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97-451: Mortimer J. Adler distinguishes philosophical theology from natural theology . While the former is, according to him, theology done by non-Christian philosophers, the latter is done by those who are already Christians and are actually trying to find rational proofs for their faith. Adler thinks that the term "natural theology" is a misnomer and is actually apologetics, and cites as an example Thomas Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles , addressed to

194-451: A "culpable ignorance" about Aristotle by those who rejected the conclusions of dogmatic philosophy without acknowledging its sound classical premises. These modern errors were compounded and perpetuated, according to Adler, by Kant and the idealists and existentialists on the one side, and by John Stuart Mill , Jeremy Bentham , and Bertrand Russell and the English analytic tradition on

291-442: A "free-will defense" in a volume edited by Max Black in 1965, which attempts to refute the logical problem of evil , the argument that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God. Plantinga's argument (in a truncated form) states that "It is possible that God, even being omnipotent, could not create a world with free creatures who never choose evil. Furthermore, it

388-492: A Roman Catholic, but issues like abortion and the resistance of his family and friends" kept him away. Many thought he was baptized as an Episcopalian rather than a Catholic solely because of his "wonderful – and ardently Episcopal – wife" Caroline. Hudson suggests it is no coincidence that it was only after her death in 1998 that he took the final step. In December 1999, in San Mateo, where he had moved to spend his last years, Adler

485-469: A World Containing Moral Good but No Moral Evil", where he states his conclusion that, "... the price for creating a world in which they produce moral good is creating one in which they also produce moral evil." What Plantinga calls "Reformed epistemology" holds that belief in God can be rational and justified even without arguments or evidence for the existence of God. More specifically, he argues belief in God

582-400: A belief, B, is warranted if: (1) the cognitive faculties involved in the production of B are functioning properly…; (2) your cognitive environment is sufficiently similar to the one for which your cognitive faculties are designed; (3) … the design plan governing the production of the belief in question involves, as purpose or function, the production of true beliefs…; and (4) the design plan is

679-412: A clash between those who want to emphasize the rational foundation for theology and those who want to emphasize the empirical foundation for theology. There has also been a contrast made between Christology from above and Christology from below. The former emphasizes the divine side of Christ ; the latter, the human side. The human side obviously tends to look at it more empirically. The Scriptures call

776-634: A confession of faith and was baptized " as an Episcopalian in 1984, only a few years after that interview. Offering insight into Adler's conversion, Myers quotes him from a subsequent 1990 article in Christianity magazine: "My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What's the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy." According to his friend Deal Hudson , Adler "had been attracted to Catholicism for many years" and "wanted to be

873-471: A design plan is like a technological product designed by a human being (like a radio or a wheel). Ultimately, Plantinga argues that epistemological naturalism - i.e. epistemology that holds that warrant is dependent on natural faculties—is best supported by supernaturalist metaphysics—in this case, the belief in a creator God or designer who has laid out a design plan that includes cognitive faculties conducive to attaining knowledge. According to Plantinga,

970-435: A good one: that is, there is a high statistical or objective probability that a belief produced in accordance with the relevant segment of the design plan in that sort of environment is true. Plantinga seeks to defend this view of proper function against alternative views of proper function proposed by other philosophers which he groups together as "naturalistic", including the "functional generalization" view of John Pollock ,

1067-462: A hand in guiding, directing or orchestrating the course of evolution. But the scientific theory of evolution, sensibly enough, says nothing one way or the other about divine guidance. It doesn't say that evolution is divinely guided; it also doesn't say that it isn't. Like almost any theist, I reject unguided evolution; but the contemporary scientific theory of evolution just as such—apart from philosophical or theological add-ons—doesn't say that evolution

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1164-622: A key role in the formation of Western theology. Thomas Aquinas , one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in history, for instance, borrowed much of his concepts from Aristotle . Scholasticism dominated both the philosophical and theological landscape in the Middle Ages , with theologians such as Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury , Duns Scotus , William of Ockham , Peter Abelard , Bonaventure , and Albertus Magnus playing key roles in both philosophy and theology. In modern times, Anthony Thiselton has shown in his Fusion of Horizons

