.
By Ed Gerritsen, February 2014
Collection Overview
Abstract
The collections contains Alvin Plantinga's notes and papers (1950-1955) while a student, and correspondence (1956-2010) that spans his teaching and writing careers on such topics as God, freedom, evil, creation and evolution. His writings (1961-2010) details his arguments relating to God whose existence does not present a logical inconsistency with the existence of evil, free will for humans, and that a creation with moral good necessitates the existence of moral evil. The collections also details his argument that if evolution is true, it undermines naturalism because if both evolution and naturalism are true, human cognitive faculties must evolve directed toward survival rather than truth, and these faculties would be unreliable in discerning truth. On the other hand, if God created man "in his image" by way of an evolutionary process (or any other means), then Plantinga argues our faculties would probably be reliable.
Biographical Note
At the end of 11th grade, Plantinga's father urged Plantinga to skip his last year of high school and enroll in college and in 1949, a few months before his 17th birthday, he enrolled in Jamestown College, in Jamestown, North Dakota. When his father joined the faculty at Calvin College in January 1950, the younger Plantinga enrolled in Calvin College. During his first semester at Calvin, Plantinga was awarded a scholarship to attend Harvard University, where her spent two semesters but returned to Calvin in 1951 to study philosophy with William Harry Jellema In 1954. Plantinga began his graduate studies at the University of Michigan with William Alston, William Frankena, and Richard Cartwright, and in 1955 transferred to Yale University where he received his PhD in 1958.
Plantinga taught philosophy at Yale, 1957-1958; Wayne State University, 1958-1963; Calvin College (replacing the retiring Jellema), 1963-1982; and the University of Notre Dame, 1982-2010. He has honorary degrees from Glasgow University (1982), North Park College (1994), the Free University of Amsterdam (1995), Brigham Young University (1996), and Valparaiso University (1999). He was a Guggenheim Fellow, 1971-1972, and elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975. In 2006 the University of Notre Dame's Center for Philosophy of Religion renamed its Distinguished Scholar Fellowship as the Alvin Plantinga Fellowship. In 2012, the University of Pittsburgh's Philosophy Department, History and Philosophy of Science Department, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science awarded Plantinga the Rescher Prize.
Plantinga was born on 15 November 1932, in Ann Arbor, Michigan to Cornelius A. Plantinga (1908-1994) and Lettie G. Bossenbroek (1908-2007). Plantinga's father, an immigrant from Friesland, the Netherlands, earned Master's Degree in psychology and a PhD in philosophy from Duke University. Alvin Plantinga married Kathleen De Boer in 1955 and they have four children: Carl, Jane, Harry, and Ann. Both sons are professors at Calvin College, Carl in Film Studies and Harry in computer science; daughter, Jane Plantinga Pauw, is a pastor at Rainier Beach Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Seattle, Washington, and his daughter, Ann Kapteyn, is a missionary in Cameroon working for Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Administrative Information
Repository:
Heritage Hall, Hekman Library
Alternate Extent Statement:
30 Boxes
Acquisition Source:
Alvin Plantinga, 2012, 2013
Other Note:
Acc. No. 12.66, 13.15
Box and Folder Listing
Browse by Series:
[
Series 1: [General Materials]],
[
Series 2: Correspondence, 1950-2010],
[
Series 3: Writings, 1963-2008, undated],
[Series 4: Articles],
[
Series 5: Research Material],
[
Series 6: Research Material; A Theory of Content and Other Essays, by Jerry Fodor, 1990, 1972-1981, undated],
[
All]
- Series 4: Articles
- Box 22
- Folder 9: "Two Concepts of Modality: Modal Realism and Modal Reductionism" --- 1987
- Folder 10: "Justification and Theism," (Faith and Philosophy) --- 1987
- Folder 11: "Positive Epistemic Status and Proper Function" --- 1988
- Folder 12: "The Prospects for Natural Theology" --- 1991
- Folder 13: "Truth, Omniscience, and Cantorian Arguments: An Exchange," (By Plantinga and Grim) --- 1992
- Folder 14: "Dennett's Dangerous Idea," (Books and Culture) --- 1996
- Folder 15: "Twenty Years Worth of SCP," (Faith and Philosophy) --- 1998
- Folder 16: "On Proper Basicality" --- 2007
- Folder 17: "What is Intervention?," (Theology and Science) --- 2008
