Originally posted by twhitehead
But it seems that evolution has furnished us with a cognitive apparatus that produces false beliefs. The fact that they don't 'hang together' doesn't seem to bother most people. Of course I don't think we have a preponderance of false beliefs, nor is true belief impossible nor rare.
However the obvious fact that some people hold some false beliefs seems to argue against the claim in the OP that Gods existence guarantees true belief.
But it seems that evolution has furnished us with a cognitive apparatus that produces false beliefs.
Sure, in many cases, but not on the whole (as you yourself agree in your subsequent comments). And, at any rate, your comment is not relevant to what I claimed. I never claimed that evolution would furnish us with cognitive apparatus that generates only true beliefs. What I claimed is that it is very implausible that evolution would furnish us with cognitive apparatus that produces a preponderance of false beliefs that both (1) are on the whole consistent (or "hang together" in a way that is on the whole coherent) and (2) conduce to the right adaptive behavior across the wide range or spectrum of situations that we face.
However the obvious fact that some people hold some false beliefs seems to argue against the claim in the OP that Gods existence guarantees true belief.
Yes, that fact would go against any system that holds both (1) God exists and (2) God's existence guarantees true belief. But, you are wrong if you think (1) & (2) is what the OP is claiming. (And it is most certainly not what Plantinga claims in his argument on this subject.) Nowhere does Plantinga argue that God's existence "guarantees true belief". His arguments are about characteristically
reliable cognition, not about perfect cognition. His idea of what it is for us to be reliable cognizers (over a very large cognitive terrain) certainly admits that we can come to many false beliefs on many matters. So, this is no big whoop against his argument.