1261-497: A leading center of Hellenistic philosophy , while Jerusalem represented Christianity because of its role as an important location and intellectual centre in the early church .) Other leaders, however, saw a closer relationship between philosophy and theology. Justin Martyr looked at people like Heraclitus and Socrates as possessing the divine light of revelation and believed them to be true philosophers. Justin saw Christianity as

1358-511: A number of intelligent design conferences. In a March 2010 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education , philosopher of science Michael Ruse labeled Plantinga as an "open enthusiast of intelligent design". In a letter to the editor, Plantinga made the following response: Like any Christian (and indeed any theist), I believe that the world has been created by God, and hence "intelligently designed". The hallmark of intelligent design, however,

1455-934: A philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He taught at Columbia University and the University of Chicago , served as chairman of the Encyclopædia Britannica board of editors, and founded the Institute for Philosophical Research. He lived for long stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California . While doing newspaper work and taking night classes during his adolescence, Adler encountered works of men he would come to call heroes: Plato , Aristotle , Thomas Aquinas , John Locke , John Stuart Mill , and others, who "were assailed as irrelevant by student activists in

1552-469: A philosophical basis for Christian belief, an argument for why Christian theistic belief can enjoy warrant. In the book, he develops two models for such beliefs, the "A/C" ( Aquinas / Calvin ) model, and the "Extended A/C" model. The former attempts to show that a belief in God can be justified, warranted and rational, while the Extended model tries to show that specifically Christian theological beliefs including

1649-426: A reasonable doubt . However, in a recent re-review of the argument, John Cramer concluded that recent developments in cosmology appear to converge with and support Adler's argument, and that in light of such theories as the multiverse , the argument is no worse for wear and may, indeed, now be judged somewhat more probable than it was originally. Adler believed that, if theology and religion are living things, there

1746-428: A slightly different way: According to Craig, premises (2)–(5) are relatively uncontroversial among philosophers, but "the epistemic entertainability of premise (1) (or its denial) does not guarantee its metaphysical possibility." Furthermore, Richard M. Gale argued that premise three, the "possibility premise", begs the question . He stated that one only has the epistemic right to accept the premise if one understands

1843-400: A specific area of theology in which philosophical methods and terminology are used to analyze theological concepts. One task of philosophical theologians is to attempt to reconcile certain aspects of Christian doctrine with developments in philosophy. One question concerns how to prove the existence and nature of God. The knowledge of God is dealt with in the epistemology of religion , usually

1940-522: A subset of philosophy of religion . There are many different perspectives with philosophical theology on such questions. In modern times process theology , open theism , and Christian panentheism have tried to look at God as the Being who is not only the Source and Ground of all beings but also influenced by the people and processes of the world which he created and which he belongs—rejecting or at least amending

2037-575: A teaching job at Calvin University which began in January 1950. Alvin Plantinga moved to Grand Rapids with his family and attended Calvin University for a semester. He applied to Harvard and was awarded a scholarship. In the fall of 1950, Plantinga transferred to Harvard, where he spent two semesters. In 1951, during Harvard's spring recess, Plantinga attended a few philosophy classes at Calvin University and

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2134-529: Is properly basic , and due to a religious externalist epistemology, he claims that it could be justified independently of evidence. His externalist epistemology, called "proper functionalism", is a form of epistemological reliabilism . Plantinga discusses his view of Reformed epistemology and proper functionalism in a three-volume series. In the first book of the trilogy, Warrant: The Current Debate , Plantinga introduces, analyzes, and criticizes 20th-century developments in analytic epistemology, particularly

2231-495: Is a theologian and the former president of Calvin Theological Seminary and another, Leon , is an emeritus professor of musicology at Yale University . As an adolescent, Alvin Plantinga's family moved from Michigan to North Dakota for his father's job at Jamestown College . At his father's advice, Alvin skipped his last year of high school to enroll at Jamestown College in 1949 at 16. That year, his father accepted

2328-449: Is also requisite as a condition; and that the difference between human and animal behavior is a radical difference in kind. Adler defended this position against many challenges to dualistic theories. The meanings of " freedom " and " free will " have been and are under debate, and the debate is confused because there is no generally accepted definition of either term. Adler's "Institute for Philosophical Research" spent ten years studying

