Philosopher Alvin Plantinga Receives Prestigious Rescher Prize
By David J. Theroux • Saturday February 2, 2013 5:10 PM PDT • 35 Comments
The world-renowned philosopher Alvin C. Plantinga has recently received the prestigious Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy, awarded by the University of Pittsburgh’s Departments of Philosophy, History, and Philosophy of Science, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science. Plantinga is widely known for his work in the philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics and Christian apologetics, and he has revolutionized scholarly interest in Christian theism, shown naturalism/atheism to be self-refuting and incoherent, and set the new standards for the defense of free will, individual agency, consciousness, rational inference, science, objective truth and morality, and more. As a result, Plantinga has both directly influenced the entire field of philosophy and has mentored and inspired new generations of top scholars who are critiquing the reductionism, relativism, materialism, collectivism, scientism, positivism, determinism, and de-humanization of the modern era. In short, Plantinga has devastated the prevailing view in Western elites that human beings are merely “matter in motion” (i.e., purposeless, accidental, robotic products of a closed, natural world ruled solely by physical laws and that truth, reason, morality, and God are illusions).
Plantinga is the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy at Calvin College, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University, he has served as President of the American Philosophical Association (Western Division) and Society of Christian Philosophers, and he has delivered the Gifford Lectures in Scotland three times.
Plantinga’s work is of immense importance to all thinking in epistemology, ethics and economics, especially regarding individual action, entrepreneurship, free markets, civic virtue, and the rule of law. Plantinga has shown that those scholars who attempt to ground reality in naturalism are not just pursuing a futile quest leading to determinism and nihilism but are embracing views that defeat their very intellectual enterprise, including science itself. Unfortunately, many superb classical liberal and libertarian scholars remain unaware of Plantinga’s work and are oblivious of the profound weaknesses in their naturalistic assumptions. In this regard, I authored an earlier, preliminary paper, “Economic Science and the Poverty of Naturalism,” that discusses this dilemma and the crucial value of the critiques of metaphysical naturalism by both C.S. Lewis and Plantinga, especially as this is relevant to the corpus of economic reasoning in the Austrian School, Public Choice and other traditions within what Peter Boettke describes as “mainline economics” in his new Independent Institute book, Living Economics.
For example, Plantinga’s “evolutionary argument against naturalism” brilliantly argues that if evolution is true, it is an epistemic defeater for naturalism, leaving naturalism in ruin. The influential philosopher Thomas Nagel agrees and utilizes Plantinga’s work in his recent book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press). Nagel also recently and favorably reviewed Plantinga’s newest book, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford University Press), in the New York Review of Books.
Similarly, Plantinga developed the “Modal Ontological Argument” for the existence of God, drawing on the work of St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century but correcting the argument using modal logic in a more rigorous, formal, and irrefutable way. Here is a video discussion of Plantinga’s Modal Ontological Argument and a further video that refutes objections. Here, here and here are videos that further discuss the argument.
In his book God, Freedom, and Evil (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), Plantinga’s essay “The Free Will Defense,” with its implicit libertarianism, is accepted today by most philosophers who have come to see the “problem of evil” as having been sufficiently rebutted and showing that free will is necessarily true. Here is a video discussing Plantinga’s argument.
In the following, pioneering trilogy of books, Plantinga has famously argued that “warrant” (something held to be true) cannot exist in naturalistic epistemology and that for all warrant, theism must be true:
- Warrant: the Current Debate (Oxford University Press)
- Warrant and Proper Function (Oxford University Press)
- Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford University Press)
Other key books of Plantinga’s work include the following:
- The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader (edited by James F. Sennett)
- Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy
- Does God Have a Nature?
- Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality (edited by Matthew Davidson)
- Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God (edited with Nicholas Wolterstorff)
- God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God
- Knowledge of God (with Michael Tooley)
- The Nature of Necessity
- The Ontological Argument: From St. Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers (editor)
- Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (with Daniel C. Dennett)
The Rescher Prize is named after the distinguished philosopher Nicholas Rescher, University Professor of Philosophy and former Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Rescher is a member of the Board of Advisors for both the Independent Institute’s Center on Culture and Civil Society and quarterly journal, The Independent Review, and he authored the foreword to the Institute’s book by Tibor Machan, Private Rights, Public Illusions. Rescher is founder of the highly influential journal, American Philosophical Quarterly, and he is former President of the American Philosophical Association, American Catholic Philosophical Association, American G. W. Leibniz Society, C. S. Peirce Society, and American Metaphysical Society.
