Nagel's review of Plantinga's newest book

Here.

Nagel's review of Plantinga's newest book

Here.

Plantinga on the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

HT: Kristofer Rasmussen.

Plantinga on Dennett

This is an entertaining read.

Dennett's rejoinder to the argument is that possibly, "there has been an evolution of worlds (in the sense of whole universes) and the world we find ourselves in is simply one among countless others that have existed throughout all eternity." And given infinitely many universes, Dennett thinks, all the possible distributions of values over the cosmological constants would have been tried out; [ 7 ] as it happens, we find ourselves in one of those universes where the constants are such as to allow for the development of intelligent life (where else?). 

Well, perhaps all this is logically possible (and then again perhaps not). As a response to a probabilistic argument, however, it's pretty anemic. How would this kind of reply play in Tombstone, or Dodge City? "Waal, shore, Tex, I know it's a leetle mite suspicious that every time I deal I git four aces and a wild card, but have you considered the following? Possibly there is an infinite succession of universes, so that for any possible distribution of possible poker hands, there is a universe in which that possibility is realized; we just happen to find ourselves in one where someone like me always deals himself only aces and wild cards without ever cheating. So put up that shootin' arn and set down 'n shet yore yap, ya dumb galoot." Dennett's reply shows at most ('at most', because that story about infinitely many universes is doubtfully coherent) what was never in question: that the premises of this argument from apparent design do not entail its conclusion. But of course that was conceded from the beginning: it is presented as a probabilistic argument, not one that is deductive valid. Furthermore, since an argument can be good even if it is not deductively valid, you can't refute it just by pointing out that it isn't deductively valid. You might as well reject the argument for evolution by pointing out that the evidence for evolution doesn't entail that it ever took place, but only makes that fact likely. You might as well reject the evidence for the earth's being round by pointing out that there are possible worlds in which we have all the evidence we do have for the earth's being round, but in fact the earth is flat. Whatever the worth of this argument from design, Dennett really fails to address it.

Can an Intelligent Person be a Christian? Some Plantingian Reflections

A redated post from a couple years back.

In going on the Secular Web and looking at some atheist blogs, the answer seems to be no. In Alvin Plantinga's essay "A Christian Life Partly Lived," he writes:

At Wayne, the late Hector Neri-Casteneda, George Nakhnikian, and Edmund Gettier confronted me with antitheistic argumetns of a depth and philosophical sophistication and persistence I had never encountered before....Nakhnikian was our chairman; he thought well of my powers as a budding young philosopher, but also thought no intelligent person could possibly be a Christian. He would announce this sentiment in his usual stentorian tones, whereupon Robert Sleigh would say "But what about Al, George? Don't you think he's an intelligent person?" George would have to admit, reluctantly, that he thought I probably was, but he still thought there had to be a screw loose in there somewhere."

P. Z. Myers says Plantinga gives philosophy a bad name

I fear for the reputation of my beloved discipline.

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy." (Col 2:8)

This is Plantinga's spiritual bio

A redated post.

I was able to find this online. The stuff about the he-goat is worth the price of admission all by itself.

Plantinga on TULIP

Plantinga claims that the Five Points of Calvinism is a misnomer.

A study of Reformed Epistemology

The Plantinga-Dennett exchange

It seems like discussion by the pros can be about as acrimonious as it is here in the comboxes of Dangerous Idea.

Russell's Teapot and the Great Pumpkin objection

This links to an Russell's essay "Is there a God."

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

From Russell's essay "Is there a God."

The context here seems to be in establishing the burden of proof in debate about God. That debate, over the past few decades, has centered around Alvin Plantinga's controversial claim that belief in the existence of God can be properly basic, and in that context, the Teapot objection is known as the Great Pumpkin Objection. It is a strong, or as weak, as the Great Pumpkin objection to the proper basicality of theism.

This is a paper on the proper basicality debate.

Plantinga, Christians and their doubts

A redated post.

Since the issue of Christian doubts has come up on a couple of blogs, I thought this, from Plantinga, would be of interest.

And what can I say about my spiritual life since leaving Calvin? For me,
as, I suppose, for most others, spiritual life is an up and down proposition,
with what one hopes are the consolidation of small but genuine gains.
Sometimes I wake in the wee hours of the morning and find myself wondering:
can all this really be true? Can this whole wonderful Christian story really be
more than a wonderful fairy tale? At other times I find myself as
convinced of its main lineaments as that I live in South Bend.

Plantinga on Evolution vs. Naturalism

Plantinga's totally depraved grandmother

This is an excerpt from Plantinga's essay, "A Christian Life Partly Lived," from Kelly Clark ed. Philosophers Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of 11 Leading Thinkers.

What was preached was, of course, historic Calvinism. When I was eight or nine I began to understand and think seroiusly about the so-called five points of Calvinism enshrined in the TULIP acronym: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints. I remember wondering in particular about total depravity. I do indeed subscribe to that doctrine, which, as I understand it, quite properly points out that for most or all of us, every important area of our lives is distorted and compromised by sin. When I first began to think about it, however, I took it to mean that everyone was completely wicked, wholly bad, no better than a Hitler or a Judas. That seemed to me a bit confusing and hard to credit; was my grandmother (in fact, a very saintly woman) really completely wicked? Was there nothing good about her at all. That seemed a bit too much. True, I had heard her say "Shit" a couple of times: once when someone came stomping into the kitchen, and one when I threw a string of fire-crackers into the fifty-gallon drum in which she was curing dried beef (they began exploding in rapid-fire succession just as she came to look into the drum). But what sthat really enough to make her a moral monster, particularly when so much about her pointed in the opposite direction?

See also this discussion in on John DePoe's blog.

Plantinga and the argument from Beauty

This discussion on Ooblick's blog uses Plantinga's brief reference to what he calls The Mozart Argument as a reason why atheists snicker at Plantinga. Not every atheist snickers at Plantinga--I wish people would read Keith Parsons' God and the Burden of Proof as a detailed and fair, though critical, treatment of Plantinga's ideas. In "Two Dozen or So Theistic Arguments" Plantinga was giving brief presentations of a number of theistic arguments,, without necessarily giving them a full endorsement. The treatment of the Mozart Argument was admittedly sketchy. But there are arguments along those lines that have been developed in more detail by Mark Wynn, and we discussed it a few months back.

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-there-argument-from-beauty-to-god.html

Plantinga on Dawkins

The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn't give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a "delusion."-Alvin Plantinga

Some very similar quotes

Has anyone noticed the similarity between these two quotes from C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga?

Lewis: "Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the
whole thing looks improbable: but when I was an atheist I
had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable."
Mere Christianity

Plantinga: For me, as, I suppose, for most others, spiritual life is
an up and down proposition, with what one hopes are the
consolidation of small but genuine gains. Sometimes I wake
in the wee hours of the morning and find myself wondering:
can all this really be true? Can this whole wonderful
Christian story really be more than a wonderful fairy
tale? At other times I find myself as convinced of its
main lineaments as that I live in South Bend.--
Spiritual Autobiography

Plantinga's critique of Dawkins

Two dozen or so arguments for God

How many arguments are there for theism? Alvin Plantinga thinks there are a couple of dozen.

Plantinga's Latest

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on religion and science.