2425-462: Is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion , epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification ), and logic . From 1963 to 1982, Plantinga taught at Calvin University before accepting an appointment as the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame . He later returned to Calvin University to become

2522-405: Is necessary (it is possibly true in all worlds). Plantinga's version of S5 suggests that "To say that p is possibly necessarily true is to say that, with regard to one world, it is true at all worlds; but in that case it is true at all worlds, and so it is simply necessary." A version of his argument is as follows: Plantinga argued that, although the first premise is not rationally established, it

2619-581: Is necessary for clarity on the subject. As Adler's interest in religion and theology increased, he made references to the Bible and the need to test articles of faith for compatibility with the conclusions of the science of nature and of philosophers. In his 1981 book How to Think About God , Adler attempts to demonstrate God as the exnihilator (the creator of something from nothing). Adler stressed that even with this conclusion, God's existence cannot be proven or demonstrated, but only established as true beyond

2716-494: Is not contrary to reason. Michael Martin argued that, if certain components of perfection are contradictory, such as omnipotence and omniscience, then the first premise is contrary to reason. Martin also proposed parodies of the argument, suggesting that the existence of anything can be demonstrated with Plantinga's argument, provided it is defined as perfect or special in every possible world. Another Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig , characterizes Plantinga's argument in

2813-510: Is not surpassed. It does not, he argued, demonstrate that such a being has unsurpassed greatness in this world. In an attempt to resolve this problem, Plantinga differentiated between "greatness" and "excellence". A being's excellence in a particular world depends only on its properties in that world; a being's greatness depends on its properties in all worlds. Therefore, the greatest possible being must have maximal excellence in every possible world. Plantinga then restated Malcolm's argument, using

2910-403: Is nothing intrinsically wrong about efforts to modernize them. They must be open to change and growth like everything else. Furthermore, there is no reason to be surprised when discussions such as those about the "death of God" – a concept drawn from Friedrich Nietzsche – stir popular excitement as they did in the recent past and could do so again today. According to Adler, of all the great ideas,

3007-493: Is possible that God, even being omnibenevolent, would desire to create a world which contains evil if moral goodness requires free moral creatures." However, the argument's handling of natural evil has been disputed. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , the argument also "conflicts with important theistic doctrines" such as the notion of a heaven where free saved souls reside without doing evil, and

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3104-429: Is required for knowledge. In the second book, Warrant and Proper Function , he introduces the notion of warrant as an alternative to justification and discusses topics like self-knowledge, memories, perception, and probability. Plantinga's "proper function" account argues that as a necessary condition of having warrant, one's "belief-forming and belief-maintaining apparatus of powers" are functioning properly—"working

3201-442: Is the approach of Reformed epistemologists , such as Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff , who assert that belief in God might be foundational (or, properly 'basic' ) and warranted without the need for logical or evidential justification, like belief in other minds or the external world , rather than inferentially derived from other beliefs. It can, however, be subject to defeaters , rationally requiring that one give up

3298-452: Is the claim that this can be shown scientifically; I'm dubious about that. ...As far as I can see, God certainly could have used Darwinian processes to create the living world and direct it as he wanted to go; hence evolution as such does not imply that there is no direction in the history of life. What does have that implication is not evolutionary theory itself, but unguided evolution, the idea that neither God nor any other person has taken

3395-414: Is willing to consider Adler "a Catholic philosopher". Adler referred to Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics as the "ethics of common sense " and also as "the only moral philosophy that is sound, practical, and undogmatic." Thus, it is the only ethical doctrine that answers all the questions that moral philosophy should and can attempt to answer, neither more nor less, and that has answers that are true by

3492-458: The Summa Theologica . Many years later, he wrote that its "intellectual austerity, integrity, precision and brilliance ... put the study of theology highest among all of my philosophical interests." An enthusiastic Thomist , he was a frequent contributor to Catholic philosophical and educational journals, as well as a frequent speaker at Catholic institutions, so much so that some assumed he

