Warranted Christian Belief

Alvin Plantinga

Preface

viii Outlines two types of objections to Christian faith, de facto and de jure objections. de facto objections are objections to the truth of Christian belief, one of the main objections being that of the existence of suffering and evil. De jure objections are those due to being unjustified, irrational, not intellectually respectable. An example is Freud's dismissal of belief in God as wish fulfillment. De jure objections posit that there is something wrong with Christian belief or Christian believers.

Ch 1-2, Is There a Question deals with Kant's idea that we can't really think about an infinite being.

px The main question of the book: "Is there a viable de jure objection to Christian faith?"

p xi Ch 3-4 Can a viable de jure objection be raised on the basis of justification or rationality?

p xi Ch 5 Deals with Freud, Marx and Nietzsche. Gets to point that real de jure objections to the Christian faith are in the neighborhood of "warrant"

Ch 6-10 Address the objections raised in Ch 5 from Aquinas/Calvin framework

Ch 7-10 A/C model of Christian belief

Pt IV, Ch 11-14 deal with Defeaters

p xiii Some defeaters are historical Biblical criticism, other religions, suffering & evil

I. Is there a Question?

Ch 1 Kant

Discusses the idea attributed to Kant that we can't really think or speak about God because God is infinite and transcendant.

p 11 Kant divides the world into phenomena and noumena

p 12 Kant's two world picture

p 13 Bird and Devitt argue for a one world version, but seems incongruous with Kant's idea that he had started something completely new, a "second Copernican revolution."