William Lane Craig wrote the cover story for this month's edition of Christianity Today. It can be found here. He speaks of a renaissance of Christian/theistic philosophy in secular academia, he reviews some of the main arguments for God's existence, and he talks about the relevance of arguments in today's "postmodern culture".
I've read about the need for good PR for philosophy over at Leiter's blog. One thing I'm happy about is that, in Christian circles, there's been an increasing amount of positive PR for philosophy, primarily by way of Christian apologetics. Lee Strobel's books The Case for Faith and The Case for a Creator feature interviews (and philosophical discussions) with professional philosophers such as William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, and Robin Collins. I rarely meet Christians nowadays who have never heard of Strobel's books, and a surprising number of them have actually read and enjoyed the books. Other Christian apologists who are not active, professional philosophers (e.g., Norman Geisler, Ravi Zacharias, Gregory Koukl, etc.) all speak with high regard for the value of philosophy. More recently, Pastor Timothy Keller's very popular book The Reason for God makes use of arguments that draw right out of the professional literature (mostly from Plantinga and Alston). I've found that many Christians walk away from reading/hearing these apologists with a higher appreciation for philosophy. Some enjoyed the arguments so much that they went into a full time study of philosophy. (I believe that many Talbott graduates fit this description.)
So I'm happy that there is this PR for philosophy in Christian circles. We can hope that this will contribute to good PR for philosophy in society generally!
That is nice.
Now the gripe from my perspective: it'd be nice if the philosophy that got PR wasn't so provincial. All the thinkers you mentioned belong to a fairly narrow niche of modern evangelical thought. That's no fault of the Biola gang - they should campaign for the version of "philosophy" they believe in. I just wish we had a more competitive marketplace of ideas.
(To avoid a misunderstanding: I know many of the folks you mentioned aren't affiliated with Biola. Nevertheless, the non-insidious agenda pursued by Biola/Talbot seems to me to be the paradigmatic example of the kind of philosophy that's at the frontier of popular apologetics nowadays.)
Hi Jbraun,
Thanks for the comment. I think that while Christian philosophy is advocated by these guys, so is philosophy simpliciter. They will advocate asking deep questions, critically thinking, using logical tools of reasoning, etc. That's reason for all philosophers to celebrate. I don't ascribe to, say, Mormonism; but suppose I found out that there was a movement amongst Mormons to advocate not only Mormon philosophy, but philosophy simpliciter. They began asking deep questions, critically thinking, using logical tools of reasoning, etc. I'd be happy about that move, and I would think that this was a good leap for philosophy generally.
You said, "All the thinkers you mentioned belong to a fairly narrow niche of modern evangelical thought." Well, I think they're all evangelicals (I'm not sure about Alston), but I don't think that they're in a narrow niche of evangelicalism. Furthermore, even if they are, they also belong to and are strongly involved in larger philosophical communities. For example, Craig was president of the philosophy of time society for a few years and was, I think, the first to develop a rigorous version of presentism; Plantinga and Alston have both been past presidents of divisions of the APA, and their works are too many to mention; all of these guys at least semi-regularly publish papers in philosophy journals in areas outside of philosophy of religion. (Btw, I'm not talking about the Zacharias, Koukl, etc. group here.) So I'm not sure what you meant by that quote. (I'm also not sure how the marketplace of ideas couldn't be more competitive than it already is!)
I definitely think the PR is a good thing, no bones about it. And I respect all those mentioned.
When I called the thinkers provincial I intended to claim that the way they frame "things" (e.g. our current intellectual milieu) evinces a lack of cross-cultural, non-Anglo, non-Analytic familiarity with thinkers outside what I perceive to be their circle.
One short example from the linked article: Craig's attempt to defeat a potential reader's objection to natural theology because of the threat to rational thinking posed by post-modernism. No "post-modern" thinkers I'm aware of are against rational thinking, and just to forestall an objection, that would include Fish, Rorty, Derrida, Lacan, or anyone targeted by Sokal. We evangelicals have been taught that there are such people out there, probably friends of those other scary citizens, the relativists, but we only believe it because folks like Craig keep telling us that they really do exist.
I get the sense if there were a few more Thomists contributing to contemporary evangelical Christian philosophy, a few more phenomenologists, a few more Lacanians, Marxists, Heideggerians, etc., then our philosophical discussions, as Christians, would be richer and less prone to provinciality. Maybe I think the problem isn't competitiveness in the marketplace so much as lack of diverse product.
Anyhow, sorry if I derailed your thread. It really is good news and I'm glad Craig is out there doing good work.
