Plantinga, Alvin

Al is the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. One of the most important living philosophers of religion, he is credited with helping revive Christian philosophy. Acclaimed for his work on metaphysics, the problem of evil, and the epistemology of religious belief, he is the author or editor of many books, including God and Other Minds, The Nature of Necessity, Faith and Rationality, and a major trilogy on “Warrant” which argues, among many other things, that belief in God is “properly basic.” Al is best known for his Christian epistemology that justifies belief in God without external evidence, his “free will defense” to the logical problem of evil, and his evolutionary argument against naturalism. Under his Christian epistemology, which he labels "reformed epistemology,” belief in God can be rational and justified even without arguments or evidence for God’s existence. Al argues that belief in God is properly basic. He develops a religious externalist epistemology (called "Proper functionalism") that, if true, explains how belief in God could be justified independently of evidence. In his "free will defense" to the logical problem of evil, Alvin makes a distinction between a defense and a theodicy. A theodicy tries to justify God's permitting evil by explaining why God allows evil. A defense doesn't try to explain why God actually allows evil, but rather gives logically possible reasons God could have for allowing evil. Alvin does not offer a free will theodicy but rather a free will defense. He does not claim that God permits evil for the sake of free will but that it is logically possible that he allows evil for the purpose of free will. His argument has two basic stages. In this first, he argues that the atheologian has failed to demonstrate that God and evil to be logically incompatible. In the second stage he argues positively that the existence of God and the existence of evil are logically consistent. He does so by constructing a model that includes both the existence of God and the existence of evil. In his "evolutionary argument against naturalism." Alvin argues that the truth of evolution is a epistemic defeater for naturalism (i.e. if evolution is true, it undermines naturalism). His basic argument is that if evolution is true, our cognitive faculties didn't evolve to produce true beliefs but rather beliefs that have survival value i.e. maximizing our success at "feeding, fighting, and reproducing"). If evolution is true and we have reason to think that our cognitive faculties developed in order to produce, not true beliefs, but rather beliefs that have survival value, then we have reason to doubt the truth of all of the products of our cognitive faculties. This includes naturalism. So, if evolution is true, it gives us reason to doubt evolution (and all other products of our cognitive faculties). An important criticism of this argument is that having true beliefs about the world contributes to surviving in the world. If our belief forming apparatus evolved to give us beliefs that help us survive, then they evolved to give us true beliefs because true beliefs contribute to surviving. Alvin understands this objection and seeks to refute it thus: While there may be overlap between true beliefs and beliefs that contribute to survival, the two kinds of beliefs are not that same. He give the following as an example. Consider Paul: “Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour."