Alvin Plantinga helped change the way Christians view philosophy, and the way secular philosophy views Christian thought. So what contributions has Plantinga made to the world of philosophy?
Who Is Alvin Plantinga?
Alvin Plantinga is one of contemporary Christian philosophy’s most recognized and cited authors. He has spent five decades teaching, writing, and crafting philosophical arguments from a Christian worldview. His wide-ranging yet refined defenses of the Christian faith have made him one of the most important thinkers in Christian evangelicalism.
Important Events in Alvin Plantinga’s Life
Plantinga was born in 1932 and is the son of Cornelius A. Plantinga and Lettie G. Bossenbroek. His father immigrated to the U.S. from The Netherlands, received his PhD from Duke University, and taught at various colleges around the United States. The emphasis on getting a good education influenced many of his children: Alvin’s younger brothers include Yale musicologist Leon B. Plantinga and Princeton-educated theologian Cornelius “Neal” Plantinga Jr.
In 1949, at his father’s urging, Plantinga finished high school a year early and enrolled at Jamestown College in North Dakota. In 1950, his father started teaching at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Plantinga transferred to Calvin. However, after one semester at Calvin, he received a scholarship to Harvard. His education plans changed again a year into his time at Harvard when he sat in a handful of William Harry Jellema’s philosophy classes at Calvin. He enjoyed it so much that he transferred back to Calvin to study under him.
In 1954, Plantinga started his graduate degree at the University of Michigan. After receiving his Masters, he moved on to Yale, where he earned his PhD in 1958.
During Plantinga’s last year at Yale, he started teaching in the philosophy department. After graduating, he started a professorship of philosophy at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. In 1963, he returned to Calvin to succeed the retiring Jellema and be a part of a community of thinkers who saw the world from a Christian perspective and wanted to develop Christian scholarship. He saw immense value in training, preparing, and encouraging the next generation of Christian philosophers. After 19 years at Calvin, he accepted a teaching position at Notre Dame to teach PhD students and stayed for 28 years. In 2010, he returned to Calvin as the philosophy department chair.
Along the way, Plantinga married Kathleen De Boer in 1955, and they went on to have four children together—two boys and two girls. Their sons teach at Calvin University, and their daughters work as a pastor and a Bible translator. Additionally, two of Alvin’s brothers teach religion at Calvin and music at Yale.
Along with his teaching duties and writing endeavors, Plantinga was president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983 to 1986. And in 2017, he received the Templeton Prize and its roughly one million dollar prize money. The award is given to those attempting to use the strength of science to explore the greatest questions of the universe and human’s role and purpose within it. Other winners have included Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Jane Goodall.
How Did Alvin Plantinga Change Christian Philosophy?
When Plantinga started his career in philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s, academia was becoming more anti-religious and anti-theistic. Few Christians could be found in the philosophy departments across the country. Those that did exist often avoided incorporating religion and theology into their arguments, lest they be marginalized. Most philosophers agreed that religious inquiry was either not helpful or didn’t make sense.
However, Plantinga has helped restore respect for a Christian approach to philosophy over the last five decades. Throughout his career, he has prioritized showing how faith, philosophy, and science are not separate quests. Through his writings, he has helped revive the belief in God as sensible, and maybe actually a primary, idea for addressing philosophy’s most critical questions.
Also, Plantinga has helped change Christians’ view of philosophy. The church, especially evangelicalism, has been wary of philosophy, believing it creates doubt. However, Plantinga has reaffirmed that Christian philosophy has been around for nearly two millennia and can be a type of apologetic and an opportunity to strengthen one’s faith. In an interview with Christianity Today, he states that he has always wanted to defend Christianity and Christian thought—that it’s not unreasonable or crazy.
In general, Plantinga has made important contributions to philosophy in both the Christian and secular realms. He has addressed a variety of subjects, including reviving the ontological (nature of being) argument for God, using a ‘free will’ defense concerning the problem of evil, and helping to develop Reformed Epistemology (a belief can be justified by more than just evidence nor does it need to be rationalized from other truths).
Fascinating Quotes by Alvin Plantinga
“Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin concur on the claim that there is a kind of natural knowledge of God (and anything on which Calvin and Aquinas are in accord is something to which we had better pay careful attention).” — Warranted Christian Belief
“God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so.” — God, Freedom, and Evil
“The Reformed epistemologist may concur with Calvin in holding that God has implanted in us a natural tendency to see his hand in the world around us.” — Faith And Rationality: Reason and Belief in God
“Now Kant is by no means easy to understand, which is no doubt part of his charm. If you want to be a really great philosopher, make sure not to say too clearly what you have in mind (well, maybe that’s not quite enough, but it’s a good start).” — Knowledge and Christian Belief
“Faith is the belief in the great things of the gospel that results from the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit.” — Knowledge and Christian Belief
“Perhaps God permits my father, or my daughter, or my friend, or me to suffer in the most appalling way. I may then find myself thinking as follows: ‘No doubt he has all those dandy divine qualities and no doubt he has a fine reason for permitting this abomination—after all, I am no match for him with respect to coming up with reasons, reasons that are utterly beyond me— but what he permits is appalling, and I hate it!’ I may want to tell him off face to face: ‘You may be wonderful, and magnificent, and omniscient and omnipotent (and even wholly good) and all that exalted stuff, but I utterly detest what you are doing!’ A problem of this kind is not really an evidential problem at all, and it isn’t a defeater for theism.” — Knowledge and Christian Belief
Great Books by Alvin Plantinga
God, Freedom, and Evil (1989). In this critically acclaimed work, Plantinga discusses some of the arguments favoring the existence of God versus the arguments against the existence of God. (natural theology vs. natural atheology).
The Nature of Necessity (1974). Plantinga explores and defends the modality de re, the notion that an object has both accidental and fundamental aspects. Plantinga creates his stance by arguing the idea of possible worlds influencing various objects’ makeup.
Knowledge and Christian Belief (2015). In a more condensed and accessible version of Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga defends that Christianity is rational and sensible. He addresses arguments often attempted to disprove Christianity—like pluralism, science, suffering, and evil, arguments presented by such thinkers as the New Atheists Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.
God and Other Minds (1967). Plantinga contests that the existence of God is logical, even though it can’t be proven conclusively.
Selections from his work have also been included in The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader edited by James Sennet.
Many books have discussed his life story and work, including Alvin Plantinga and Christian Apologetics by Keith Mascrod and Alvin Plantinga (Contemporary Philosophy in Focus edited by Deane Peter-Baker.
Further Reading:
The Problem of Evil: Why Does God Allow Evil to Exist?
What Is Apologetics in Christianity?
Why Should Christians Study Apologetics?
Photo Credit: Graphic by G. Connor Salter, containing edited version of a photo provided by Wikimedia Commons/Jonathunder, provided under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Nate Van Noord is from Detroit, MI, a graduate of Calvin University, and has taught high school history for many years. He loves to bike, run, and play pickleball, has been to about 30 countries, and is a three time winner of NPR's Moth Detroit StorySlam competitions.
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