Here are some of the videos of Plantinga from the PBS series, “Closer to Truth: Cosmos, Consciousness, God”:
- “Does God Have a Nature?”
- “What Is a Properly Basic Belief?”
- “Is the Person All Material?”
- “Is the Soul Immortal?”
- “What are Possible Worlds?” Part 1, Part 2
- “Is God Necessary?”
- “What Are Some Defeaters for Theism?”
- “How Can an Immaterial God Interact with the Physical Universe?”
- “Can God Change?”
- “Does Philosophy Illuminate Religion?” Part 1, Part 2
- “Is This the Best of All Possible Worlds?”
- “Atheist’s Arguments Against the Existence of God”
- “Can Many Religions All Be True?”
- “Does Evil Disprove God?” Part 1, Part 2
Here also are sample articles by Plantinga:
- “Advice to Christian Philosophers”
- “Darwin, Mind and Meaning”
- “The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ‘ad absurdum’”
- “Evolution vs. Naturalism: Why they are like oil and water”
- “Intellectual Sophistication and Basic Belief in God”
- “Naturalism Defeated”
- “Religion and Science”
- “Theism, Atheism, and Rationality”
Tags: Austrian School of economics, Christianity, Culture, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Free Market, Innovation, Liberalism, Liberty, Morality, Natural Law, Personal Liberty, Philosophy, Public Choice, Religion, Video 
Makes me proud to be of Dutch descent and proud to know so many Plantinga’s. With a little more publicity maybe the red squiggly line under Plantinga will go away!
Stan | Feb 2, 2013 | Reply
Dear Sir,
I would enjoy being on your email list. Apologetics is a great subject and
Of great interest to me. Please let me know if there is any cost. Thank you.
Andrew Knight | Feb 3, 2013 | Reply
“Plantinga’s work is of immense importance to all thinking in epistemology, ethics and economics, especially regarding individual action, entrepreneurship, free markets, and the rule of law. Plantinga has shown that those scholars who attempt to ground reality in naturalism are not just pursuing a futile quest leading to determinism and nihilism but are embracing views that defeat their very intellectual enterprise, including science itself.”
Rubbish. No amount of apologetics and rationalization can alter the fundamentally material character of reality; or change the fact that “God” is a futile non-concept which mystics use to pepper over a rationalization for anything they wish to believe; usually contradictory beliefs at that.
While intentionality is certainly real it is a phenomena that derives from the characteristics of forces in relationships.
And to claim that the drift toward determinism and ethical nihilism may upset a Presbyterian apologist that provides no argument against it. Philosophy does not have a ‘purpose’, it is logic and wisdom literature. To attempt to attack a viewpoint by its supposed consequences is rank nonsense; things are true irrespective of whether we would like them to be.
Elrond Hubbard | Feb 3, 2013 | Reply
And for the record I have no particular problem with religion, I have a problem with its myths and metaphors being confused for reality and history.
Elrond Hubbard | Feb 3, 2013 | Reply
“Elrond Hubbard”, “Rubbish” is not an argument and I would suggest that you actually take the time to examine Plantinga’s arguments before you pursue your knee-jerk, blanket dismissal. I have provided ample links and references that discuss issues that you raise.
As for the truth regarding the historicity of Christian theism, there are other scholars I would recommend, including N.T. Wright and Rodney Stark, who have shown that the anti-theist, “Enlightenment” accounts are false.
By your pseudonym incidentally, am I to assume that you actually defer to the science-fiction and fantasy writings of occultist and convicted felon L. Ron Hubbard and embrace Dianetics and the secular “religion” of Scientology? Perhaps you believe that these are things that qualify for what you refer to when you state “things are true irrespective of whether we would like them to be”?
David J. Theroux | Feb 3, 2013 | Reply
“Elrond Hubbard,” I also “have no particular problem with religion. I have a problem with its myths and metaphors being confused for reality and history.” In this regard, there are numerous excellent, scholarly studies that examine the historicity of Christianity and find the New Testament accounts to be true. Indeed, Christianity is the only religion that originated from and is based on evidence and eye-witness accounts, and here is just a sampling of references:
David J. Theroux | Feb 3, 2013 | Reply
“...it is a phenomena....”
