The New York Times recently published an interview with Dr. Alvin Plantinga.
Plantinga, if his name is new to you, is among the leading Christian Academics of the day. And since I know that some skeptics among our readers may snicker at the idea of “Christian” and “Academics” being used in the same sentence, I shall clarify. He is also among the foremost scholars in his field today, his field being Philosophy.
It was impressive for such a short article, that he covered so much ground, and he didn’t use Academic Jargon to do it.
They opened with the topic, Do atheists need to justify their unbelief, or is it a default position? Is unbelief simply a question of “not enough evidence”? (That, and the atheists’ objection using their theoretical teapot orbiting the sun are addressed.)
They quickly discuss evidence in favor of God (i.e. Fine Tuning)
What about the Problem of Evil? Doesn’t that at least disprove the specifically Christian understanding of God? No, actually, a world like ours supplies evidence of a Good God, as Plantinga explained.
Next he poked large holes in the “God only explains mysterious events until science can explain them” criticism of faith.
The most interesting part of the article is when he turns the questions back toward the Materialists, quoting him directly:
Well, if there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution.
Did you catch that? You can believe in materialism, or you can believe in evolution, but the two are irreconcilable.
He explains why they are irreconcilable in the original NY Times piece.
[Hat tip to Lindsay Brooks of apologetics.com]