📘 Introduction for Blog Series Readers

This post is part of a daily series responding to The Problem of God by Mark Clark—a book that attempts to defend Christianity by critiquing science, reason, and secular worldviews. In this entry, we’re examining pages 34–37 from the chapter The Problem of Science, where Clark leans on philosopher Alvin Plantinga’s argument that if evolution and naturalism are true, then our cognitive faculties can’t be trusted. This post continues our project here at The God Question—a blog that exists to challenge inherited beliefs, reexamine dogmas, and invite clarity in place of confusion.

To read other posts in this series, visit: godordelusion.com\thegodquestion

🧩 Clark’s Argument: A Quick Summary

In this section, Clark presents what’s often called the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). It goes something like this:

Evolution only selects for survival, not truth.
Therefore, if naturalism is true and our brains evolved solely through evolution, our beliefs might not be reliable.
As a result, we can’t trust our reasoning—including belief in evolution itself.
This is presented as a self-defeating view. If your mind evolved from purely natural causes, why should you trust it?
To support this, Clark quotes Alvin Plantinga and even Charles Darwin, who once expressed a doubt about the trustworthiness of human reason given its origins.

The implication is clear: if you want reliable thinking, you need God.

🧠 Why This Argument Fails—And Why It Still Persists

1. It’s a Strawman of Evolution and Cognition

Plantinga’s argument—and by extension, Clark’s—is deeply flawed. It assumes that survival and truth are mutually exclusive, but that’s simply not true. In many real-world scenarios, accurate models of the world help an organism survive. Misjudging the location of food, predators, shelter, or other agents would lead to death—not reproduction. Evolution does favor usefulness, but often truth is useful.

2. Science Has Corrective Mechanisms

Clark frames naturalistic thinking as “blind,” but science is not a lone mind guessing in the dark. It’s a collective, cumulative system of testing, peer review, prediction, and falsifiability. Plantinga’s argument ignores the tools we’ve built to overcome cognitive bias: experimentation, statistics, review, and replication. These don’t depend on a divine origin—just consistency and feedback.

3. It’s the Ultimate Double Standard

If our minds can’t be trusted under naturalism, what makes them trustworthy under theism? Clark wants to say, “If God made your brain, it works.” But this assumes the very thing in question—a trustworthy, intentional designer. If we’re misled under evolution, couldn’t we also be deceived by God? Why should a mind made by divine design be assumed reliable without any evidence?

And let’s be honest: if Christian minds are so reliable, why are there tens of thousands of denominations? Why do believers disagree about virtually every major doctrine?

4. Darwin’s Quote Is Misused

Darwin’s “horrid doubt” is often used to show he questioned his own theory. But this is a cherry-picked, rhetorical quote taken from a letter. Darwin was engaging in philosophical reflection, not scientific denial. He didn’t abandon his trust in science. He continued to rely on empirical observation to understand the world, and his legacy shows that clearly.

5. This Argument Is Philosophy in Disguise

The EAAN sounds scientific, but it’s not. It’s a philosophical sleight of hand—trying to make science look self-defeating by redefining “truth,” ignoring empirical tools, and offering a false choice: either God made your brain, or you can’t trust it.

But the actual choice is between a rigorously tested method of inquiry (science), and an assumed supernatural guarantee with no built-in way to test error or illusion.

🧭 Closing Thought

Plantinga’s argument, recycled here by Clark, might feel clever at first glance. It plays on doubt and uncertainty—a favorite tactic of religious apologetics. But what it offers in mystery, it lacks in substance. The real question isn’t whether our minds are perfect; it’s whether our methods are improving.

Science doesn’t pretend to be infallible. Religion does. That’s the problem.

📘 About This Series

This post is part of a daily response series to The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptic’s Challenges to Christianity by Mark Clark. The series critically engages with each chapter and section of the book, examining Clark’s arguments through the lens of reason, historical evidence, and The God Question’s core philosophy: what’s true doesn’t fear investigation.

