Reflection on CBHD’s 14th Annual Conference Bioethics Nexus

July 19, 2007

Professor Alvin Plantinga has a great sense of humor, perhaps surprising since he has been called “the most important philosopher of religion now writing.” Now filling the John A. O’Brien Chair at the University of Notre Dame, he opened his remarks with a joke about aspirations to become the “next pope” (Dr. Plantinga himself is Protestant).

In his plenary presentation, “Science and Religion: Why Does the Debate Continue?” Plantinga explained the philosophical differences that separate secular scientists from those of faith. For some scientists, religion is a “clear and present danger” to scientific inquiry; for others, religion has a dwindling role, now that science can explain more and more of the mysteries of the natural world.

Both of these viewpoints are influenced by a misunderstanding of the role of methodological naturalism. Naturalism, the concept that only observable data has reality, is the functional basis of scientific inquiry. An individual scientist is free to have any metaphysical or philosophical opinion he would like, as long as it does not influence his practice. In other words, he need not hold to naturalism as a philosophy, but he must adhere to it in his methodology. A scientist who holds to methodological naturalism should not attempt to invoke the supernatural in his or her everyday research. After Grotius, “we should proceed as if God is not given.”

The problem arises when this reasonable approach is expanded into an argument about the nature of all of reality. Methodological naturalism then gives way to ontological (philosophical) naturalism. Such a metaphysical stance is not supported by science.

This is often seen in the ongoing debates about creation v. evolution. Harvard zoologist Richard Dawkins, in his book The Blind Watchmaker, shows his philosophical naturalism bias. He seems to be claiming: 1) There are no irrefutable objections to the possibility that all life came about by unguided natural selection; 2) Therefore, all life came about by unguided natural selection. He claims that scientific reasoning excludes any possibility of a divine Designer for the universe.

In short, according to Plantinga, the scientific theory of Darwinism is compatible with theism. On the other hand, unguided Darwinism, based on philosophical naturalism, is a “metaphysical or theological add-on” that is not required or supported by the scientific method.

Reflection from Dennis M. Sullivan, MD, Director
Center for Bioethics at Cedarville University