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Reason, Metaphysics, and Mind: New Essays on the Philosophy of Alvin Plantinga
In May 2010, philosophers, family and friends gathered at the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the career and retirement of Alvin Plantinga, widely recognized as one of the world's leading figures in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Plantinga has earned particular respect within the community of Christian philosophers for the pivotal role that he played in the recent renewal and development of philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Each of the essays in this volume engages with some particular aspect of Plantinga's views on metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of religion. Contributors include Michael Bergman, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Richard Otte, Peter VanInwagen, Thomas P. Flint, Eleonore Stump, Dean Zimmerman and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The volume also includes responses to each essay by Bas van Fraassen, Stephen Wykstra, David VanderLaan, Robin Collins, Raymond VanArragon, E. J. Coffman, Thomas Crisp, and Donald Smith.
- GenresPhilosophy
240 pages, Hardcover
First published December 27, 2011
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Kelly James Clark
28 books28 followersKelly James Clark is an American philosopher noted for his work in the philosophy of religion, science and religion, and the cognitive science of religion.
He received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame where his dissertation advisor was Alvin Plantinga. He has held professorships at Calvin College, Oxford University, University of St. Andrews, Notre Dame & Gordon College. He also served as Executive Director for the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1994 to 2009.
He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan.
He received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame where his dissertation advisor was Alvin Plantinga. He has held professorships at Calvin College, Oxford University, University of St. Andrews, Notre Dame & Gordon College. He also served as Executive Director for the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1994 to 2009.
He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 12, 2018
This might be a series of essays in honor of Alvin Plantinga, but few of the essays have anything to do with Plantinga. Some are extremely technical and it’s not always clear what is going on. Nevertheless, there are a few fine pieces. Zimmerman’s account of simple foreknowledge, Stump’s Thomistic view of the atonement, Peter Van Inwagen’s “Causation and the Mental,” and Wolterstorff’s fun “Then, Al, and Now.”
Molinism starts off interestingly enough, but the discussion takes a strange turn over the
Plantingian middle knowledge: God knows what free creatures might do in circumstances that would never be actual (5).
Natural knowledge: knowledge God has by virtue of being God (think divine simplicity, where God’s mind is an ontological “=” sign to everything in God).
The Molinists accounts (Thomas Flint, rejoinder by Thomas Crisp) question whether we have counterfactual power over the past. I’m just not sure how to approach that.
Free knowledge: God’s choices, like to create or not to create the world.
E. Stump contrasts the Anselmian account of the atonement with the Thomist one. She says the Anselmian falters because his account, due to its objectivity, cannot address past shame. So what if Jesus died for my sins if others don’t want to associate with me? Well, she doesn’t say it that crassly and to be fair, that might not even be her position. She might mean something like, “Yeah, the sin problem is taken care of but not the life part.”
In response, EJ Coffman points out that Christ’s work also deals with the effects of interpersonal shame. In any case, Stump’s account isn’t all that convincing.
Peter Van Inwagen: Causation and the Mental
1. An object is concrete iff it can enter into causal relations and is abstract iff it cannot enter into causal relations (Van Inwagen 153). PVI adjusts this to where concrete objects are substances and abstract objects are relations-in-intension.
2. PVI is willing to say that causal relations exist, but not causality.
The whole essay was kind of odd. PVI did do a fine job surveying problems in phenomenology of mind (cf Jaegwon Kim).
Dean Zimmerman Simple Foreknowledge
Molinism: contingently true conditionals about what every possible individual will, or would freely do in each circumstance (175). There are “conditionals of freedom” (CF)
Simple foreknowledge view: affirms libertarian foreknowledge yet rejects Molinism. The main difficulty with this is that God has no more control over the future than what one would find in Open Theism.
Difficulties the Libertarian (or LFW) faces:
* Zimmerman wants to affirm that God takes risks (177).
The most pressing difficulty with simple foreknowledge is what Zimmerman calls “The Metaphysical Principle:”
MP: It is impossible that a decision depend on a belief which depends on a future event which depends on the original decision (179).
He avoids this fallacy by comparing God to a “time traveler.” I am not sure this really helps his argument.
Nicholas Wolterstorff gives a semi-autobiograpical account of his and Al’s grad-school years together. But humor aside, Wolterstorff explains how analytic philosophy has developed in the 20th century, and how bold Plantinga’s project really was.
*Logical positivism almost erased “real-talk” about God, yet Plantinga’s God and Other Minds threw down the gauntlet and cheerfully spoke about “justification for belief in God.”
*David Lewis’s possible worlds semantics provided the groundwork for Plantinga’s Nature of Necessity.
*And then, of course, Plantinga’s Warrant Trilogy.
The book is expensive and not every essay is equally good.
Molinism starts off interestingly enough, but the discussion takes a strange turn over the
Plantingian middle knowledge: God knows what free creatures might do in circumstances that would never be actual (5).
Natural knowledge: knowledge God has by virtue of being God (think divine simplicity, where God’s mind is an ontological “=” sign to everything in God).
The Molinists accounts (Thomas Flint, rejoinder by Thomas Crisp) question whether we have counterfactual power over the past. I’m just not sure how to approach that.
Free knowledge: God’s choices, like to create or not to create the world.
E. Stump contrasts the Anselmian account of the atonement with the Thomist one. She says the Anselmian falters because his account, due to its objectivity, cannot address past shame. So what if Jesus died for my sins if others don’t want to associate with me? Well, she doesn’t say it that crassly and to be fair, that might not even be her position. She might mean something like, “Yeah, the sin problem is taken care of but not the life part.”
In response, EJ Coffman points out that Christ’s work also deals with the effects of interpersonal shame. In any case, Stump’s account isn’t all that convincing.
Peter Van Inwagen: Causation and the Mental
1. An object is concrete iff it can enter into causal relations and is abstract iff it cannot enter into causal relations (Van Inwagen 153). PVI adjusts this to where concrete objects are substances and abstract objects are relations-in-intension.
2. PVI is willing to say that causal relations exist, but not causality.
The whole essay was kind of odd. PVI did do a fine job surveying problems in phenomenology of mind (cf Jaegwon Kim).
Dean Zimmerman Simple Foreknowledge
Molinism: contingently true conditionals about what every possible individual will, or would freely do in each circumstance (175). There are “conditionals of freedom” (CF)
Simple foreknowledge view: affirms libertarian foreknowledge yet rejects Molinism. The main difficulty with this is that God has no more control over the future than what one would find in Open Theism.
Difficulties the Libertarian (or LFW) faces:
* Zimmerman wants to affirm that God takes risks (177).
The most pressing difficulty with simple foreknowledge is what Zimmerman calls “The Metaphysical Principle:”
MP: It is impossible that a decision depend on a belief which depends on a future event which depends on the original decision (179).
He avoids this fallacy by comparing God to a “time traveler.” I am not sure this really helps his argument.
Nicholas Wolterstorff gives a semi-autobiograpical account of his and Al’s grad-school years together. But humor aside, Wolterstorff explains how analytic philosophy has developed in the 20th century, and how bold Plantinga’s project really was.
*Logical positivism almost erased “real-talk” about God, yet Plantinga’s God and Other Minds threw down the gauntlet and cheerfully spoke about “justification for belief in God.”
*David Lewis’s possible worlds semantics provided the groundwork for Plantinga’s Nature of Necessity.
*And then, of course, Plantinga’s Warrant Trilogy.
The book is expensive and not every essay is equally good.
Displaying 1 of 1 review