Re: Van Til+Plantinga=?

["seriousactualist" <seriousactualist@yahoo.com>]

Everett wrote (or perhaps this too is from a second-hand source):

[...]
> It seems to be that by utilizing an argument from thomism such 
> as the Ontological argument that one is allowing an unbeliever 
> to reason without challenging his reasoning capabilities in an 
> unbelieving worldview. [...]

Is it so much that an argument has Thomistic origins (although Anselm
provided an ontological argument before Thomas was born), or that it
is an *argument*? Anyway, exactly how does one challenge the reasoning
capabilities of an unbeliever in any relevant way without thereby
engaging those capabilities? That seems like a pretty good stunt!

> Plantinga, on the other hand, is firmly persuaded [...] that a 
> libertarian, incompatibilist position is correct. [...] Plantinga's 
> classic Free Will Defence (against the deductive atheistic argument 
> from evil) [...] presuppose[s] a libertarian conception of human 
> freedom. [...]

This is incorrect; Plantinga's free-will defense is perfectly
consistent with no one's being, in fact, libertarian free. This is
just to misunderstand the nature of a defense here.

-- Paul Martin


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