Alvin Plantinga

Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame

Alvin Plantinga is an American Christian philosopher, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics. He is particularly known for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend orthodox Christian beliefs. Notably, he has argued that some people can know that God exists as a basic belief, requiring no argument, similar to how people usually claim to know that other minds exist. He has also argued that there is no logical inconsistency between the existence of evil and the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, wholly good god. Plantinga is the author of a number of books, including God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), and Warranted Christian Belief (2000). He has delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures three times, and was described by Time magazine in 1980 as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God.