Today’s post responds to content found in pages 30–32 of the book — the section titled “Everyone Has Faith.”

If you’re just joining us, you can view all prior entries in this series here: godordelusion.com\thegodquestion

🔄 Is Belief in Science Also “Faith”?

Responding to Mark Clark’s argument that everyone has faith—even atheists

In The Problem of God, Mark Clark attempts to level the playing field between believers and skeptics by claiming that everyone has faith. The atheist who trusts in science and evidence? Faith. The secular doctor who says a dying patient “won’t be suffering anymore”? Faith.

His argument is simple: No one is exempt. Whether you’re a religious believer or a rationalist skeptic, you’re making assumptions about things you can’t prove. Therefore, all worldviews—including atheism—are faith-based.

It sounds clever. But does this hold up?

Let’s examine the three layers of Clark’s argument.

1. 🔁Redefining Faith to Include Everything

Clark starts by challenging the idea that “faith” is something only religious people have. He writes:

“Everyone believes in something and makes assumptions about reality that can’t be proven even through science.”

To illustrate, he tells the story of a nurse overhearing doctors agree that removing a patient from life support would end the patient’s suffering. How did they know there wouldn’t be suffering after death? They didn’t. That was a faith statement.

Clark’s move is to redefine “faith” as any belief without absolute proof.

But here’s the problem:

Faith isn’t merely lack of proof. It’s belief in the absence of—or often in defiance of—evidence.

If we broaden “faith” to include all reasonable trust or inference, we destroy the very distinction Clark wants to erase. Trusting that gravity will work tomorrow is not the same as believing someone rose from the dead 2,000 years ago because an ancient text says so.

Equating the two is rhetorical sleight of hand.

2. 🧠Smuggling in Religious Faith Through Everyday Uncertainty

Clark argues that even science is driven by faith, citing biologist Richard Lewontin, who once said scientists have “a prior commitment to materialism.” Clark interprets this as evidence that scientific naturalism isn’t based on facts, but on philosophy—thus, it’s just another faith position.

Here’s what Clark misses:

Lewontin’s quote acknowledges that science operates under a methodological assumption, not a metaphysical dogma.
Methodological naturalism says: “Let’s assume natural causes, because that’s what works.” It doesn’t say, “Only nature exists.”

Clark wants to portray science as secretly religious—driven by unprovable metaphysical beliefs. But this is a category error. Science does not claim certainty. It welcomes revision, which is the opposite of religious faith.

3. 🧩The Four Big Questions and the Faith of Worldviews

Clark concludes this section by quoting Brian Walsh and J. Richard Middleton, who claim that everyone has a worldview, and that worldview is how we answer four questions:

Who am I?
Where am I?
What’s wrong?
What’s the remedy?

This is a fair observation—worldviews matter. But Clark wants to turn worldview thinking into a justification for belief without evidence. Just because all people interpret reality doesn’t mean all interpretations are equally valid.

Atheists may answer those questions differently than Christians, Buddhists, or Muslims—but what distinguishes the secular thinker is a commitment to revise those answers when evidence demands it.

That’s not blind faith. That’s intellectual honesty.

🧩 Final Thought: Faith Isn’t the Problem. Unexamined Faith Is.

Clark’s goal is clear: if everyone has faith, then no one can criticize religious faith without hypocrisy. But this argument fails because it hinges on a flattened definition of faith—one that ignores the difference between trust earned through reason and belief granted without it.

Trusting your doctor is not the same as trusting the Bible.

Making assumptions in science is not the same as worshiping a resurrected savior.

And living with uncertainty is not the same as embracing doctrine.

Yes, we all live with some unknowns. But that doesn’t mean all faiths are created equal. Some are built on evidence, openness, and correction. Others are built on ancient authority, fear, and unchanging claims.

Let’s not confuse the two.

Tag: Faith vs. Reason

Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism–A Response