3589-496: The Christian tradition . Tertullian , an influential early Christian theologian and apologist, believed that philosophy has little to do with theology, arguing that the use of philosophy often corrupted theology, leading to unorthodox beliefs that were not grounded in the early Christian tradition. He famously asked the question 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?'. ( Athens symbolized the philosophical approach because of its role as

3686-486: The Intelligent Design Movement , and was a member of the "Ad Hoc Origins Committee" that supported Philip E. Johnson 's 1991 book Darwin on Trial , he also provided a back-cover endorsement of Johnson's book: "Shows how Darwinian evolution has become an idol." He was a Fellow of the (now defunct) pro-intelligent design International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design , and has presented at

3783-654: The Nicholas Rescher Prize for Systematic Philosophy , which he received with a talk titled, "Religion and Science: Where the Conflict Really Lies". In 2017, Baylor University's Center for Christian Philosophy inaugurated the Alvin Plantinga Award for Excellence in Christian Philosophy. Awardees deliver a lecture at Baylor University and their name is put on a plaque with Plantinga's image in

3880-875: The Paideia Proposal which resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, a grade school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works (as judged for each grade). With Max Weismann, he founded the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas in 1990 in Chicago. Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. , to present

3977-584: The Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983 to 1986. He has honorary degrees from Glasgow University (1982), Calvin University (1986), North Park College (1994), the Free University of Amsterdam (1995), Brigham Young University (1996), and Valparaiso University (1999). He was a Guggenheim Fellow , 1971–72, and elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975. In 2006,

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4074-730: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2017. Some of Plantinga's most influential works include God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), and a trilogy of books on epistemology, culminating in Warranted Christian Belief (2000) that was simplified in Knowledge and Christian Belief (2015). Plantinga

4171-608: The Trinity , the Incarnation , the resurrection of Christ , the atonement , salvation . etc. Under this model, Christians are justified in their beliefs because of the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing those beliefs about in the believer. James Beilby has argued that the purpose of Plantinga's Warrant trilogy, and specifically of his Warranted Christian Belief , is firstly to make a form of argument against religion impossible—namely,

4268-531: The University of Notre Dame 's Center for Philosophy of Religion renamed its Distinguished Scholar Fellowship as the Alvin Plantinga Fellowship. The fellowship includes an annual lecture by the current Plantinga Fellow. In 2012, the University of Pittsburgh's Philosophy Department, History and Philosophy of Science Department, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science co-awarded Plantinga

4365-427: The great books in 54 volumes. The original editors had three criteria for including a book in the series drawn from Western Civilization : the book must be relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read repeatedly with respect to liberal education ; and it must be a part of "the great conversation about the great ideas", relevant to at least 25 of

4462-509: The "idea of freedom" as the word was used by hundreds of authors who have discussed and disputed freedom. The study was published in 1958 as Volume One of The Idea of Freedom , subtitled A Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom with subsequent comments in Adler's Philosophical Dictionary . Adler's study concluded that a delineation of three kinds of freedom – circumstantial, natural, and acquired –

4559-511: The 102 "Great Ideas" as identified by the editor of the series's comprehensive index, the Syntopicon , to which they belonged. The books were chosen not on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness (historical influence being seen as sufficient for inclusion), nor on whether the editors agreed with the authors' views. Adler was born into a nonobservant Jewish family. In his early twenties, he discovered St. Thomas Aquinas , and in particular

4656-490: The 18th, 19th centuries, and 20th centuries, many theologians reacted against the modernist , Enlightenment , and positivist attacks on Christian theology . Some existentialistic or neo-orthodox Protestant intellectuals like the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth turned away from philosophy (called fideism ) and argued that faith should be based strictly upon divine revelation. A popular approach in some circles

4753-517: The 1960s and subjected to ' politically correct ' attack in later decades." His thought evolved toward the correction of what he considered "philosophical mistakes", as reflected in his 1985 book Ten Philosophical Mistakes: Basic Errors in Modern Thought . In Adler's view, these errors were introduced by Descartes on the continent and by Thomas Hobbes and David Hume in Britain, and were caused by

