William Lane Craig

[Closet Catholic]

Yep. I don’t see much metaphysical difference between the ‘god’ of Craig, who has being like we do, and Zeus.

Here, from Craig’s own websiste: “I agree wholeheartedly with Scotus that there is a univocal concept of being which applies to both God and creatures. One of the aspects of Thomas Aquinas’ thought that I find most disturbing is his claim that we can speak of God only in analogical terms. Without univocity of meaning, we are left with agnosticism about the nature of God, able to say only what God is not, not what He is. Scotus rightly saw that when we say that God is or exists, we are using the term in the same sense in which we say that a man is or exists.”

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The Unintended Reformation explores the consequences of this error. It removes the distinction between God and creation. That, in turn, i's behind the alleged faith/reason conflict and the widespread idea that God's activity is somehow in conflict with our freedom.

[gherkin]

That, in turn, i's behind

Heh heh. Tell us more about i's.

[gherkin]

Alvin Plantinga published “Where the Conflict Really Lies” Which explores the alleged conflict between science and religion, arguing that science poses a bigger threat to atheism than theism, on a popular level. It even has an audiobook edition.

Evidently, I lost track of this conversation back when we were first having it.

I have this book on my shelf but I confess that I haven't gotten around to reading it. Thus, I don't know exactly how popular it is in exposition. Actually, relatively early in his career, Plantinga published a relatively accessible book about the ontological argument/necessity that gets used in a lot of college classes. So he hasn't focused absolutely exclusively on publishing high-level stuff just intended for professional philosophers. And, on the other hand, Craig has produced a fair bit of very technical work that is intended for professional philosophers. But still, as to the point I made about Craig doing popular-level stuff and Plantinga not, I'm gonna stick with it. You find a lot of popular-level apologists referring to Plantinga all the time. But you don't generally find Plantinga doing popular level stuff, and in fact at one point I remember him saying that he'd always felt bad that as a teacher he had trouble communicating with undergrads and always had his successes with grad students.

[gherkin]

I also feel the need to point out that I am Alvin Plantinga's philosophical grandson. My dissertation director was one of Plantinga's students. I might be one of Plantinga's first grandsons. By now he has many, of course. I was able to sit in on a class with him while I was on a fellowship at ND, and I've been to...mmm, maybe two or three talks of his, but unfortunately I cannot claim to really know granddad.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

That, in turn, i's behind

Heh heh. Tell us more about i's.

I's gonna come after you with a salad-shooter.

[gherkin]

[Doom]

Alvin Plantinga published “Where the Conflict Really Lies” Which explores the alleged conflict between science and religion, arguing that science poses a bigger threat to atheism than theism, on a popular level. It even has an audiobook edition.

Evidently, I lost track of this conversation back when we were first having it.

I have this book on my shelf but I confess that I haven't gotten around to reading it. Thus, I don't know exactly how popular it is in exposition. Actually, relatively early in his career, Plantinga published a relatively accessible book about the ontological argument/necessity that gets used in a lot of college classes. So he hasn't focused absolutely exclusively on publishing high-level stuff just intended for professional philosophers. And, on the other hand, Craig has produced a fair bit of very technical work that is intended for professional philosophers. But still, as to the point I made about Craig doing popular-level stuff and Plantinga not, I'm gonna stick with it. You find a lot of popular-level apologists referring to Plantinga all the time. But you don't generally find Plantinga doing popular level stuff, and in fact at one point I remember him saying that he'd always felt bad that as a teacher he had trouble communicating with undergrads and always had his successes with grad students.

Well, it is a popular exposition compared to his usual stuff, to understand his argument one still needs to have a certain degree of experience with a long discursive argument. (Looking up that word to see if it is the best word to use, it turns out that "discursive" is one of those words that can mean one thing or its exact opposite, it can mean either "an argument that is rambling and incoherent" or "an argument which advances logically from one thing to the next", how can one word be its own antonym? I obviously mean the second sense.)

[Doom]

The Unintended Reformation explores the consequences of this error. It removes the distinction between God and creation. That, in turn, i's behind the alleged faith/reason conflict and the widespread idea that God's activity is somehow in conflict with our freedom.

That book is one of my list of books to read, but as far as I can tell it is mainly a longer and more discursive discussion of the stuff he says in his book on Luther.