{"id":560,"date":"2007-02-28T07:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-28T07:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2007\/02\/alvin-plantingas-refutation-of-the-god-delusion.html"},"modified":"2007-02-28T07:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T07:38:00","slug":"alvin-plantingas-refutation-of-the-god-delusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/02\/alvin-plantingas-refutation-of-the-god-delusion.html","title":{"rendered":"Alvin Plantinga&#8217;s Refutation of &#8220;The God Delusion&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alvin Plantinga is without question one of the great scholars in the world in any discipline. I remember well reading his careful work on Anselm when I took a graduate course in Philosophy at  Carolina.  It was the gold standard in the field.  It still is to a great extent.  Thus when Alvin Plantinga weighs in on a highly philosophical treatise like Richard Dawkin&#8217;s &#8220;God Delusion&#8221;  you know you are in for something substantive.  Here below you will find Plantinga&#8217;s review of the book for Christianity Today&#8217;s Books and Culture Section, with permission from CT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 12pt\"><span class=\"arttitle1\"><span style=\"font-size:15\">The Dawkins Confusion<\/span><\/span><br \/><span class=\"artdeck1\"><span style=\"font-size:9\">Naturalism <\/span><\/span><span class=\"arttext1\"><i><span style=\"font-size:10\">ad absurdum<\/span><\/i><\/span><span class=\"artdeck1\"><span style=\"font-size:9\">.<\/span><\/span><br \/><span class=\"artbyline1\"><span style=\"font-size:8\">by Alvin Plantinga<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<table class=\"MsoNormalTable\" align=\"right\" border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"130\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0618680004\/christianitytoda\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span><!--[if gte vml 1]&gt;                                                                                          &lt;![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/https:\/\/\/DOCUME%7E1\/bwither\/LOCALS%7E1\/Temp\/msohtml1\/01\/clip_image001.jpg\" alt=\"The God Delusion\" border=\"0\" height=\"183\" width=\"120\" \/><\/span><!--[endif]--><\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[if gte vml 1]&gt;       &lt;![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/https:\/\/\/DOCUME%7E1\/bwither\/LOCALS%7E1\/Temp\/msohtml1\/01\/clip_image003.gif\" border=\"0\" height=\"5\" width=\"10\" \/>  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 12pt\"><span class=\"arttitle1\"><span style=\"font-size:15\">The Dawkins Confusion<\/span><\/span><br \/><span class=\"artdeck1\"><span style=\"font-size:9\">Naturalism <\/span><\/span><span class=\"arttext1\"><i><span style=\"font-size:10\">ad absurdum<\/span><\/i><\/span><span class=\"artdeck1\"><span style=\"font-size:9\">.<\/span><\/span><br \/><span class=\"artbyline1\"><span style=\"font-size:8\">by Alvin Plantinga<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<table class=\"MsoNormalTable\" align=\"right\" border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"130\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0618680004\/christianitytoda\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span><!--[if gte vml 1]&gt;                                                                                          &lt;![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/https:\/\/\/DOCUME%7E1\/bwither\/LOCALS%7E1\/Temp\/msohtml1\/01\/clip_image001.jpg\" alt=\"The God Delusion\" border=\"0\" height=\"183\" width=\"120\" \/><\/span><!--[endif]--><\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[if gte vml 1]&gt;       &lt;![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/https:\/\/\/DOCUME%7E1\/bwither\/LOCALS%7E1\/Temp\/msohtml1\/01\/clip_image003.gif\" border=\"0\" height=\"5\" width=\"10\" \/><!--[endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><span class=\"navtext1\"><span style=\"font-size:8\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0618680004\/christianitytoda\" target=\"_blank\"><b><i><u><span>The God   Delusion<\/span><\/u><\/i><\/b><\/a><\/span><\/span><br \/> <span class=\"navtext1\"><span style=\"font-size:8\">by Richard Dawkins<\/span><\/span><span><br \/> <span class=\"navtext1\">Houghton Mifflin<\/span><br \/> <span class=\"navtext1\">416 pp., $27<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;font-size:10;color:black\">Richard Dawkins is not pleased with God:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;font-size:10;color:black\">The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"arttext\"><b>W<\/b>ell, no need to finish the quotation; you get the idea. Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let&#8217;s hope for Dawkins&#8217; sake God doesn&#8217;t return the compliment.)<\/p>\n<p>For the rest of this review article please follow this link:<\/p>\n<table align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"8\" width=\"100%\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div>\n<pre><a href=\"\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/bc\/2007\/002\/1.21.html');\">http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/bc\/2007\/002\/1.21.html<\/a> <\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[endif]--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alvin Plantinga is without question one of the great scholars in the world in any discipline. I remember well reading his careful work on Anselm when I took a graduate course in Philosophy at Carolina. It was the gold standard in the field. It still is to a great extent. Thus when Alvin Plantinga weighs&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alvin Plantinga&#039;s Refutation of &quot;The God Delusion&quot; - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/02\/alvin-plantingas-refutation-of-the-god-delusion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alvin Plantinga&#039;s Refutation of &quot;The God Delusion&quot; - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alvin Plantinga is without question one of the great scholars in the world in any discipline. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&amp;E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}