4850-665: The Emperor Constantine , who waited until he was on his deathbed to formally become a Catholic. Adler took a long time to make up his mind about theological issues. When he wrote How to Think About God: A Guide for the Twentieth-Century Pagan in 1980, he claimed to consider himself the pagan of the book's subtitle. In volume 51 of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (2001), Ken Myers includes his 1980 interview with Adler, conducted after How to Think About God

4947-680: The French Jewish philosopher and Nobel laureate, whose books the Catholic church had indexed as prohibited. Bergson refused to convert during the collaborationist Vichy regime, and despite the Statute on Jews he instead restated his previous views and was thus stripped of all his previous posts and honors. Farrell attributed Adler's delay in joining the Church to his being among those Christians who "wanted their cake and ... wanted to eat it too" and compared him to

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5044-516: The Incarnation a mystery of godliness. It baffles human imagination, leading many to call it a divine mystery. Yet, philosophical theologians argue that it is also important to find a philosophical ground for asserting both the divinity and humanity of Christ. Other theologians, however, like Rudolph Bultmann , read the New Testament documents in mythic terms which needed to be stripped back so that

5141-452: The Institute for Philosophical Research. He also served on the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica , compiled its Syntopicon and later Propaedia , and succeeded Hutchins as its chairman from 1974. As the director of editorial planning for the fifteenth edition of Britannica from 1965, he was instrumental in the major reorganization of knowledge embodied in that edition. He introduced

5238-503: The Institute for Studies in Religion. He was named the first fellow of the center as well. He was awarded the 2017 Templeton Prize . Plantinga has argued that some people can know that God exists as a basic belief , requiring no argument. He developed this argument in two different ways: firstly, in God and Other Minds (1967), by drawing an equivalence between the teleological argument and

5335-665: The Jews and Moors in Spain. Though written as if it were philosophical theology, was in fact, apologetics and not philosophical theology, as it was written by a Christian and not by a pagan. In Adler's view, few books on natural theology are sound works of philosophical theology because they are not written by pagans. An example of philosophical theology, according to Adler, is Aristotle's theology as found in his Metaphysics. Contrary to Adler's view, Charles Taliaferro and Chad Meister think that doing philosophical theology may not be restricted by whether

5432-466: The True Philosophy and argued for Christianity using philosophical methods and terminology. St. Augustine , who became one of the most influential theologians in history and whose works laid the foundation for much of Western philosophy (as well as much of Western theology), espoused a more middle-of-the-road, moderate approach. He argued that philosophy and theology often complement each other while at

5529-541: The University of Notre Dame in 2010 and returned to Calvin University, where he holds the first William Harry Jellema Chair in Philosophy. He has trained metaphysics and epistemology -focused philosophers including Michael Bergmann , Michael Rea , and Trenton Merricks . Plantinga served as president of the American Philosophical Association , Western Division, from 1981 to 1982. and as president of

5626-641: The academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write – and they do. Dwight Macdonald once criticized Adler's popular style by saying "Mr. Adler once wrote a book called How to Read a Book . He should now read a book called How to Write a Book ." Adler and Hutchins went on to found the Great Books of the Western World program and the Great Books Foundation . In 1952, Adler founded and served as director of

5723-588: The acceptability of axioms for modal logic depends on which of these uses we have in mind." In Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism , he argues that if evolution is true, it undermines naturalism . His basic argument is that if evolution and naturalism are both true, human cognitive faculties evolved to produce beliefs that have survival value (maximizing one's success at the four Fs: "feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing"), not necessarily to produce beliefs that are true. Thus, since human cognitive faculties are tuned to survival rather than truth in

5820-419: The argument that whether or not Christianity is true, it is irrational—so "the skeptic would have to shoulder the formidable task of demonstrating the falsity of Christian belief" rather than simply dismiss it as irrational. In addition, Plantinga is attempting to provide a philosophical explanation of how Christians should think about their own Christian belief. Plantinga has expressed a modal logic version of

5917-437: The belief. Many other philosophers and theologians, however, disagree with this perspective and provide alternative views. Many other theologians have turned to continental philosophy , analytic philosophy , and postmodern philosophy in attempts to analyze and reframe Christian theology in contemporary contexts. While philosophical theology can denote an approach to theology which is philosophical in nature, it can also denote

