Alvin Plantinga Quotes

Alvin Plantinga on God

• Attributed to Alvin Plantinga:

  “Belief in God is properly basic.”

• Attributed to Alvin Plantinga:

  “There is a deep concord between Christian belief and the methods of science, and a deep conflict between naturalism and science.”

• Attributed to Alvin Plantinga:

  “It is rational to believe in God without prior evidentialist proof.”

• “To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him.”

  Warranted Christian Belief . 2000. p. 145. ISBN 9780195131925 .

• “The Analytic Theist: An Alving Plantinga Reader , Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998. ISBN 9780802842299 . Ch. "Reason and Belief in God: Reformed Epistemology , pp. 125-126”

  Aquinas believes that human beings (even in our earthly condition here below) can have knowledge, scientific knowledge of God's existence , as well as knowledge that he has such attributes as simplicity , eternità , immateriality , immutability , and the line. In Summa Theologiae Aquinas sets out his famous Five Ways or five proofs of God's existence: in Summa Contra Gentiles he sets out the proof

• “Well, I don't think there are any methodological conflicts either. As for those social conflicts, those aren't conflicts—in my opinion—between science and religion. They're conflicts between Christians and atheists or Christians and secularists: Christians want to do things one way, secularists want to do things another way. But that's not a science/religion conflict at all. You might as well say it's a science/ secularism conflict. In each case, each group wants to do science and then use it in a certain way.”

  Pardi, Paul ( 2011-12-13 ). Interview with Alvin Plantinga on Where the Conflict Really Lies . Philosophy News . | Posed question: Are you mainly trying to show that there's no logical conflict even though there might be a methodological conflict?

Read all Alvin Plantinga quotes on God

Alvin Plantinga on Knowledge

• Attributed to Alvin Plantinga:

  “Warrant requires that one's cognitive faculties be functioning properly in a congenial environment.”

• Attributed to Alvin Plantinga:

  “If naturalism is true, the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is low.”

• “Warrant and Proper Function . New York: Oxford University Press. 1993. pp. 225-226. ISBN 9780195078640 .”

  Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. (Of course we must postulate other changes in Paul's ways of reasoning, including ho

• “Warranted Christian Belief . 2000. p. 145. ISBN 9780195131925 .”

  To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him.

• “Warranted Christian Belief . 2000. p. 217. ISBN 9780195131925 .”

  At present and especially in academia, there is widespread doubt and agnosticism with respect to the very existence of God. But if we don't know that there is such a person as God, we don't know the first thing (the most important thing) about ourselves, each other and our world. This is because (from the point of view of the model) the most important truths about us and them, is that we have been

• “Warranted Christian Belief . 2000. pp. 244-245. ISBN 9780195131925 .”

  I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like 'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to t

• “Pardi, Paul ( 2011-12-13 ). Interview with Alvin Plantinga on Where the Conflict Really Lies . Philosophy News .”

  Well, I don't think there are any methodological conflicts either. As for those social conflicts, those aren't conflicts—in my opinion—between science and religion. They're conflicts between Christians and atheists or Christians and secularists: Christians want to do things one way, secularists want to do things another way. But that's not a science/religion conflict at all. You might as well say

• “Posed question: Are you mainly trying to show that there's no logical conflict even though there might be a methodological conflict?”

  Well, I don't think there are any methodological conflicts either. As for those social conflicts, those aren't conflicts—in my opinion—between science and religion. They're conflicts between Christians and atheists or Christians and secularists: Christians want to do things one way, secularists want to do things another way. But that's not a science/religion conflict at all. You might as well say

Read all Alvin Plantinga quotes on Knowledge

Alvin Plantinga on Nature

• “The Nature of Necessity . Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1974. ISBN 0198244045 .”

  Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely . To create creatures capable of moral good , therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them