Theism and Rationality: A Seminar with Alvin Plantinga and Ernest Sosa

January 7, 2013
2:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. EST
Location: Berkley Center Third Floor Conference Room Map

Is belief in God properly basic to humanity? Philosophers of religion have vigorously contested this question, and the relationship between theism and rationality more generally, over the past several decades. As part of its research project on religion as intrinsic to human experience, the Religious Freedom Project hosted a standing seminar addressing this topic with noted philosopher Alvin Plantinga. A panel of distinguished philosophers engaged with Plantinga's paper on the basic nature of belief in God and the rationality of theism and with a response by respected philosopher Ernest Sosa. The panel subsequently delved into these issues and assessed their impact on broader questions involving the philosophical underpinnings of religious freedom.

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Alvin Plantinga

Featured Participants

Alvin Carl Plantinga Toggle

About Alvin Carl Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga is the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Before coming to Notre Dame in 1982, he taught at Calvin College from 1963 to 1982. A widely regarded philosopher of religion, he is credited with helping revive Christian philosophy. Acclaimed for his work on metaphysics, the problem of evil, and the epistemology of religious belief, he has written or edited numerous books, including Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (2011), Science and Religion (2010, with Daniel Dennett), and Knowledge of God (2008, with Michael Tooley). Other major works include God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God (1983, ed. with Nicholas Wolterstorff), and a major trilogy on “Warrant” which argues, among many other things, that belief in God is “properly basic.” Plantinga received his A.B. from Calvin College and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Alvin Carl Plantinga's Profile

Ernest Sosa Toggle

About Ernest Sosa

Ernest Sosa is the Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He taught at Brown University for four decades before moving to Rutgers in 2007 and has had visiting appointments at over ten other institutions. Sosa focuses primarily on epistomology. His recent publications include Knowing Full Well (2011) and Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume One (2009). Virtuous Thoughts: The Philosophy of Ernest Sosa (2013, ed. John Turri) offers an introduction to and evaluation of his body of work, building on the evolution in Sosa's philosophy since the release of Ernest Sosa: And His Critics (2004, ed. John Greco). He is also editor of the journals Philosophy and Phenomenological Research and Noûs. Sosa received his B.A. from the University of Miami and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Other Participants

Louise Antony Toggle

About Louise Antony

Louise Antony is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she has taught since 2006. Antony has also taught at Ohio State University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Bates College, Boston University, and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her interests include philosophy of mind, epistemology, feminist theory, and philosophy of language, and she is conducting research on perception and intentionality, autonomy of psychology, issues in feminist epistemology, and human nature. Antony’s publications include Philosophers Without Gods (2007) and Chomsky and His Critics (2003). She received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1981.

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Thomas Farr Toggle

About Thomas Farr

Thomas F. Farr is president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute, an NGO committed to achieving worldwide acceptance of religious liberty. Farr is also a senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. From 2006 to 2018 he was an associate professor of the practice of religion and world affairs at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior fellow at the Berkley Center; during 2017 and 2018 he was director of the Religious Freedom Research Project and from 2011 to 2016 director of the Religious Freedom Project, both at the Berkley Center. After a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the Foreign Service—which included teaching at West Point and the Air Force Academy, serving as an advisor during U.S.-Soviet arms control talks in Geneva, and leading an interagency task force on verification provisions for the START II Treaty—Farr served as the first director of the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2003.

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Richard Fumerton Toggle

About Richard Fumerton

Richard Fumerton is the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa, a position he has held since 2003. Fumerton’s publications include Mill (2009, with Wendy Donner), Introducing Philosophy through Film (2009, ed. with Diane Jeske), and Epistemology (2006), as well as numerous journal articles. He received his B.A. from the University of Toronto (Victoria College) and M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown University.

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Steven Gross Toggle

About Steven Gross

Steven Gross is an associate professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University. He previously taught at University College London, University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown University. His research focuses on philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. Gross was the principal investigator on the 2007-2010 project “Evolution, Cognition, and Culture,” funded by a Metanexus grant. His publications include “Knowledge of Meaning, Conscious and Unconscious” in Meaning, Understanding, and Knowledge (2009) and “Are Linguists Better Subjects?” in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (2009, with Jennifer Culbertson). Gross received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1998.

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Trenton Merricks Toggle

About Trenton Merricks

Trenton Merricks is professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 2001. He was previously at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1994 to 2001. Merricks specializes in metaphysics and also works in philosophy of religion, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. His recent works include Truth and Ontology (2007) and Objects and Persons (2001). Merricks received his B.A. from Ohio State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.

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Mark Murphy Toggle

About Mark Murphy

Mark Murphy has been at Georgetown University since 1995 and since 2011 has been the Robert L. McDevitt, K.S.G., K.C.H.S. and Catherine H. McDevitt L.C.H.S. Professor of Religious Philosophy. His research interests include moral, political, and legal philosophy and the history of early modern philosophy. His research focuses on natural law theory both in its historical manifestations and as a live option for jurisprudence and the theory of practical reasoning. He is the author of Natural Law and Practical Rationality (2001), An Essay on Divine Authority (2002), Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics (2006), Philosophy of Law (2006), and God and Moral Law: On the Theistic Explanation of Morality (2011), and he is editor of Alasdair MacIntyre (2003). He has also written a number of papers on Hobbes’s moral, political, and legal theory. Murphy holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.

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David Novak Toggle

About David Novak

David Novak has held the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as professor of the study of religion and professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto since 1997. From 1997 to 2002 he also was director of the Jewish Studies Programme. Previously, Novak taught at the University of Virginia, Oklahoma City University, Old Dominion University, the New School for Social Research, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Baruch College of the City University of New York. Novak was an associate scholar with the Berkley Center's Religious Freedom Project from 2011 through 2013. He is the author of 16 books, including The Sanctity of Human Life (2007) and In Defense of Religious Liberty (2009). From 1966 to 1969 he was Jewish chaplain to St. Elizabeth's Hospital and the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C.

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Timothy Shah Toggle

About Timothy Shah

Timothy Samuel Shah is a distinguished research scholar in the Politics Department at the University of Dallas, as well as as a senior fellow at the Archbridge Institute and the principal investigator for the Freedom of Religious Institutions in Society (FORIS) project at the Religious Freedom Institute. Previously a research professor of government at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, he also served as associate director of the Berkley Center's Religious Freedom Project, director for international research of the center's Religious Freedom Research Project, and associate professor of the practice of religion and global politics in Georgetown University's Government Department. He is a political scientist specializing in religious freedom as well as in the broad relationship between religious and political dynamics in theory, history, and contemporary practice. He is author of God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (2011, with Monica Duffy Toft and Daniel Philpott) and editor of Under Caesar's Sword: How Christians Respond to Persecution (2018, with Daniel Philpott) and Homo Religiosus? Exploring the Roots of Religion and Religious Freedom in Human Experience (2018, with Jack Friedman). Shah received his A.B., magna cum laude, in 1992 and a Ph.D. in 2002, both from Harvard University.

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