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6014-494: The classical medieval doctrine of impassibility . Christology raises a number of philosophical questions, such as how the divine can incarnate as a human, how the eternal can enter the temporal, and how the divine and the human can be united in one yet remain distinct. Such questions led to earlier heresies like Arianism , Sabellianism , Docetism , etc. Often, one's epistemic theory can play an important role in how one answers such questions. There is, for instance, sometimes

6111-445: The common sense view that people have of other minds existing by analogy with their own minds. Plantinga has also developed a more comprehensive epistemological account of the nature of warrant which allows for the existence of God as a basic belief. Plantinga has also argued that there is no logical inconsistency between the existence of evil and the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, wholly good God. Plantinga proposed

6208-407: The concept of "maximal greatness". He argued that it is possible for a being with maximal greatness to exist, so a being with maximal greatness exists in a possible world. If this is the case, then a being with maximal greatness exists in every world, and therefore in this world. The conclusion relies on a form of modal axiom S5 , which states that if something is possibly true, then its possibility

6305-401: The contrary assumption—that there is, in fact, a relatively strong correlation between truth and survival—if human belief-forming apparatus evolved giving a survival advantage, then it ought to yield truth since true beliefs confer a survival advantage. Plantinga counters that, while there may be overlap between true beliefs and beliefs that contribute to survival, the two kinds of beliefs are not

6402-463: The development of theology. Many contemporary philosophers continue to write and argue from a Christian perspective, with Christian concepts undergirding their philosophical work. In recent decades, some of the most well-known philosophers who have written from a Christian perspective are Alvin Plantinga , Alasdair MacIntyre , William Lane Craig , Jean-Luc Marion , Paul Tillich , Charles Taylor , Richard Swinburne , and James K. A. Smith . During

6499-468: The doer is an insider to faith or not, for anyone doing philosophical theology only tries to consider whether a theological doctrine can make philosophical sense or not. But, as Adler points it out, a pagan doing philosophical theology and coming to a theological conclusion has a different route than an insider using philosophy to examine or seek to understand his faith. The relationship between theology and philosophy has been long-debated and discussed within

6596-576: The essential truths could be laid bare, a hermeneutical approach they called demythologization . This included a clear distinction between the (in their view, unimportant) Jesus of history and the (all-important) Christ of faith (see also the Quest for the Historical Jesus ). Mortimer J. Adler Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher , educator, encyclopedist , popular author and lay theologian . As

6693-443: The evolutionary/etiological account provided by Ruth Millikan , and a dispositional view held by John Bigelow and Robert Pargetter. Plantinga also discusses his evolutionary argument against naturalism in the later chapters of Warrant and Proper Function . In 2000, the third book of the trilogy, Warranted Christian Belief , was published. In this volume, Plantinga's warrant theory is the basis for his theological end: providing

6790-437: The extreme form of dualism that stemmed from such philosophers as Plato ( body and soul ) and Descartes ( mind and matter ), as well as the theory of extreme monism and the mind–brain identity theory . After eliminating the extremes, Adler subscribed to a more moderate form of dualism. He believed that the brain is only a necessary , but not a sufficient , condition for conceptual thought; that an "immaterial intellect"

6887-515: The field [of philosophy]" and resisted Adler's appointment to the university's Department of Philosophy. Adler was the first "non-lawyer" to join the law school faculty. After the Great Books seminar inspired Chicago businessman and university trustee Walter Paepcke to found the Aspen Institute , Adler taught philosophy to business executives there. Adler long strove to bring philosophy to

6984-704: The idea of God has always been and continues to be the one that evokes the greatest concern among the widest group of men and women. However, he was opposed to the idea of converting atheism into a new form of religion or theology. Mortimer Adler was married twice and had four children. He married Helen Boynton in 1927. Together they adopted two children, Mark and Michael, in 1938 and 1940, respectively. They divorced in 1960. In 1963, Adler married Caroline Pring, his junior by thirty-four years; they had two children, Douglas and Philip. Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932)

7081-409: The idea that God has free will yet is wholly good. Critics thus maintain that, if we take such doctrines to be (as Christians usually have), God could have created free creatures that always do right, contra Plantinga's claim. J. L. Mackie saw Plantinga's free-will defense as incoherent. Plantinga's well-received book God, Freedom and Evil , written in 1974, gave his response to what he saw as