Oh dear.
Andy Walsh | Feb 6, 2013 | Reply
Elrond: do you believe in the myths of Socialism that have resulted in mass murders, repression, starvation, and other perversions?
Anthony B. Sanders | Feb 10, 2013 | Reply
What eye-witness accounts?
What evidence?
Apart from the words about Jesus of Galilee that appear in the “New” Testament, there is vitually no evidence for Jesus’ existence. Reference to Jesus, to a movement in response to him, and to people who were his followers only began to appear years, and even decades, AFTER the time when (as it is “reported” in the “New” Testament) Jesus is commonly presumed to have lived – yet, there is NO historical evidence for Jesus’ existence that is contemporary with the time in which Jesus purportedly lived.
All the stories in the Gospels about Jesus; early life before he began to preach are myths.
Relative to nearly all of the life-stories about Jesus, the writers of the Gospels could not have been making use of information of a fACTUAL nature in order to “record” historical fact. Where, how, and from whom would they have acquired such information?
and, indeed, if there were any fact-based sopurces for those stories, why do the “gospels so markedly contradict one another relative to the details?
While the Gospels are full of mostly fabricated details about Jesus’ lifetime, there is, also, no evidence that the writers have actually quoted (rather than invented) what Jesus said when he was alive.
Why is it, then, that, after his death, suddenly everybody “knew and remembered” all these things about what Jesus said and did.
There is nothing that could be said AFTER the lifetime of such a person as Jesus that would be as relevant to his own teaching as that he, himself, said when he was alive. Whatever Jesus cared to say that was of the nature of a teaching, or, otherwise,of a revelation about himself, he would have said during his lifetime.
Whatever all others have said afterwards is really their own creation, for their own reasons. All of it arose entirely within the various writers own sphere of thinking and desiring and intending.
Another point. You refer to all of the usual modern “authorities” who presume to “prove” that the “official” insitutionalized version of Jesus is “true”.
The trouble with all of these “authorities” is that not a single one of them ever met Jesus up close and personal in a living-breathing-feeling human form.
So how authentic is their “proof”?
Where is the solid documentary evidence?
Where are the Polaroid photographs to “prove” that any of it occurred?
Fred | Feb 11, 2013 | Reply
None of can even account for our appearance here and the appearance of the world as it is in any and every given moment.
To do so you would have to take into account how, beginning from day one (wnenever and wherever that was), and taking into account all of the space-time paradoxes of Reality, the entire Cosmic Process somehow coalesced into creating the body-mind-complex that you now identify with, and everything that is within your present-time field of perception.
More simply you cannot account for the existence of a single “thing” – an Apple for instance.
Such a task is impossible, and yet you, and all of these big-time “authorities” presume to know, more of less exactly, what happened in Palestine 2000 years ago (whenever and wherever that was!)
Fred | Feb 11, 2013 | Reply
Fred, One can only surmise that you would also dismiss the historical evidence for Alexander, Julius Caesar, Socrates, and any ancient figure in history, for which there are also no “Polaroid photographs to ‘prove’ that any of it occurred”. Indeed there are likely no “Polaroid photographs” of your own birth or most every moment of your own life. Has your own life not existed prior to the present and what about the lives of the billions of other people now and in the past? Your view appears not just to suffer from an extreme and self-refuting positivism but to an incoherent, post-modern solipsism in which you deny reality of an objective world itself.
No serious scholar believes that Jesus did not exist as the evidence is overwhelming. In this regard, I have given ample scholarly references in an above comment by me, and I would recommend your examining these. Indeed, the authoritative work has been done by N.T. Wright at the University of St. Andrews.
As for the specifics regarding Jesus’s words and deeds, many scholars agree that as a rabbi Jesus had an entourage with him that recorded his every move and word and that this formed the basis for later writings, including the earliest by Paul in Corinthians just years after the death of Jesus. Moreover, the accounts by the first-century Roman/Jewish historian Josephus, Roman historian Tacitus, Pliny the Younger in his letters to Emperor Trajan, the Babylonian Talmud, the Greek writer Lucian of Samosata, and others corroborate the Gospels. Here for example is Tacitus reporting on Emperor Nero’s decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64:
Here is Josephus in his “Testimonium Flavianum”:
As Michael Gleghorn notes:
Here are some further sample references:
David J. Theroux | Feb 11, 2013 | Reply