I examine three major antireligious arguments that are often proposed in various forms by cognitive and evolutionary scientists, and indicate possible responses to them. A fundamental problem with the entire debate arises because the term "religion" is too vague. So I reformulate the debate in terms of a less vague central concept: faith. Referring mainly to Aquinas on faith, I proceed by evaluating how the previously mentioned cognitive and evolutionary arguments fare when dealing with faith. The results show that some (...) aspects of the concept of faith are in principle beyond the range of evolutionary explanation and some other aspects are not. Nevertheless, an evolutionary account merges smoothly with faith’s theological dimensions. (shrink)

This article challenges the claim that the rise of naturalism is devastating to religious belief. This claim hinges on an extreme interpretation of naturalism called scientism, the metaphysical view that science offers an exhaustive account of the real. For those committed to scientism, religious discourse is epistemically illegitimate, because it refers to matters that transcend—and so cannot be verified by—scientific inquiry. This article reconstructs arguments from the phenomenological tradition that seem to undercut this critique, viz., arguments that scientism itself cannot (...) be justified without recourse to matters that transcend scientific inquiry. If this is true, then scientism and religion share a cognitive conundrum: a commitment to truths that cannot in principle be known from our current perspective. (shrink)

This paper argues that Mormon cosmology plus the Mormon view of the origin of human persons results in an undercutting defeater for Mormonism. The approach is modeled after Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. The first step is to show that Mormon cosmology is relevantly like naturalism. The second step is to show that the origin of human persons ins relevantly similar to naturalistic evolution so that it faces the same kind of defeaters as the conjunction of naturalism and naturalistic evolution.

In this paper, we present four philosophical approaches and their prominent advocates toward the problem of relationship between Darwinian evolution and theistic beliefs: Atheistic Inconsistency: there is a deep conflict between Darwinian evolution and theism; among atheists, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett could be regarded as the best representatives in this branch. Theistic Inconsistency: A deep conflict could also be seen among theists, M.H. Tabātabā’ī’s Quranic exegesis is one of the most significant sources in this regard from Islamic side, correspondent (...) to the same in other theistic religions. Theistic Consistency: There is a concord between theism and Darwinian evolution; we have considered Alvin Plantinga and Murtazā Mutaharī in this category. Reductionist Consistency: Theism and Darwinian evolution, or science and religion in general, are two different and noncompeting levels of explanation; John Haught advocates such reductionist consistency between science and religion. Having mentioned the four above classes and a few of many representatives of each category and some important questions toward these approaches, we have attempted to show that the alleged consistency between theistic beliefs and Darwinian evolution by the principle of natural selection fails. (shrink)

Natural selection seems to offer a compelling case for the development of evaluative judgments independent of evaluative facts. If such a case can be made, then how do moral judgments correlate to moral facts? It seems that there would be no tight connection from judgments to truth and moral judgments would be unwarranted. Gilbert Harman realized the implications of a probable non-moral genealogy. Richard Joyce goes on to provide a probable non-moral genealogy that would epistemically undermine moral judgments as Harman (...) thought. Joyce argues that in a naturalistic world natural selection can account for moral judgments, but that the truth of those judgments play no explanatory role and seem to be superfluous. If there are such moral facts to be known does man need a moral faculty that J. L. Mackie says is "queer" to have arisen in a purely naturalistic world? To posit such a faculty and the off chance that moral judgments happen to correlate to moral facts in a naturalistic world would seem to be the result of either a miracle or a brute fact. Both the former hypotheses seem to lack persuasiveness and plausibility, but is there a better explanation? Is there a better explanation to vindicate moral judgments? This paper explores the possible vindication of moral judgments through the idea that it seems moral facts are conducive to survival and replication: just as the mind is able to arrive at normative claims about mathematics so too with morality. So, one does not need an additional faculty but that a moral faculty is already equipped in the mind. It is this idea that seems to be the avenue to pursue a vindication of moral judgments. (shrink)

Em Warranted Christian Belief (2000), Alvin Plantinga (1932-) desenvolve sua Epistemologia Reformada (Calvinista), com o objetivo de oferecer aval (warrant) para a crença teísta (professada pelas Religiões Abraâmicas: Judaísmo, Cristianismo e Islam) e para a crença cristã clássica (uma crença cristã ecumênica aceita pelos Apóstolos de Cristo, os cristãos primitivos, os pais da Igreja, os ortodoxos, os católicos, os protestantes (os luteranos, os reformados e os arminianos) e os anabatistas). Todavia, o mais natural, que poderíamos esperar de uma Epistemologia Reformada, (...) seria uma epistemologia dedicada às crenças da Cosmovisão Reformada. Sendo assim, a questão norteadora do presente trabalho é: A Epistemologia Reformada de Plantinga é Realmente Reformada? (shrink)