7178-515: The inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy. A prominent Christian philosopher, Plantinga served as president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983 to 1986. He has delivered the Gifford Lectures twice and was described by Time magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God". In 2014, Plantinga was the 30th most-cited contemporary author in

7275-435: The incomplete and uncritical view of theism's criticism of theodicy . Plantinga's contribution stated that when the issue of a comprehensive doctrine of freedom is added to the discussion of the goodness of God and the omnipotence of God then it is not possible to exclude the presence of evil in the world after introducing freedom into the discussion. Plantinga's own summary occurs in his discussion titled "Could God Have Created

7372-479: The masses , and some of his works (such as How to Read a Book ) became popular bestsellers. He was also an advocate of economic democracy and wrote an influential preface to Louis O. Kelso 's The Capitalist Manifesto . Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia undergraduate days. In his own words: Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in

7469-450: The naturalism-evolution model, there is reason to doubt the veracity of the products of those same faculties, including naturalism and evolution themselves. On the other hand, if God created man " in his image " by way of an evolutionary process (or any other means), then Plantinga argues our faculties would probably be reliable. The argument does not assume any necessary correlation (or uncorrelation) between true beliefs and survival. Making

7566-409: The nested modal operators , and that if one understands them within the system S5—without which the argument fails—then one understands that "possibly necessarily" is in essence the same as "necessarily". Thus the premise begs the question because the conclusion is embedded within it. On S5 systems in general, James Garson writes that "the words 'necessarily' and 'possibly', have many different uses. So

7663-457: The ontological argument in which he uses modal logic to develop, in a more rigorous and formal way, Norman Malcolm 's and Charles Hartshorne 's modal ontological arguments . Plantinga criticized Malcolm's and Hartshorne's arguments, and offered an alternative. He argued that, if Malcolm does prove the necessary existence of the greatest possible being, it follows that there is a being which exists in all worlds whose greatness in some worlds

7760-461: The other. Adler held that he corrected these mistakes with reference to insights and distinctions drawn from the Aristotelian tradition. Adler was born in Manhattan , New York City, on December 28, 1902, to Jewish immigrants from Germany: Clarissa (Manheim), a schoolteacher, and Ignatz Adler, a jewelry salesman. He dropped out of school at age 14 to become a copy boy for The New York Sun , with

7857-399: The philosophy department at Yale in 1957, and then in 1958, he became a professor of philosophy at Wayne State University during its heyday as a major center for analytic philosophy. In 1963, he accepted a teaching job at Calvin University, where he replaced the retiring Jellema. He then spent the next 19 years at Calvin before moving to the University of Notre Dame in 1982. He retired from

7954-524: The required swimming test for a bachelor's degree (a matter that was rectified when Columbia gave him an honorary degree in 1983), he stayed at the university and eventually received an instructorship and finally a doctorate in psychology . While at Columbia University, Adler wrote his first book: Dialectic , published in 1927. Adler worked with Scott Buchanan at the People's Institute and then for many years on their respective Great Books efforts. (Buchanan

8051-423: The role that philosophy has played in the interpretation of scriptures, i.e., in the field of hermeneutics . Philosophy provides interpretive grids for the apprehension of revelation. There are others, like Sadhu Sundar Singh , for instance, who believe that it is the illumination of the Holy Spirit that gives the truest meaning of revelation. Yet, one can't fail to see that cultural grids play an important role in

8148-425: The same time cautioning that philosophy should not always be used in theological discourse. Instead, he argued, one should make sure that a philosophical approach toward a particular issue was grounded in prior Christian commitments. The disciplines of Philosophy and Theology have often been connected, with theologians and philosophers interacting and debating similar and sometimes overlapping issues. Philosophy played

8245-410: The same, and he gives the following example with a man named 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

8342-523: The standard of truth that is appropriate and applicable to normative judgments. In contrast, Adler believed that other theories or doctrines try to answer more questions than they can or fewer than they should, and their answers are mixtures of truth and error, particularly the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant . Adler was a self-proclaimed "moderate dualist " and viewed the positions of psychophysical dualism and materialistic monism to be opposite sides of two extremes. Regarding dualism, he dismissed

