Alvin Plantinga

1932-present · American · Epistemology, Philosophy of Religion, Modal Metaphysics, Christian Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science

Of all the antitheistic arguments only the argument from evil deserves to be taken really seriously.

When analytic philosophy had declared the philosophy of religion a dead end, Alvin Plantinga spent six decades proving otherwise. Raised in the Dutch Reformed tradition, he built a career on the conviction that rigorous philosophy and Christian faith were not at odds.

Topics Alvin Plantinga addresses

• properly basic belief
• the sensus divinitatis
• warrant as proper function
• the Aquinas/Calvin model
• warranted Christian belief
• the free will defense
• transworld depravity
• the modal ontological argument
• possible worlds as abstract states of affairs
• actualism and serious actualism
• transworld identity
• haecceities
• individual essences
• the evolutionary argument against naturalism
• religious exclusivism
• the de jure / de facto distinction
• the Great Pumpkin objection
• defeaters and epistemic defeat
• the problem of evil
• natural theology
• natural atheology
• Molinist middle knowledge
• the O Felix Culpa response
• maximal greatness

Converse with Alvin Plantinga on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Alvin Plantinga's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.