Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism

Developed from Plantinga's Gifford Lectures of 2005, this book argues that the familiar picture of science and religion at war is mistaken. His thesis is that there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, and superficial concord but deep conflict between science and naturalism. Evolution, he argues, is compatible with theism; what conflicts is the further claim, made by Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, that evolution is unguided, which is not part of science. Miracles and divine action do not break the laws of physics, which describe how the world behaves when nothing outside it acts. He then examines evolutionary psychology and historical biblical criticism, finding only superficial conflict, and presents areas of concord, including fine-tuning and the fit between our minds and the world. Finally he restates his evolutionary argument against naturalism: if naturalism and evolution are both true, we have reason to doubt our cognitive faculties, and so naturalism itself. Critics dispute the probabilities this argument relies on.

It is the most influential recent case that science fits theism better than naturalism, and it gives the evolutionary argument against naturalism in its fullest form.