Alvin Plantinga - A Review

Though he is not a household name in most circles, Alvin Plantinga is a major figure in Christian academics. He is the sort of scholar who was able to be at the top of his  non-theological field as a Christian while arguing for an explicit Christian perspective. That is, Plantinga was a philosopher of such excellence that he was able to do philosophy as a Christian on areas that some had marked as hostile to Christianity and the harshest of critics was unable to undermine the excellence of his work.

Plantinga’s work is powerful. He was able, through careful and precise reasoning, to argue that many Christian beliefs are properly basic—that is, that it is acceptable to believe some aspects of the Christian faith without extensive work in finding empirical or logical proofs. The existence of a divinity, for example, is a properly basic belief. This does not mean that everyone shares that belief, but that a Christian need not be ashamed for making that one of his beginning assumptions rather than exhaustively trying to prove theism. Alvin Plantinga was able to level the playing field for Christian belief.

The author of the latest volume in the “Great Thinkers” series from P&R is Greg Welty. Welty is himself an excellent philosopher who earned his DPhil from Oxford studying under Richard Swinburne. I have fond memories of hearing Welty deliver lecture–quality summaries of John Frame’s philosophical ideas while riding together in the back of a sedan on our way to the Evangelical Theological Society in 2012. Welty had no notes, but between moments of fearing for our lives due to an erratic driver, he was able to explain complex ideas simply with remarkable fluency. In other words, Welty is the sort of person who understands the field and can communicate well. All of that comes through in this book.

The book has eight chapters. It begins with an introduction that justifies a volume on someone who is still alive, while also summarizing Plantinga’s background for those not acquainted with his biography. Chapter Two explores Plantinga’s work on faith and reason, which includes his introduction of “Reformed Epistemology” with Nicholas Waltersdorff. Reformed epistemology which is the idea that some religious beliefs can be appealed to without further appeal to evidence or argument. Thus, warranted Christian belief is possible. This was one of Plantinga’s most significant contributions to philosophy. Chapter Three outlines the work Alvin Plantinga did on the problem of evil, which includes his so-called free will defense of theism. The fourth chapter moves into Plantinga’s work on undermining defeaters to Christian belief (i.e., most of the arguments against Christianity aren’t valid unless you assume that Christianity isn’t true) and natural theology.

Chapter Five deals with Plantinga’s arguments about the coherence of theism, the simplicity of God, and the omniscience of God. The sixth chapter wrestles with the work Plantinga did on religion and science., where he upends the usual “religion vs. science” dichotomy into the “science vs. naturalism” dichotomy. That is where the conflict really lies. Chapter Seven deals with Plantinga’s own approach of announcing his Christian priors and recognizing that there is no neutral position to begin with, therefore it is no worse to begin as a Christian theist than a naturalist. The final chapter shows where Plantinga has departed from his Reformed roots over his career and where he has sustained his connection to them; it also wrestles with the ways that Plantinga came short of espousing a fully Christian perspective sometimes and settled for demonstrating the possibility of a bare theism.

This is a critical work, but a friendly one. I remember Welty describing Plantinga’s technique as “Building up the strongest possible case of someone’s position, then knocking it down like a house of cards.” I have read Plantinga doing that in several of his works. It is impressive. At the same time, Welty is careful to show where Plantinga’s conclusions departed from the theological tradition he initially identified with and some ways that his views depart from classical theism. The book is friendly but not hagiographic.

This book offers a good introduction into Plantinga’s work. For scholars working their way into philosophy on their own, Welty’s volume offers handholds to find a way into the work of a premier Christian philosopher. This was an encouraging volume as again and again it became clear that Christianity is intellectually credible and that we have good reasons to believe, whatever the world may say.

On a side note, one of my favorite pieces of Alvin Plantinga lore is his time on television discussing air conditioning:

However, you can also get a flavor of his approach and his method from these clips, one of which includes an interview about the work he did that earned him the 2017 Templeton Prize:

NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Alvin Plantinga (Great Thinkers)

By Welty, Greg

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