The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga

In response, Plantinga developed several versions of the Free Will Defense. Early in his career, the form of the objection that dominated the literature was the logical problem of evil, the claim that God's existence is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. Richard Gale gives a summary of Plantinga's long concern with the problem of evil, and he offers several objections to Plantinga's positions. Oppy also claims that Plantinga pretty consistently takes natural atheology to be the attempt to prove that God does not exist (rather than the attempt to show the reasonableness of atheism) unsurprisingly, he thinks that this project is a complete failure. Here he sometimes seems to think it can do that, but in Warranted Christian Belief holds that it can do so if theism is correct. In later work, Plantinga more often conceives of natural theology as the attempt to show the rationality of theistic belief.

Oppy argues that in his earliest work, Plantinga takes natural theology to be the attempt to prove that God exists Plantinga takes this project to be a failure but irrelevant to reasonableness of belief in God. Oppy's summaries often go beyond the limited topic of natural theology (and natural atheology), situating these issues in the broader context of Plantinga's work. But in the course of developing those points, Oppy lays out exceptionally clear summaries of positions Plantinga has taken, beginning with God and Other Minds (1967), continuing through God, Freedom, and Evil (1974) and The Nature of Necessity (1974), then on to 'Reason and Belief in God' (1983), 'The Prospects for Natural Theology' (1991), and 'Two Dozen (or So) Theistic Arguments' (1986, see below), and concluding with Warrant and Proper Function (1993) and Warranted Christian Belief (2000). The first of these essays, by Graham Oppy, is ostensibly about changes in what Plantinga takes to be the aim of natural theology and changes in his attitude towards it.

The book begins with an introduction by the editor that first traces Plantinga's career and influence 1 and then introduces the eight essays that follow. This volume is one of a series of books, Cambridge Philosophy in Focus, that consist of 'newly commissioned essays that cover major contributions of a preeminent philosopher in a systematic and accessible manner.' Many of the essays in the present volume do indeed 'combine exposition and critical analysis' in a way that will be of interest not only to professional philosophers but also to students or others who are unfamiliar with Plantinga's work.

The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga