God in the Age of Science?: A Critique of Religious Reason

This monograph presents a systematic philosophical critique of attempts to establish God's existence through rational argumentation. Herman Philipse examines whether belief in the God of traditional monotheism can be justified given contemporary scientific understanding, ultimately arguing that such belief fails to meet standards of rational acceptability in the modern intellectual context.

Philipse structures his analysis as a comprehensive evaluation of natural theology and religious epistemology. He distinguishes between two primary strategies for rational religious belief: natural theology, which attempts to prove God's existence through argument, and reformed epistemology, which claims theistic belief can be properly basic without requiring evidence. The work devotes substantial attention to refuting both approaches, engaging particularly with the arguments of Richard Swinburne for the former and Alvin Plantinga for the latter.

The critique of natural theology focuses on probabilistic arguments for God's existence, especially Swinburne's cumulative case approach using Bayesian reasoning. Philipse argues that these arguments fail because they rely on questionable probability assignments and because the God hypothesis lacks the predictive power and testability required of legitimate scientific theories. He contends that invoking God as an explanation violates methodological naturalism and introduces unnecessary metaphysical complications without genuine explanatory benefits.

Regarding reformed epistemology, Philipse challenges Plantinga's claim that belief in God can be warranted without evidence if produced by properly functioning cognitive faculties. He argues this position is circular and fails to address the diversity of religious beliefs and the evolutionary origins of religious cognition. Philipse maintains that religious experiences cannot provide epistemic justification for theistic beliefs when naturalistic explanations for such experiences are available.

The work's philosophical method combines analytic rigor with attention to scientific findings, particularly from cosmology, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. Philipse argues that the progress of science has steadily eliminated gaps where God might function as an explanation, while cognitive science provides naturalistic accounts of religious belief formation that undermine claims to divine origin.

The monograph represents a significant contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion by providing one of the most thorough philosophical critiques of rational theism available. Philipse's work stands as a formidable challenge to both evidentialist and non-evidentialist strategies for defending religious belief, arguing that intellectual integrity in the age of science requires abandoning traditional theism.