Andrew is right to point out the inaccuracy of Jbraun's statement that "the thinkers you mentioned belong to a fairly narrow niche of modern evangelical thought." What the philosophers Andrew explicitly mentioned share in common is a commitment (at least, as far as I can tell) to orthodox Christianity and analytic philosophy. Failing to be heterodox or continental in bent doesn't strike me as "narrow" or "provincial." There is rich diversity amongst orthodox analytic philosophers, both in terms of philosophy and theology. Look at the list of philosophers Craig mentions in his article to get a flavor: Pruss and Koons are Roman Catholic; Swinbune was Anglican but is now Eastern Orthodox; Plantinga is of the Reformed Protestant tradition; Craig is an Evangelical Protestant who parts company in many ways from the Reformed tradition, and so forth.
JBraun,
I'd argue that there is no lack of diversity among philosophers of religion. In fact, analytic philosophers of religion are likely in the minority. There are prominent continental folks like Merold Westphal and John Caputo, and many others besides. To my knowledge Continental and Post-modern thinkers dominate in Catholic philosophy programs and in most seminaries. Just go to a AAR meeting to see the dominance of Continental and Post-modern thinking. The problem is, and this isn't restricted to PR, that philosophers trained in different philosophical traditions aren't particularly good at talking to each other. I'd hasten to add that this is a fault that runs both directions.
JBraun, is the worry that there is not much diversity amongst Christian philosophers? (Matthew and Michael think otherwise.) Or is it that only a narrow niche of evangelical Christians are the ones getting PR? I was saying (in my previous comment) that I thought that philosophy simpliciter was getting the PR, which is good for everybody.
(Btw, Matthew used 'PR' to refer to phil. religion in his last comment, but I think 'PR' has been standing for public relations in all the other comments. Matthew's context made the meaning of what he said clear, but I just want to avoid any obfuscation.)
My feeling is that there is significantly more interest in arguments for the existence of God among analytic philosophers of religion than among continental ones. If so, then since Bill Craig was writing about arguments for the existence of God, it is no surprise that analytic philosophers are better represented than continental ones.
Is my feeling correct? (Nor is this meant to be an aspersion on continental philosophers. There is an appropriate division of labor.)
Plantinga came out of the Reformed tradition, but I mean that literally. He is no longer a part of it. If there's one essential to being Reformed under the contemporary method of labeling evangelicals, it's being a Calvinist, and he certainly isn't one. I don't know anyone who is Reformed who would count a libertarian on the free will issue as Reformed.
As for Alston, he comes from a tradition (actually two, if you count both Anglicanism and the charismatic movement) where the word 'evangelical' is normally used for a much narrower group than the group that uses it to describe themselves. There are people who take the name for themselves who are very much like Alston in terms of belief and practice. But he says he's not an evangelical, because the circles he's run in don't use the term as broadly. For what it's worth, I consider him a sort of moderate evangelical.
Jeremy,
AP calls himself a Calvinist. He jokes that he wants to be the first Calvinist Pope, or better the first Calvinist head football coach at ND. Is he just using the term differently from you or is he confused about what Calvinism would commit him to or what?
Huh. It's strange that he'd still call himself a Calvinist given that he so strongly endorses a libertarian view of freedom. He definitely has been influenced by the Reformed tradition, but I don't know of anyone who interprets him to be a compatibilist about freedom, which is one of the main planks of Calvinism.
The five letters of the acronym TULIP are generally taken to indicate what it takes to be a Calvinist. Total depravity means that every element of human beings is fallen. Unconditional election means that God doesn't base his predestination of humans for salvation on anything we do to earn it. Limited atonement refers to the atonement actually covering only the elect. Irresistible grace is the real kicker for a libertarian, since it holds that everyone given saving grace will be saved. Perseverance of the saints holds that those who have genuinely received the grace of salvation will be saved and will not stop believing and fall away. Those who do so did not have a genuine work of grace of the saving sort (but merely had the common grace that non-believers also experience).
If Platinga does accept all those, then I'd love to hear how he fits it with libertarianism, unless people are generally wrong about his view of freedom, and then I'd like to hear his account of how the free will defense can work with a compatibilist conception of freedom. I think you can do analogous things with compatibilism, but I don't think it will work the way he does it. I think we've discussed that issue somewhere on this blog before.
I should write him, since he calls himself a Calvinist in several lectures. Maybe he has given up on Calvinism.
A brief excerpt from an AP email on his commitment to Calvinism. The finer points will have to be taken up with him, but no surprise that he takes himself to be a follower of Calvin.
I'm not a five point Canons of Dordt Calvinist; I'd consider myself an Arminian
Calvinist. Many will claim that's an impossibility, but the remonstrants
considered themselves followers of Calvin, and so do I, although of course I do
disagree with him on some points.