Alvin Plantinga

First, I'd like to thank Professors Van Till, Pun, and McMullin for their careful and thoughtful replies. There is a deep level of agreement among all four of us; as is customary with replies and replies to replies, however, I shall concentrate on our areas of disagreement. In the cases of Van Till and McMullin, this may give an impression of deeper disagreement than actually exists. In the case of Pun it leaves me with little to say except Yea and Amen; I find no serious disagreement between us.

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."

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God has and puzzled philosophers ever since it was first formulated by St. Anselm. I suppose most philosophers have been inclined to reject the argument, although it has an illustrious line of defenders extending to the present and presently terminating in Professors Malcolm and Hartshorne. Many philosophers have tried to give general refutations of the argument-refutations de- signed to show that no version of it can possibly succeed-of which the most important is, perhaps, Kant's objection, with its several contemporary variations. I believe that none of these general refutations are successful; in what follows I shall support this belief by critically examining Kant's objection