Alvin Plantinga on Richard Dawkins

Alvin Plantinga has just published on article with Books & Culture responding to Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, entitled, “The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum.” Without a doubt, this is the most well-reasoned response yet—far surpassing the apologetic counter-attack of Alister McGrath, though not as purely enjoyable as the response by Terry Eagleton.

Comments

Macht said…
I think this is the best response to Dawkins that I've found. But Plantinga's is good, too.
Halden said…
You should look at D.B. Hart's response to Daniel Dennett in First Things. It's rhetorical brilliance and scintilating argument.
Shane said…
Platinga is a smart damn guy. I hope I get to take classes with him next year. (By which I mean, I hope I get accepted to the ph.d. program at Notre Dame.)
Shane said…
I think this makes a good segue to something else as well:

Platinga here is providing a good model of what I see as the negative role of christian philosophy. (the negative role being the one showing why atheistic attacks on christianity are wrong).

I'm still trying to work out exactly what the 'positive' role should be. But of course this is a more constructive, therefore, more difficult thing to determine.
Being one who is not easily perturbed by athiests, I have not paid much attention either to Dawkins or those who would chastize him. Although, I did look at the intro and conclusion of Plantiga's article and, on the basis of that limited interaction, it looked like a thoughtful account.
Aric Clark said…
I thought this response was right on. It has aggravated me that many people see Dawkins and Harris and Dennett as creating airtight arguments when they seem so apparently flawed to me. Plantinga pointed it out much better than I could have however.
Alex said…
Check out Marilynne Robinson's response that was published in Harper's. That's the best one I've seen.