This is Plantinga's discussion of the issues concerning evolution; he clearly does not think that theism rules out evolution; he just thinks that if you are a theist you ought to consider other possibilities.
Judgements here, of course, may differ widely between believer in God and non-believers in God. What for the former is at best a methodological restriction is for the latter the sober metaphysical truth: her naturalism is not merely provisional and methodological, but, as she sees it, settled and fundamental. But believers in God see the matter differently. The believer in God, unlike her naturalistic counterpart, is free to look at the evidence for the Grand Evolutionary Scheme and follows it where it leads, revising that scheme if the evidence is insufficient. She has a freedom not available to the naturalist. The latter accepts the Grand Evolutionary Scheme because from a naturalistic point of view this scheme is the only visible answer to the question what is the explanation of the presence of all these marvelously multifarious forms of life? The Christian, on the other hand, knows that creation is the Lord's; and she isn't blinkered by a priori dogmas as to how the Lord must have accomplished it. Perhaps it was by broadly evolutionary means, but then again perhaps not. At the moment, 'perhaps not' seems the better answer.
2 comments:
Ahab said,
"And from the scientific view of evolution, there was and is no need for God to intervene to bring about the diversity of life we see."
Ahab also said,
"While we both agree that evolution does not entail atheism,"
It seems to me that "no need for God" is a pretty good definition of atheism. The conclusion that "there was and is no need for God" is WAY beyond science and DEEP into philosophical dogma. It would be interesting to trace that conclusion back to the evidence at hand. I suspect it will be easy to find many and large gaps between the evidence and the conclusion that can only be filled by a priori assumptions.
Why should scientists presume that there is a need for a God when explaining how bird flu might mutate into something which may kill 20 million people?
And where is the need for a God to explain where rabies , cholera ,HIV, smallpox, Ebola virus come from?
Is it really dogmatic blindness of certain atheistic scientists to look at these life-forms and stubbornly maintain that they can be explained without reference to a God?
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