I am rather appalled by the general lack of unfamiliarity among theologians with Alvin Plantinga. The man is almost undoubtedly the most important name in Christian philosophy of the last 30 years, and he was the main force behind the return of Christian philosophy to the mainstream. His work in epistemology, the study of the nature of knowing, is second to none and influences almost every corner of modern anglo-american philosophy. His work on apologetics revolutionized the way philosophers think about the subject, though in theology he apparently holds little weight.
To understand why Plantinga is so important, you have to understand a little about the last fifty or so years of philosophy. For along time Anglo-American philosophy was seen as a tradition that eschewed metaphysics. From the time of Bertrand Russell on, most American philosophers focused on philosophy as linguistic and conceptual analysis, and really nothing more. It's goal was to make language clear and precise so that science could do it's work with a proper underpinning. But then this guy Saul Kripke came along and challenged the notion that philosophy could be done without a metaphysical focus. He showed how Russell's theory of names was problematic. Russell thought that names were tight descriptions. So the name Aristotle simply meant "the man who taught Alexander the Great in ancient Macedonia". Kripke said that this couldn't be right because there was some 'possible world' where Aristotle had NOT taught Alexander the great. He went on to give a causal account of naming. This was huge because it showed that language brought with it metaphysical baggage. And thus began the turn toward modal logic: logic that included metaphysical statements through the construction of 'possible world semantics.' So it is common place to talk about counterfactuals and possible worlds in modern philosophy, and to include in a logical picture the metaphysical baggage that goes with it.
Plantinga was vastly important in providing an epistemological underpinning to this enterprise. Simply put he showed that imagination and reason makes it possible for us to know about the metaphysical baggage our language entails, and that we could actually know about modal logic. Then, in a stunning move, he showed how this epistemological turn makes it possible to resurrect an old argument for the existence of God: the ontological argument.
The important part of Plantinga's ontological argument is the way in which it expanded the field of modal epistemology generally. He did something similar in his book GOD AND OTHER MINDS. He showed that there was parity between arguments for other minds and the teleological argument for God's existence. In this way he expanded not only our understanding of the teleological argument, but of the problem of other minds generally. What Plantinga did was demonstrated for all philosophers to see, how philosophy of religion, indeed Christian philosophy, dealt with issues relevant to all philosophy in general. This catapulted the field back into the mainstream.
Plantinga went on to discuss general epistemology in his WARRANT series. He argued that philosophical anthropology, a vision of human nature, underlies an theory of knowing, and so philosophical anthropology or metaphysics is more basic than epistemology, challenging the view that had been ascendant since Descartes. And again, he showed how, this being the case, Christian belief is normative and rational, at least for some people. And also again, his work is relevant to philosophy in general even if you don't grant his religious conclusions. I'd say it is also very hard to find problems with his reasoning, and that he succeeds in giving a rational grounding for Christian faith, and for that reason it seems to me he should be front and center in modern theological discussions as well.
Nothing that I've read from Plantinga is super accessible to the general public, but most anyone with a college degree and a little background in philosophy should be able to grasp what he says. Further, it should be the job of theology departments to bring men like him to the forefront of Christian discourse. It is for that reason I commend him to you, if nothing else just so you can be familiar with one of the great Christian minds of our time.
I would say that most of that sounds right. On Kripke: Kripke's _Naming and Necessity_ certainly did much to restore interest in metaphysics in the early 70s; although his major work in modal logic had been going on for at least a decade before that, it was _N&N_ that fleshed out and popularized Kripke's metaphysical interpretation of the logic. (Plantinga's "Actualist" interpretation is even metaphysically robust than Kripke's. It is not always appreciated that Plantinga himself also made important contributions to the field of formal modal logic in its own right, apart from its application to philosophical theology.)
ReplyDeleteOf late, Plantinga's writing has gotten more accessible for the general reader; in his 80s (but literally still climbing mountains, I'm told) he seems to be intentionally trying to take on more of a "public intellectual" role.