Alvin Plantinga

This is especially clear in the case of Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy of freedom. Existentialists in general and Sartre in particular argue that an analysis, not of human nature, indeed, but of, say, "the universal human condition" reveals that certain kinds of behavior are morally appropriate and others morally reprehensible. My aim in this paper is to show that Sartre's analysis of "the universal human condition" is quite inconsistent with morality in anything like the ordinary sense. We might think that attempt otiose in view of Sartre's notorious rejection of "absolute values." But in spite of his claim to dispense with absolute morality, Sartre's philosophy, like other existentialist philosophies, is through-and-through ethical. A concern with the human condition and its implications for morality is the moving force behind Sartre's thought. "Bad faith," "responsibility," "anguish,"--these and other ethical notions play a central role in Sartre's philosophy of freedom. Though he has in one sense rejected "absolute values" in another sense he accepts the absolute values of authenticity and good faith, recommends these values to others, and passes moral judgment upon those who live in "bad faith."

In this paper I propose an amendment to Chisholm's definition of individual essence. I then argue that a thing has more than one individual essence and that there is no reason to believe no one grasps anyone else's essence. The remainder of the paper is devoted to a refutation of existentialism, the view that the essence of an object X (along with propositions and states of affairs directly about x) is ontologically dependent upon x in the sense that it could not have existed if x had not existed.

I took it that the definitions Swinburne quotes imply that all of a person's basic beliefs are rational; Swinburne demurs. It still seems to me that these definitions have this consequence. Let me briefly explain why. According to Swinburne, a person's evidence consists of his basic beliefs, weighted by his confidence in them. So presumably we are to think of S's evidence as the set of the beliefs he takes in the basic way, together with a sort of index indicating, for each of those beliefs, his degree of confidence in that belief. Now it is clear, first, that different basic beliefs can be held with different degrees of confidence. I believe 2+1 = 3 more firmly than there are presently some large trees in my backyard, and I believe that second proposition more firmly than I played bridge last night. Nevertheless, I believe all three propositions; I don't just believe them probably. So, the set of my basic beliefs contains propositions, all of which I believe. Further, a belief of mine is ‘rendered probable by [my] evidence’, I take it, just if it is probable with respect to the set of my basic beliefs. But of course probability of 1 with respect to that set; the degree of confidence with which I hold those beliefs does not seem to be relevant. Hence my conclusion that on these definitions all of my basic beliefs are rational. Swinburne points out that some of my basic beliefs may be improbable with respect to the rest of my basic beliefs; these beliefs, then, might be thought irrational, at least if they are not held as firmly as those with respect to which they are improbable. But this seems to me an uninteresting sense of ‘irrational’. Many of my basic beliefs are improbable with respect to my other basic beliefs; they are none the worse for that. I now remember, as it seems to me, that in the second bridge hand last night I was dealt three aces, three jacks, and three deuces. This is unlikely on the rest of my basic beliefs. It is, nonetheless, not irrational in any useful sense; memory is an important and independent source of rational belief, a source such that its deliverances do not necessarily depend, for warrant or rationality, on their probability with respect to other basic beliefs. I believe the same goes for some of my Christian beliefs. They may be improbable with respect to other beliefs, basic or otherwise, that I hold; but that need be nothing whatever against them. Footnotes1 Note: This brief discussion arises out of Richard Swinburne's critical notice of Alvin Plantinga 's Warranted Christian Belief and Plantinga 's reply in Religious Studies, 37, 203–214, 215–222

A common contemporary claim is the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism—the idea, roughly, that there is no such person as God or anything at all like God—with the view that our cognitive faculties have come to be by way of the processes to which contemporary evolutionary theory direct our attention. Call this view ‘N&E’. I’ve argued elsewhere that this view is incoherent or self-defeating in that anyone who accepts it has a defeater for R, the proposition that her cognitive faculties are reliable, which then gives her a defeater for any proposition she believes, including, of course, N&E itself. The argument for, in turn, depends essentially on the proposition that P is low or inscrutable. To support, I divided N&E into mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive subcases, arguing that in each subcase Si, P is low or inscrutable. I won’t repeat this argument here, but I do want to focus on a certain essential aspect of the argument for.

In this paper I outline and discuss the central claims and arguments of J. L. Mackie’s The Miracle of Theism. Mackie argues, in essence, that none of the traditional theistic arguments is successful taken either one at a time or in tandem, that the theist does nothave a satisfactory response to the problem of evil, and that on balance the theistic hypothesis is much less probable than is its denial. He then concludes that theism is unsatisfactory and rationally unacceptable. I argue that he is mistaken in nearly all of his major contentions.

How does Christianity bear on philosophy? Is there such a thing as Christian philosophy, or are there only Christians who are also philosophers? How should Christianity and philosophy be related? Should they be related? In “Advice to Christian Philosophers” I said that Christian philosophers should display more autonomy: they have their own fish to fry, their own projects to pursue,. Here I want to say more about what these projects are like. And the right way to think about these matters, so it seems to me, is broadly Augustinian. Accordingly, I want to propose a programmatic sketch of a conception of Christian philosophy that grows out of some central Augustinian emphases. I don’t claim, however, that Augustine in fact thought of Christian philosophy the way I shall suggest. The primary focus of my paper is not historical ; what I want to do is make a suggestion as to how we should think about Christian philosophy now; but this way of thinking of the matter grows out of Augustinian roots. It’s worth noting, furthermore, that what is at issue is not just a way of thinking about Christianity and philosophy, but about Christianity and scholarship more generally.