Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism - Development of The Idea

Development of The Idea

The idea that "naturalism" undercuts its own justification was put forward by C. S. Lewis in the first edition of his book Miracles in 1947. Similar arguments were advanced by Richard Taylor in Metaphysics, Stephen Clark, Arthur Balfour, Richard Purtill and J. P. Moreland. In 2003 Victor Reppert developed a similar argument in detail in his book C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason. Contemporary philosophers who have employed a similar argument against physical determinism are James Jordan and William Hasker.

Plantinga proposed his "evolutionary argument against naturalism" in 1993. In the twelfth chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Plantinga developed Lewis' idea, and constructed two formal arguments against evolutionary naturalism. He further developed the idea in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Naturalism Defeated" and in his 2000 book Warranted Christian Belief, and expanded the idea in Naturalism Defeated?, a 2002 anthology edited by James Beilby. He also responded to several objections to the argument in his essay "Reply to Beilby's Cohorts" in Beilby's anthology.

In the 2008 publication Knowledge of God Plantinga presented a formulation of the argument that solely focused on semantic epiphenomenalism instead of the former four jointly exhaustive categories.