Alvin Plantinga's Knowledge And Christian Belief

[Cole_H]

Got my copy of Alvin Plantinga’s new book. He wrote a condensed version of “Warranted Christian Belief” and released it as this one. Richard Swinburne says:

A very clear, easy-to-understand, and challenging presentation of the main steps of Plantinga’s argument in his magnum opus Warranted Christian Belief. Using the tools of modern epistemology, Plantinga defends a classical position - that Christian belief does not need to be supported by any arguments from generally agreed premises in order to be fully rational, and that that belief cannot be shown to be false by any such arguments.

Michael Bergman says:

Written by one of the greatest living philosophers of religion, this book is sure to be an instant classic. It provides a concise and accessible statement of one of his most distinctive ideas - which he has developed with extreme rigor and care over the past fifty years - namely, that theistic and Christian belief can amount to knowledge, without being based on arguments.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41wl2HxmtXL.SY344_BO1,204,203,200.jpg

[Cole_H]

On page 35

According to the A/C model, this natural knowledge of God is not arrived at by inference or argument but in a much more immediate way…It isn’t that one beholds the night sky, notes that it is grand, and concludes that there must be such a person as God: as an argument this would be pretty weak…It’s rather that upon the perception of the night sky or the mountain vista or the tiny flower that these beliefs just arise within us. They arise in these circumstances; they are not conclusions from them. The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of His hands: but not by way of serving as premises for an argument.

[anon12438761]

I just ordered the book. I enjoy reading/studying Plantinga.

[Cole_H]

Great Dave! It’s easier to understand than the other but the ideas are still there. You should enjoy.

[anon12438761]

I actually ordered the longer book, that’s the way I roll I guess…

[Cole_H]

The longer one is better anyway. Though harder to grasp. It takes more concentration.

[Cole_H]

page 126

None of these, I argued, presents a serious challenge to the warrant Christian belief can enjoy if the model, and indeed Christian belief, is, in fact, true. But is it true? This is the really important question. And here we pass beyond the competence of philosophy. In my opinion no argument with premises accepted by everyone or nearly everyone is strong enough to support full-blown Christian belief, even if such belief is, as I think it is, more probable than not with respect to premises of that kind. Speaking for myself and not in the name of philosophy, I can say that it does, indeed, seem to me to be true, and to be the maximally important truth.