The Coherence of Naturalism (Atheism)

[Haven]

One of the major criticisms of metaphysical naturalism (and by extension, atheism) is that it is logically inconsistent, with some even going as far as to say that it is self-undermining. This criticism, which comes primarily from Reformed Christian thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, John Frame, and our own theopoesis, is due to the fact that (according to Reformed thinkers) naturalism cannot account for several features of human existence, such as (objective) morality, existential meaning, consciousness, free will, and aesthetic taste.

Plantinga goes further, saying that a combinstion of evolution and naturalism would lead us to develop cognitive faculties geared for survival rather than truth, meaning that, on naturalism, we would be unable to know whether or not any of our beliefs -- including naturalism itself -- are true, meaning naturalism defeats itself.

As an alternative to naturalism, Reformed thinkers believe Christian theism can account for true cognitive faculties, teleology, morality, beauty, etc., and that it should therefore be preferred over atheistic naturalism. They use a presuppositional approach to illustrate this, arguing that Christian presuppositions are required for a coherent worldview.

Atheists, in my experience, rarely respond to these criticisms. When they (we) do, they tend to defend a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability while writing off morality, aesthetics, knowledge, etc. as subjective or illusory. Naturalistic thinkers also tend to point toward philosophical problems with theism, such as Michael Tooley's (2008) update of the problem of natural evil. Additionally, one major naturalistic response to this comes from philosopher Feng Ye, who attempts to give a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability. The book "Naturalism Defeated?" (2001) was written in response to Plantinga's argument.

Debate question: Are the Reformed thinkers right? Is naturalism coherent? Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism? Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview? Does Plantinga's argument succeed? Is theism coherent?

[LiamOS]

Most would likely consider me a naturalist, so I s'pose I'll give my take.

[...] naturalism cannot account for [...] (objective) morality

Naturalism does not need to account for what does not exist, and as far as I'm aware, morality has yet to be proven to be objective.

[...] existential meaning [...]

This would be different. I'm unsure if meaning as a concept makes any sense fundamentally.

[...] consciousness [...]

Although it is not currently well-explained in a scientific manner, I see no reason why that is not imminent. I doubt many academics in the pertinent fields would disagree, but I suppose that remains to be seen.

[...] free will [...]

As soon as free will is shown to make sense within the scope of our physical and biological understandings, I cannot take it seriously as a concept. My stance on this is much more adamant than most, as I view it as a common 'cop-out' on behalf of many Theists from explaining contradictions in their views.
I've yet to even have a Theist try to reconcile free will and physics, which is a little disheartening.

[...] and aesthetic taste.

I haven't actually looked into this, so I could be very wrong.
This seems like the sort of thing that would have very well-developed theories of evolutionary psychology to explain most if not all of its aspects.

Is naturalism coherent?

I believe it is.

Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism?

Where there is need to, yes.

Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview?

I do not believe so.

Does Plantinga's argument succeed?

I don't believe it does.

Is theism coherent?

Some Theism, yes.

I don't think that it is terribly difficult to have a self-consistent worldview, so it shouldn't be surprising that naturalism and Theism are consistent.

[Thatguy]

Debate question: Are the Reformed thinkers right? Is naturalism coherent? Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism? Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview? Does Plantinga's argument succeed? Is theism coherent?

I do not find the criticisms valid. Many people would like to feel that morality is objective, as are our tastes in beauty. So they end up deciding that any system of subjective morality or beauty is inherently invalid because it does not arrive at an objective morality or aesthetics. It's begging the question to ask whether morality is objective or subjective and then reject any answer that does not arrive at the conclusion it's objective.

For many of the answers that theology reaches, the answer is only pushed back one level of abstraction. So, for instance, why do we have our moral rules? To many naturalists, it's a matter of looking at biology, psychology, sociology, etc. to understand how the morals we have increase survival chances and contentment and decrease pain for the group and the individual adopting the moral code. But there's no way I can think of to prove why increasing happiness or decreasing pain is objectively the moral standard that we must apply. The theologian may scoff that this is thus an unprovable stance. The theologian feels much more comfortable answering that our moral standards exist because God has decreed them. Why has God decreed them? It's in God's nature. Why are these standards part of God's nature? We are not to ask and if we do, there's no answer I've yet heard.

I would say that increasing pleasure and decreasing pain is the best pair of bases for morality, but adopting them's subjective. If anyone can suggest better standards, I'm up to hearing them. But naturalism isn't incoherent if it proposes subjective morality, it's only incoherent if the only type of morality you'll understand is objective.

God did it may sound coherent, but I take an ignostic approach to whether it answers anything. If we can't say what a God is. If we all get a general sense of what we are talking about but can't really define it, we are really just answering by saying the at the unknown and the unknowable caused it.

We see that consciousness is very much tied to naturalistic causes. Remove someone's brain and let their soul continue to reason for them and I'll have re reassess that. Since consciousness gives every appearance of being a natural phenomenon, the personal incredulity of the theologist as to how, exactly, it came about is of little interest to me. The same goes for the origin of the universe.

It would be very convenient as a believer to take the view that first you have to believe that the Godidit explanation is true, then it makes sense. Because the Godidit explanation is unfalsifiable in so many ways, it means that one can remain safely within its framework and declare you've got it all figured out. But no matter how you slice it, asking for evidence before accepting such a purported claim is not incoherent or irrational. It's the most sensible approach.

[kayky]

I'm not an atheist, but I think this argument could easily be dismantled. I think, for example, that morality and even religion could be seen as conducive to survival and, therefore, explainable through evolution.

