Philosophy Department
Lectures & Awards - Alvin Plantinga
The Bethel Lectures in Philosophy Series brings distinguished philosophers from across the discipline to our campus. Past lecturers have been Dallas Willard (University of Southern California), William Lane Craig (Talbot School of Theology), Richard Swinburne (Oxford), Brian Davies (Fordham), and Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J. (Fordham). Our speaker in the Spring of 2008 will be Charles Taliaferro (St. Olaf College).
On Tuesday, March 27, 2007, we are privileged to have Dr. Alvin Plantinga as our lecturer for this annual series. His talks are entitled “Science and Religion: Why the Debate Continues” and “An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.” These lectures will be presented in the Academic Building, Room AC342, at 3:30 and 7:00 p.m., respectively.
Professor Plantinga is the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his Bachelor's degree from Calvin College, his M.A. from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. from Yale University. He has also received honorary degrees from Glasgow University, Calvin College, North Park College, the Free University of Amsterdam, Brigham Young University, University of the West in Timisoara (Romania), and Valparaiso University. In addition he has held the offices of Vice President and President of the American Philosophical Association and President of the Society of Christian Philosophers.
Dr. Plantinga has given numerous prestigious lectureships, including the following:
- Matchette Lectures, University of Oxford
- Principal Lectures, Wheaton College
- Aquinas Lectures, Marquette University
- Stob Lectures, Calvin College
- Wade Lectures, St Louis University
- Staley Lectures, Hillsdale College
- Wilde Lectures, University of Oxford
- C. S. Lewis Lectures, Princeton University
- Stanton Lectures, Cambridge University
- Most recently the 2004-5 Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews University titled Science and Religion: Conflict or Concord
Beyond formal lectureships he has also given over 250 lectures on college and university campuses across the country. He has published well over a hundred articles and essays in such journals as the Journal of Philosophy, the Review of Metaphysics, the American Philosophical Quarterly, Faith and Philosophy, and Philosophia Christi. He has also published many books, most of which are contemporary philosophical classics. These include:
- Faith and Philosophy, ed., Eerdmans, 1964
- God and Other Minds, Cornell University Press, 1967
- The Nature of Necessity, Oxford University Press, 1974
- God, Freedom and Evil, Eerdmans, 1977
- Does God Have a Nature? Marquette University Press, 1980
- Faith and Rationality, ed. with Nicholas Wolterstorff, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983
- The Twin Pillars of Christian Scholarship; the Henry Stob Lectures, Calvin College, l989 (pamphlet)
- Warrant: the Current Debate, Oxford University Press, 1993
- Warrant and Proper Function, Oxford University Press, 1993
- Warranted Christian Belief, Oxford University Press, 2000
We are honored to have one of the leading philosophers of our day as our 2007 Bethel College Philosophy Lecturer.
