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Interview

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and is thought by many to be the most interesting philosopher of religion writing today. Daniel Hill asked him all about his long-awaited new book.

Professor Plantinga, in your new book, Warranted Christian Belief, you distinguish two questions someone might have about a belief – (a) ‘Is the belief true?’, and (b) ‘Is the belief intellectually acceptable?’. As regards belief in God (theistic belief) and Christian belief two corresponding objections are often raised: (i) theism/ Christianity is false, (ii) theistic/Christian belief is not intellectually acceptable. In the book you deal only with (ii), with the sort of person who says “Well, I don’t know whether Christian belief is true (after all, who could know a thing like that?), but I do know that it is not intellectually acceptable.” Why do you not deal with (i)?

First, it is already a very long book – five hundred and some pages; I didn’t want to make it any longer. But second, the only reasonably promising argument I can think of against the truth of Christian belief is that a benevolent, omnipotent, all-knowing God wouldn’t allow evil or suffering in the world.

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