Knowledge and Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga

Next Plantinga provides a model of warrant wherein Christian belief can be warranted (he calls this the extended A/C model). The basic idea is that if God has designed our cognitive faculties to produce God-belief when we are in the right environment and if God has been successful in this intention, then theistic belief is warranted. Next Plantinga provides a model of warrant wherein theism can be warranted (he calls this the Aquinas/Calvin model or A/C model).

And since no one has offered a good de facto objection to Christian belief, the de jure objections fail as well. Since the de jure claims are more modest they are also the stronger philosophically: they aren't supposed to be burdened with having to demonstrate that Christian belief is false.īut Plantinga demonstrates that all the best de jure objections (Marx/Freud) *presuppose* a de facto objection. De jure objections seek to show that Christian belief is in some way inappropriate, whether or not Christian beliefs are false. De facto objections seek to show that Christian beliefs are false. Plantinga distinguishes between de jure objections and de facto objections to Christian belief. But, in fact, Plantinga's project is of immense value. That seems like a modest enterprise, perhaps too modest to warrant (pardon the pun) a book on the subject. In other words, this book is not an argument that Christian belief is *true*, only that there is a model of knowledge such that, if Christian belief is true, it counts as knowledge. Plantinga argues that it can, but not that it does. Plantinga addresses the question of whether Christian belief can be warranted (basically, whether Christian belief can qualify as knowledge). It attempts to make his argument in that book accessible to a general audience. This is a simplified version of Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief.

Knowledge and Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga