Conversation with Philosopher Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga holds the John A. O’Brien Chair of Philosophy and is director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. He taught at Calvin for twenty years and is a '54 graduate of the college.

Plantinga returned to campus last week for a seminar on science, philosophy and belief hosted by Calvin College.

This seminar brings together Western experts in the field with select Chinese scholars and is funded in part by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. While Plantinga was on campus, Ashleigh Draft from communications and marketing met with him to talk about everything from the history of Calvin's philosophy department to arguments for the existence of God.

AD: As an undergraduate you studied at both Harvard and Calvin. Tell me about your experience studying philosophy at a secular college and then at a Christian institution.

AP: At Calvin a main emphasis was “What does it mean to be a Christian philosopher, or a Christian literary critic, or a Christian historian.” There was a lot of concern about how to bring Christianity to bear on all these different disciplines … And of course that wasn’t true at Harvard at all. There was scarcely any mention of Christianity or theism in any of the courses I took. I liked Harvard a lot—I really enjoyed being there. My freshman year at Harvard I came back to Calvin when Harvard was on spring vacation and Calvin wasn’t, and I heard Harry Jellema lecture three times. I was really swept away. I thought he was just terrific, and I wanted to study philosophy with him.

AD: You’ve also taught at both Christian and non-Christian colleges. Did you notice a difference in the types of questions that students ask?

AP: Oh yes, there’s a lot of difference there. Most of my students at Notre Dame are grad students, and many of them are evangelicals. So I think maybe half of our grad students are evangelicals, a quarter are Catholics and a quarter are various other things … so they’re committed to the idea of Christian philosophy. They ask quite different questions from students that I’ve had at secular universities. When they [students from secular institutions] ask questions about Christianity, the questions wouldn’t be nearly as well focused; they wouldn’t know that much about it.

AD: If a high school student inquired about whether to attend a Christian college, what would you tell them?

AP: If she were a Christian student who wanted to study philosophy, I would certainly tell her to attend Calvin. Calvin’s got the best philosophy department of any Christian college. If a Christian student didn’t want to study philosophy, I lean towards saying “Yes, you should go to Calvin or some other Christian college,” but I’m not real insistent on it because I’m not sure it’s best for absolutely everybody. Some Christian students seem to flourish better if they’re in the minority. I’m not sure why that is exactly, but I think it’s true.

AD: Calvin’s philosophy department has a pretty remarkable history. What do you think it is about Calvin College and philosophy?

AP: It’s hard to know—I don’t think it’s deep in “Dutchness.” The Dutch aren’t a particularly philosophical bunch; they’re more like sailors and businessmen. I mean, in the Netherlands it’s not like there’s this great preponderance of great philosophers.

To read the entire interview, go to http://www.calvin.edu/news/2007-08/alvin%20plantinga/