7-Naturalism is self-refuting

Although many people think that Christianity is at odds, if not at war, with science, historians of science point out that Christianity was, in fact, necessary for the rise of modern science. Christians past and present have been and are leaders in science. However, in the years following Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species, there was a philosophical or metaphysical change, among many in science, to the worldview of naturalism.

In this lecture I introduce the primary alternative to Christianity (and theism in general), namely, naturalism (a/k/a materialism or physicalism). This is the worldview being aggressively promoted by the “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. I note the implications of this “universal acid” (Dennett’s phrase). I begin with skeptic David Hume’s assessment of the fact that naturalism cannot justify itself or provide any basis for abstract universals such as the regularity of nature, the laws of logic, or truth. Only theism, particularly Christianity, provides an adequate basis for such regularity, the reliability of reason, and abstract universals. I look at C. S. Lewis’s argument from reason and Alvin Plantinga’s similar evolutionary argument from reason to flesh this out.