- Folder 18: "Divine Knowledge" --- nd
- Folder 19: "Rejecting the Theory of Common Ancestry" --- nd
- Folder 20: "Truth, Omniscience, and Cantorian Arguments," (Plantinga and Grim) --- nd
- Folder 21: Natural Theology: "The Esistemology of Religious Belief" --- nd
- Folder 22: "Reason and Belief in God" --- nd
- Folder 23: "Christian, Scholars, and Christian Scholars" --- nd
- Folder 24: "Justification in the 20th Century" --- nd
- Folder 25: Notes and Outlines for Oxford Lectures --- nd
- Folder 26: Outlines for Glasgow Lectures --- nd
- Folder 27: Lecture: "The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology" --- 1980
- Folder 28: Address: "How to be an Anti-Realist" --- 1982
- Folder 29: Final Draft for "Coherentism and the Evidentialist Objection to Belief in God" --- nd
- Box 23
- Folder 1: Syllabus for Gifford Lectures --- 1987
- Folder 2: Stob Lectures: "Reformed Thinking: Christian Scholarship" and "Christian Thinking: The Twin Pillars"; The Twin Pillars of Christian Scholarship, --- 1989
- Folder 3: A.C.P. Comments on Malcom's Paper-Oxford Philosophical Society --- Jan 1976
- Folder 4: Draft of "God and Laws of Logic"
- Folder 5: Notes and Drafts of Papers on Natural Theology --- nd
- Folder 6: Review of "Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God," (M.P. Levine) --- nd
- Folder 7: Review of "Language, Persons, and Belief," (Commonweal Magazine) --- 1968
- Folder 8: Review of "Plantinga: A Profile" --- nd
- Folder 9: Review of "Science and Religion: Why Does the Debate Continued?" --- nd
- Folder 10: Critique of Alvin Goldman
- Folder 11: Review of "Warrant and Proper Function" --- 1993
- Folder 12: Review of "God, Freedom, and Evil," (Reviewed by G. Allen) --- 1975
- Folder 13: Review of "Faith and Rationality," (Reviewed by J.E. Tomberlin) --- 1986
- Folder 14: Review of "The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity," (T. Sheean) --- nd
- Folder 15: Book Reviews of "God and Other Minds" --- nd
- Folder 16: Review of "How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity," (Review by A.C.P.) --- nd
- Folder 17: A Critical Survey of Plantinga's "Warranted Christian Belief" --- nd
- Folder 18: Critique of the Nature of Necessity and Related Material, (R.L. Purtill) --- nd
- Folder 19: Critique on Plantinga's View on the Rationality of Belief in God," (A. Kenny) --- nd
- Folder 20: Critique on Draper --- nd
- Folder 21: Talk on Aquinas --- nd
- Folder 22: Chapel Talks --- nd
- Box 24
- Folder 1: Summer Institute for College Teachers in Philosophy of Religion, Calvin College --- 1973
- Folder 2: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminar --- 1975
- Folder 3: Summer Seminar in Philosophy and Religion, Calvin College --- 1978
- Folder 4: Notes of Notre Dame Seminar on the Philosophy of Religion --- 1982
- Folder 5: American Philosophical Association Officer Nominations --- 1983
- Folder 6: Workshop on Christianity and Philosophy, Westmount College --- 1984
- Folder 7: Summer Institute in Philosophy of Religion, W. Washington University --- 1985
- Folder 8: 25th Philosophical Reunion, Pamplona, Spain --- 1987
- Box 25
- Folder 1: Dialogue with William Carter
- Folder 2: Reply to Sessions and Vanhook --- 1985
- Folder 3: Reply to Levine, Steuer, and Robbins --- nd
- Folder 4: Reply to Gary Gutting --- nd
- Folder 5: Response to William Vallicella --- nd
- Folder 6: Comments on Clouser's Claims --- nd
- Folder 7: Application for Sabbatical Leave --- nd
- Folder 8: Council for Philosophical Studies Material --- 1972
- Folder 9: E. Harris Harbison Award for Distinguished Teaching --- 1968
- Folder 10: Material Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship --- 1975-1967
- Folder 11: Philosophy 331 Course, Wolterstorff on Kant --- 1975
- Folder 12: Thesis: "A Study of Plantinga's View about Validity of Religious Belief". (M.A. Mobini) --- nd
- Folder 13: Tribute to "KK" (Ken Konyndyk) --- nd
- Folder 14: Material re: Rock Climbing
- Folder 15: Interview of A.P. --- nd
- Folder 16: Interview with Professor A. Plantinga, (Krisis-University of Timiboara) --- nd
- Folder 17: Interview with Professor A.C. Plantinga, (A. Varghese) --- 1993
- Folder 18: "Parting Reflections," (On Leaving Calvin College for Notre Dame) --- nd
Browse by Series:
[
Series 1: [General Materials]],
[
Series 2: Correspondence, 1950-2010],
[
Series 3: Writings, 1963-2008, undated],
[Series 4: Articles],
[
Series 5: Research Material],
[
Series 6: Research Material; A Theory of Content and Other Essays, by Jerry Fodor, 1990, 1972-1981, undated],
[
All]
