Just heard this afternoon that the paper I mentioned in the previous post will be published in Analysis, January 2012, which is great news. The paper is called "Naturalism, Evolution and True Belief". I will send copies out on request. Email me. It's better than my Religious Studies paper on Plantinga, I think.
(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen...
Comments
I look forward to receiving your article. From your hints here and elsewhere, I suspect that you plan to offer a how possibly story: how possibly naturalistic evolution might lead to reliable believing, given some plausible (and proper) view of what it is to have a belief generally. Even if such a how-possibly story were to fail, though, I don't think that would mean that Plantinga has the better of the argument. Where Plantinga's EAAN depends on the inconsistency of three propositions, it is an open question which of the three we ought to reject. The three propositions, of course, are: a) we reliably believe; b) naturalistic evolution (described in some way) is true; and c) naturalism is true. Even if we grant Plantinga that a through c are inconsistent / that they may not all consistently be affirmed, it seems to me that our last resort should be to reject c, and that we would do better to reject either a or b.
Incidentally, the strategy of offering a how possibly story of the sort I suspect you offer is really a rejection of b: it is a rejection of naturalistic evolution as imagined/described by Plantinga in the EAAN.
However, this may not be more than a quibble about the particular phrase "conceptual constraint," which seems to me too strong for what you really mean, and maybe for all you really need. Apart from "conceptual constraints" on content, we clearly do ordinarily think that certain behaviors "go" with certain beliefs and not others--in fact, makes these beliefs likely under ceteris parabus conditions. I take it that the core of your challenge is to ask why we should give up this ordinary way of attributing beliefs? Plantinga seems committed to the strong claim that the ordinary way of attributing beliefs given some behavior is wrong. The burden is on him to justify that claim, and so far, it doesn't appear that he has done it.
Like I said though, this is based on a really really quick read. My apologies if I'm way off base.
I think you're right about the argument only highlighting an inconsistency between a, b and c, but not which one should be rejected.
But if you reject a then you have a defeater for ALL your beliefs (including beliefs about naturalism), that is, you have a reason not to believe what you believe.
Since that seems like a bad move that means that if you are looking to preserve naturalism then you would have to give up evolution, but that's not a very attractive option either. Afterall, if naturalism is true then its difficult to see what other theory could possibly replace evolution.