differ. He is saying that the very notion of the conjunction of naturalism and evolution is self-defeating. If you were to believe that naturalism and evolution were to support one another then your own cognitive faculties are unreliable. If your cognitive faculties are unreliable you have a reason not to believe on naturalism and evolution itself. It is self-defeating. Theism is the belief of omnipotence; that there is one true greater being that created everything in the universe. Naturalism is the school of thought by which everything that has ever come into existence has been created through naturalistic causes. Anything that does not have natural origins is excluded for example the idea of god. Evolution is the concept postulated by Charles Darwin. Darwinism or “evolution” is the theory that everything that exists today is a result of years of random genetic mutations and natural selection to create what is known today. Evolution is unguided and consists of random thoughtless events. These concepts create the conflict that Plantinga poses by which the conjunction of naturalism and evolution does not exist. Reason being is due to our own cognitive faculties such as truths, memories and experiences.

Dawkins is a naturalist that praises Darwin saying that atheism is finally supported through Darwin’s theory of evolution. Plantinga says that Dawkins is wrong as this causes reason of doubt in cognitive faculties. Darwin had some doubts as did Plantinga during his talk. The doubt consists of conditional probabilities of cognitive faculties and their reliability. He explains these conditions as a series of four events by which this could occur. For example, in one case naturalistic evolution is deemed and it has resulted from blind mechanisms with the basis of random genetic mutations. What is the purpose? In this case it would have to be survival. The probability that human cognitive faculties are reliable is relatively low because in this case it is very unlikely that it has our true beliefs as a driver of this event. Here faculties are unreliable because they are unrelated; they are non-existent to evolution. In this case if human beliefs are supposedly around survival there is doubt and reason to defeat both naturalism and evolution altogether.

This draws an important question: what can you be absolutely sure of? Nothing; you cannot be certain of anything. We believe what we trust ourselves to believe and if you do not trust yourself than there is no reasoning for this. There is no sensibility of this; if you want to accept naturalism and evolution in conjunction and argue for cognitive beliefs then there will be no rational reasoning for this. However, there is a reason for this conflict to exist. It exists solely to defeat itself. There is no answer to this question as one must be truly omnipotent to know it all. Us as humans have our true beliefs and in order to render both naturalism and evolution valid, we must trust our cognitive faculties. Plantinga states that if we were to believe naturalism and evolution are contingent to one another then that renders our cognitive beliefs false. If we render our cognitive faculties unreliable then our beliefs of evolution and naturalism are render invalid as well as they are a result of our cognition as well as the earth’s creation.

Science and values will always be intermingled as there is no clear line that separates the two. It is hard and impossible to have a scientific fact that has surfaced without human cognition behind it and vice versa. We must trust our beliefs as if we were to not trust them every theory; every belief we had about the earth’s creation becomes unreliable and that is not the ideal case. If you disregard your own cognitive faculties then you will have to disregard every single belief you had, even the ones based on science. This will cause and endless number of defeaters that will have no resolution. Naturalism and evolution do not exist in conjunction with one another because we prioritize must our true beliefs more in order to not be self-defeated. We have to accept the fact that cognitive faculties are reliable based on our own trust of our individual reality.