In my last post, we ended with Plantinga's rather disappointing conclusion that the arguments for the existence of God are not compelling.  In the quest to determine whether belief in God is rational, he moves on to some of the arguments against the existence of God.  It should come as no surprise that the main argument discussed is the Problem of Evil.

Arguments of Natural Atheology

For most atheologians of the time, the force of the problem of evil is that it shows a logical inconsistency in the core tenants of theism.  They take the following five propositions as being essential to theism:

a. God exists

b. God is omnipotent (all-powerful)

c. God is omniscient (all-knowing)

d. God is wholly good

e. Evil exists

Here we already run into a snag.  These five propositions do not entail a formal contradiction.  This may not be readily apparent to you, and it almost certainly isn't to an atheist with whom you might be debating.  Nonetheless, the point remains.  H. J. McCloskey apparently did not realize this; however, J. L. Mackie - one of the most brilliant atheist philosophers of the 20th century - did .  He realized that in order to arrive at a formal contradiction, at least one other proposition must be added.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most important pieces of orthodox Christian theology, having been with the Church since its earliest days. The first known use of the Greek word "trias" was by Theophilus of Antioch in the late second century, and the first use of the Latin word "trinitas" was by Tertullian in the early third century, each translating to the English "trinity." The word is used to describe the concept of the essential nature of God as One God in Three Persons-- the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although one could easily write hundreds of pages on the Trinity and never come close to exhausting all there is to say about it, I will here focus on how far back the idea can be traced, rather than what it entails.

Alvin Plantinga, now 80, is professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and has taught at Calvin College and Wayne State University, when it was a hotbed for analytic philosophy.  He studied at Calvin College, Harvard, the University of Michigan, and received his PhD from Yale.  He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Chicago, Michigan, Boston, Indiana, UCLA, Syracuse, and Arizona.  He has also given lectures in several prestigious lecture series, including being a Gifford Lecturer twice.  Further, he has honorary degrees from numerous universities.  His family's accomplishments are correspondingly sickening, with various professorships, degrees, etc. etc.

It would not be a stretch to say that Alvin Plantinga was the most prominent Christian philosopher of the 20th century.  His influence continues into the 21st, where he remains a leader not only in the philosophy of religion but also epistemology, and has contributed to the field of metaphysics as well.  His most notable contributions in the philosophy of religion include his famous Free Will Defense in response to the logical problem of evil which has received wide acceptance (which is a rarity in philosophy), the school of thought known as reformed epistemology, his modal ontological argument for the existence of God, and his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN).