Daniel Dennett's Response To Problems Of God, The Atheists

If the theist’s response to most problems is ‘God’, the atheists is ‘Darwin’. Daniel Dennett is famous for saying that Darwinism is like “universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view”. (Dennett ch. 3, para 6) This acid eats away at old, rusty, concepts such as theology and morality all the while leaving it unrecognizable. If theism could once explain why we should behave, it sure has a hard time after Darwin since ‘now we know…’ It’s as if philosophical naturalism, a philosophy of physicalism or materialism (the idea that there are no sprites, fairies, demons, gods or God, and only matter exists, Plantinga iv), must be a given. As if a response to theistic arguments

Evolutionary Psychology (hereafter EP), a “growing subfield in psychology” that interprets “internal cognitive behavior” (McCauley) as “adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce.” (Downes) On this account broader social behavior, such as morality and religion, can be explained in evolutionary terms. Those who are inclined to philosophical naturalism (hereafter Naturalism) often appeal to EP as reason to believe in Naturalism over theism (or any other kind of worldview incompatible with philosophical Naturalism), since in their view, Naturalism is more plausible to believe than supernatural accounts of morality. What I want to show is that the argument for ‘EP therefore naturalism’ is inconclusive since it doesn’t follow that EP implies naturalism to be true.

Instead, I want to assume that many of the most compelling explanations for the evolutionary development of morality are true. Second, theories relating to divine action theory often assume 1st order and 2nd order causation. God creates the world ex nihilo (out of nothing), or in some Christian theistic accounts, does miracles such as transform water into rich fermented wine. This would be a 1st order cause. God, it is understood in theism generally, can also act through normal natural processes to bring about certain persons, events, conditions, etc. I will be thinking of this traditional theistic understanding in the argument without exploring alternative divine action theories. Third, I am by no means trying to draw a conclusion for or against Naturalism or theism. I wish only to show that using EP in arguments are inconclusive at