Where the Conflict Really Lies

This book is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates — the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflictbetween science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord. Plantinga examines where this conflict is supposed to exist — evolution, evolutionary psychology, analysis of scripture, scientific study of religion — as well as claims by Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Philip Kitcher that evolution and theistic belief cannot co-exist. Plantinga makes a case that their arguments are not only inconclusive but that the supposed conflicts themselves are superficial, due to the methodological naturalism used by science. On the other hand, science canactually offer support to theistic doctrines, and Plantinga uses the notion of biological and cosmological "fine-tuning" in support of this idea. Plantinga argues that we might think about arguments in science and religion in a new way — as different forms of discourse that try to persuade people to lookat questions from a perspective such that they can see that something is true. In this way, there is a deep and massive consonance between theism and the scientific enterprise.

Plantinga is at his most persuasive when exhibiting defeats in the naturalist world-view., Plantinga is an intellectual heavyweight in the philosophy of religion, and those who want to keep abreast of the best work in this area would be well advised to read this long-awaited contribution., Alvin Plantinga is one of the most eminent philosophers in the world, and a book from him on science and religion is of the first importance. It is a joy to see how he uses precise logical analysis to counter the arguments of his opponents, and issue a trenchant defence of Christian thought., an engaging read ... a very good book, well worth reading by both theists and non-theists for its thoughtful consideration of difficult and contentious issues. I warmly recommend it., a robust defence of religion against the claim that it is defeated by science.

O'Brien Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame.