God and Other Minds
God and Other Minds is a 1967 book by the American philosopher of religion
Summary of God and Other Minds
God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God was originally published by
The book explores the rationality of belief in God, as conceived in the Hebrew-Christian tradition. In Part, I, Plantinga examines a number of traditional arguments for God's existence and concludes that none successfully demonstrate God's existence. In Part II, he considers and rejects some major arguments against belief in God, including
The book has the following chapters:
Part I: Natural Theology
- Ch 1: The Cosmological Argument
- Ch 2: The Ontological Argument - I
- Ch 3: The Ontological Argument - II
- Ch 4: The Teleological Argument
Part II: Natural Atheology
- Ch 5: The Problem of Evil
- Ch 6: The Free Will Defense
- Ch 7: Verificationism and other Atheologica
Part III: God and Other Minds
- Ch 8: Other Minds and Analogy
- Ch 9: Alternatives to the Analogical Position
- Ch 10: God and Analogy
Scholarly reaction
According to the philosopher William Lane Craig, God and Other Minds helped to revitalize philosophy of religion after the palmy days of logical positivism by applying "the tools of analytic philosophy to questions in the philosophy of religion with an unprecedented rigor and creativity."[3]
Plantinga's response to the problem of evil – the so-called free will defense, which argues that it is possible that God could not have created a world with a better balance of good over evil than does the actual world – provoked considerable scholarly discussion.[4]
References
- ^ Alvin Plantinga, "Self-Profile," in James E. Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen, eds., Alvin Plantinga. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1985, p. 55.
- doi:10.2307/2024569
- ^ William Lane Craig, "General Introduction," in William Lane Craig, ed., Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002, p. 1.
- ^ See the extensive bibliography in Tomberlin and van Inwagen, pp. 405-06.