8439-508: 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-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour. The argument has received favorable notice from Thomas Nagel and William Lane Craig , but has also been criticized as seriously flawed, for example, by Elliott Sober . Even though Plantinga believes that God could have used Darwinian processes to create

8536-466: The ultimate aspiration of becoming a journalist. Adler soon returned to school to take writing classes at night, where he discovered the western philosophical tradition . After his early schooling and work, he went on to study at Columbia University and contributed to the student literary magazine, The Morningside, a poem "Choice" (in 1922 when Charles A. Wagner was editor-in-chief and Whittaker Chambers an associate editor). Though he refused to take

8633-412: The way it ought to work". Plantinga explains his argument for proper function with reference to a "design plan", as well as an environment in which one's cognitive equipment is optimal for use. Plantinga asserts that the design plan does not require a designer: "it is perhaps possible that evolution (undirected by God or anyone else) has somehow furnished us with our design plans", but the paradigm case of

8730-421: The works of Chisholm , BonJour , Alston , Goldman , and others. In the book, Plantinga argues specifically that the theories of what he calls "warrant"—what many others have called justification (Plantinga draws out a difference: justification is a property of a person holding a belief while warrant is a property of a belief)—put forth by these epistemologists have systematically failed to capture in full what

8827-405: The world, he stands firm against philosophical naturalism . He said in an interview on the relationship between science and religion that: Religion and science share more common ground than you might think, though science can't prove, it presupposes that there has been a past for example, science does not cover the whole of the knowledge enterprise. Plantinga participated in groups that support

8924-515: Was a convert to Catholicism. But that was reserved for later. In 1940, James T. Farrell called Adler "the leading American fellow-traveller of the Roman Catholic Church." What was true for Adler, Farrell said, was what was "postulated in the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church," and he "sang the same tune" as avowed Catholic philosophers like Étienne Gilson , Jacques Maritain , and Martin D'Arcy . He also greatly admired Henri Bergson ,

9021-743: Was born on November 15, 1932, in Ann Arbor, Michigan , to Cornelius A. Plantinga (1908–1994) and Lettie G. Bossenbroek (1908–2007), immigrants from the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. After Cornelius earned a PhD in philosophy from Duke University , he secured a teaching job in Michigan in 1941. Cornelius also had a master's degree in psychology. He taught several academic subjects at different institutions throughout his career. Plantinga married Kathleen De Boer in 1955. They had four children. One of Plantinga's brothers, Cornelius "Neal" Plantinga Jr. ,

9118-737: Was formally received into the Catholic Church by a long-time friend and admirer, Bishop Pierre DuMaine . "Finally," wrote another friend, Ralph McInerny , "he became the Roman Catholic he had been training to be all his life". Despite not being a Catholic for most of his life, on account of his lifelong participation in the Neo-Thomist movement and his almost equally long membership in the American Catholic Philosophical Association , this latter, according to McInerny

9215-517: Was published. Myers reminisces, "During that interview, I asked him why he had never embraced the Christian faith himself. He explained that while he had been profoundly influenced by a number of Christian thinkers during his life, ... there were moral – not intellectual – obstacles to his conversion. He didn't explain any further." Myers notes that Adler finally "surrendered to the Hound of Heaven " and "made

9312-452: Was so impressed with Calvin philosophy professor William Harry Jellema that he returned in 1951 to study philosophy under him. In 1954, Plantinga began his graduate studies at the University of Michigan where he studied under William Alston , William Frankena , and Richard Cartwright, among others. A year later, in 1955, he transferred to Yale University where he received his PhD in 1958. Plantinga began his career as an instructor in

9409-457: Was the founder of the Great Books program at St. John's College ). In 1930, Robert Hutchins , the newly appointed president of the University of Chicago , whom Adler had befriended some years earlier, arranged for Chicago's law school to hire him as a professor of the philosophy of law . The philosophers at Chicago (who included James H. Tufts , E. A. Burtt , and George H. Mead ) had "entertained grave doubts as to Dr. Adler's competence in

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