Jay Richards plans a multi-part review and begins it with some background on Plantinga:
Where the Conflict Really Lies contains so much careful analysis, and covers so many different topics, that a complete review is almost impossible. Over the next few weeks, however, I’d like to reflect on and engage several of Plantinga’s arguments here at ENV.
Before I start, I should confess a personal interest. Plantinga has deeply influenced my own thinking. In fact, I drew on Plantinga’s work in both a master’s thesis and in my doctoral dissertation. So reading his mature thinking on the relationship between science and religion is truly a pleasure.
Plantinga is one of a small group of Christian analytic philosophers who emerged on the scene in the late 1960s and became more influential over the years. Though he would not claim credit, he is at least partly responsible for the huge growth of Christian analytic philosophy in the English-speaking world since that time.
One of Plantinga’s virtues is his intellectual courage. Cowardice mars so much Christian scholarship, including Christian theology. As we all know, the commanding heights of culture, including academia, are now largely hostile to theism and Christianity. As a result, there is strong sociological pressure for academics to accommodate and capitulate to the dominant secular culture. Academic promotion can often depend on it. This is especially true in the overlapping territory of science and religion.
Plantinga never chose the accommodationist route, however. Instead, throughout his career, he challenged, and often challenged decisively, the prevailing conventional wisdom and fundamental assumptions in the academy.
I plan to follow Richard’s review closely. Join me.
Plantinga’s book is primarily directed to atheists (especially naturalists), but has lessons for apologetics as well. Most religious people respect science and all use its findings. Many scientists are religious, some very much so. Both science and religion, however, have limitations which should be mutually respected.
In my free ebook on comparative mysticism, “the greatest achievement in life,” is a quote by Albert Einstein: “…most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty – which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive form – this knowledge, this feeling, is the center of all religion.”
E=mc², Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, is probably the best known scientific equation. I revised it to help better understand the relationship between divine Essence (Love, Grace, Spirit), matter (mass/energy: visible/dark) and consciousness (f(x) raised to its greatest power). Unlike the speed of light, which is a constant, there are no exact measurements for consciousness. In this hypothetical formula, basic consciousness may be of insects, to the second power of animals and to the third power the rational mind of humans. The fourth power is suprarational consciousness of mystics, when they intuit the divine essence in perceived matter. This was a convenient analogy, but there cannot be a divine formula.
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