The Naturalist's Sensus Divinitatis

Plantinga asks: What are the odds that, if we are the products of unguided natural selection, our belief-forming mechanisms are reliable? He thinks the odds are quite low and uses this conclusion as part of an argument against atheism.

When asking this question, he asks: would a creature that is the product of unguided natural selection have reliable belief-forming mechanisms?

The answer to this question is 'yes'. We are the products of unguided natural selection. Our beliefs are the product of reliable belief-forming mechanisms. Accordingly, by Lewis' truth conditions for counterfactual conditionals, it is true that were a creature the product of unguided natural selection, it would have reliable belief-forming mechanisms.

BTW: Lewis: "If P were true, Q would be true" is true if P and Q are true.

The (Un)Importance of the Past and the Value for Me of My Life

At first one thinks that the good and bad in life aggregates across time such that your life has an overall value to you that might be represented as (something like) a sum of a measure of the magnitudes of intrinsic value to which you were subject at each time in your life.

But: It is tempting to suppose that the past does not matter to my wellbeing -- except insofar as it has determined my present or future condition. So, for example, if I should discover that my childhood included a hitherto forgotten trauma, I am not sure I should think that my life is much worse than I thought it was. Or, if I do think this, I will think that its being worse than I thought it was in that way is not such a bad thing. Similarly, if I should discover that my childhood included a hitherto forgotten episode of bliss, I am not sure I should think that my life is much better than I thought it was. Or, if I do think this, I will that think that its being better than I thought it was in that way is not such a good thing.

What if I discover that the universe came into existence only five minutes ago -- as opposed to its coming into existence somewhere before 1974? How should I feel about this discovery? Should I think: in a certain way my life is going to be much shorter than I would have hoped? It is as if I learned that I have an illness that will kill me about 35 years before I would have expected to die. And yet: I find it hard to feel this way about the discovery that the universe came into existence only five minutes ago.

If this is the way I think about the past, then what sense could there be to the idea that the good for me of living aggregates such that there is a value to me of my whole life?

But: it would be a mistake to wholly give in to the temptation to believe that the past does not matter. There are certain things I do care about in the past. These seem to fall into two categories: (1) Facts about my connections with other people and (2)facts about the quality of my own action.