[Thatguy]

I'm not an atheist, but I think this argument could easily be dismantled. I think, for example, that morality and even religion could be seen as conducive to survival and, therefore, explainable through evolution.

True. Morality is the code of conduct for how we interact with each other. I don't see a need to explain where morality comes from. I can't see the evolutionary survival of any animal species that can interact that does not develop some code for how it does so. Morality is not a freak event requiring a special explanation. It's the expected outcome of having a social (or even a-social) species.

[theopoesis]

This criticism, which comes primarily from Reformed Christian thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, John Frame, and our own theopoesis

Well just hold up a minute now. I hardly think my name belongs with people of this caliber.

If you're going to list us together, you should at least bold my name or something.

(just joking... seriously, I appreciate the shout out, but better to reference the experts than the wannabes like me).

I'm behind on a h2h post, but I hope to eventually weigh in here.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Atheists, in my experience, rarely respond to these criticisms. When they (we) do, they tend to defend a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability while writing off morality, aesthetics, knowledge, etc. as subjective or illusory.

I don't see how that's not a legitimate response to criticism. How does naturalism explain objective morality? It doesn't, because it hasn't found any objective morality to explain. You might as well ask how naturalism explains god. With naturalism, we tend to try to figure out if things are real before we worry about explaining them - theism seems to either want to go about this backwards, or skip the figuring-out-if-it's-real stage altogether.

[Jax Agnesson]

This is great stuff. I love it. But it's not about Christianity. Shouldn't this, and Aki's 'A Few questions of Interest' be in the philosophy forum?
I'll have a go at Haven's actual question later. I just did a response to Aki's this afternoon, and I need to think about the differences, but I'm in the Seafarer's Mission at the mo, recharging my laptop, and Jean Genie's on the jukebox, and I'd rather dance than think!

[AquinasD]

Are the Reformed thinkers right?

I have serious problems with the presuppositionalism inherent to the Reformed's critiques, but it seems possible to use the arguments in a different epistemological context and save the essence. While I know that they are right to point out the nihilist proclivities (and that this contradicts the frequent supposition of naturalists that Christian morality is "repressive"), I think the criticism of naturalism should aim at its roots, rather than its fruits, since it assumes one will find the fruits odious.

Is naturalism coherent?

No. Plantinga is right to point out the contradiction of naturalized epistemology, since it tries to ground reason in the reasonless. But that's only one example. I believe a greater problem is that naturalism does not include any positive account of what there is; it is devoid of any positive ontological commitments. Instead, it is primarily negative, beginning and ending with the proposition that God does not exist. In principle, nothing couldn't be included in naturalism provided one is willing to to make some positive ontological commitments, but then naturalism just becomes whatever that positive ontological commitment is, i.e. materialism.

Naturalism is as coherent as theism is coherent, since it is defined in negation to it; but if theism is coherent, naturalism is not coherent.

Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism?

Sure, but they'd have to pick some positive ontological commitments, but then that just makes them a materialist or something.

Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview?

I'm not sure this question makes sense.

[Goat]

One of the major criticisms of metaphysical naturalism (and by extension, atheism) is that it is logically inconsistent, with some even going as far as to say that it is self-undermining. This criticism, which comes primarily from Reformed Christian thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, John Frame, and our own theopoesis, is due to the fact that (according to Reformed thinkers) naturalism cannot account for several features of human existence, such as (objective) morality, existential meaning, consciousness, free will, and aesthetic taste.

Well, the problem with making those claims is, well, we don't have any evidence that there is objective morality, existential meaning (except for what we make up), or free will, and when it comes to consciousness , and 'what is beauty' , 'I don't know' isn't the same as 'we have no answer'.

Plantinga goes further, saying that a combinstion of evolution and naturalism would lead us to develop cognitive faculties geared for survival rather than truth, meaning that, on naturalism, we would be unable to know whether or not any of our beliefs -- including naturalism itself -- are true, meaning naturalism defeats itself.

That all depends on what you mean by 'Truth'.. That very much sounds like an unsupported claim to me.

As an alternative to naturalism, Reformed thinkers believe Christian theism can account for true cognitive faculties, teleology, morality, beauty, etc., and that it should therefore be preferred over atheistic naturalism. They use a presuppositional approach to illustrate this, arguing that Christian presuppositions are required for a coherent worldview.

That seems to be just yet another unsupported claim. One big problem with it is that they can't show that their 'presupposition' is true, logically coherent, or anything more that 'making it up as you go along'.

Atheists, in my experience, rarely respond to these criticisms. When they (we) do, they tend to defend a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability while writing off morality, aesthetics, knowledge, etc. as subjective or illusory. Naturalistic thinkers also tend to point toward philosophical problems with theism, such as Michael Tooley's (2008) update of the problem of natural evil. Additionally, one major naturalistic response to this comes from philosopher Feng Ye, who attempts to give a naturalistic account of cognitive reliability. The book "Naturalism Defeated?" (2001) was written in response to Plantinga's argument.

Debate question: Are the Reformed thinkers right? Is naturalism coherent? Can atheists account for morality, purpose, etc. on naturalism? Are Christian presuppositions necessary for a coherent worldview? Does Plantinga's argument succeed? Is theism coherent?

It seems to me the Reform theologians make up problems that don't exist, give answers to questions that they can't show to be true, or show that their 'reform' concepts are coherent in and of themselves. They can not verify that the questions they pose have answers, or even if the questions they pose have meaning other than what they think they are giving it. I don't think that is coherent.