Science and Religion - Essay Example

Science and Religion: Are they compatible? Plantinga strongly asserted that there might be science and religion conflict as one may come to think ofit, but he believes that there is actually a contradiction between naturalism and science and not on theistic religion and science (Dennett and Plantinga 10; American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference 1). In this point, it is evident that Plantinga is trying to create a view that science and religion can support each other in line with one consistent belief about God’s existence and his divine works.

Plantinga has two remarkable major points. The first one is an assertion that God created humans in his own image and likeness. In this point, Plantinga strongly believes that God in any way is capable of creating humans with moral sense, and has the capacity to love him (American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference 2). He tries to argue that our contemporary view of evolutionary theory has been God’s major way of creating the modern humans we know today. Believing that God has the capacity to create everything in the world, Plantinga considers the evolutionary process as God’s major way of creating humans in the best possible option.

This is evident from his opening statement in a conference. He stated that ‘God could have caused the right mutations to arise at the right time’ (American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference 2). In this manner, God is able to save the best species he intends to proliferate in this world through an evolutionary process. Plantinga believes that this sounds consistent with theistic religion and the theory of evolution and his main stand is to point out how it is unfailing with Darwinism as well.

However, the second major point of Plantinga is evident in the eventual conflict between Christian belief and evolution and Darwinism. Plantinga asserted that evolution is inconsistent with Christian belief. He argues that contemporary evolution particularly assumes that there is ‘no personal agent (not even God) has guided, planned, intended, directed or orchestrated, or shaped the whole process of it (American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference 2). In this view, Plantinga has made a clear justification about its point that evolution is eventually unguided.

He is therefore trying to suggest that evolution is eventually guided by God. Plantinga is clear about his point and he is trying to create a move to unite science and theistic religion. However, his very position that naturalism and theory of Charles Darwin as unguided is basically a statement that tries to create an inconsistency with science principle on the theory of evolution. In the first place, this created a contradiction on his part to unite the varying beliefs of science and theistic religion.

It is because of this inconsistency that from the science’s perspective, Plantinga failed to provide facts and further justifications that indeed evolution from his point is guided or simply there is someone who is capable of creating an intelligent design for everything. Based on science perspective and standard, Plantinga failed to justify how everything is planned according to how it looks at present. For instance, he failed to justify based on scientific explanation the facts that everything in this world is not happening by chance or at random, but there must be an intelligent hand that is capable of creating intelligent designs.

Reference American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference. The Plantinga-Dennett Debate: Science and Religion: Are they compatible? (2009) http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/PlantingaOpeningStatement.pdf. Accessed on 14 June 2011. Dennett, Daniel Clement and Alvin Plantinga. Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.