{"id":5956,"date":"2014-02-11T11:37:23","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T16:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=5956"},"modified":"2014-02-11T11:37:23","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T16:37:23","slug":"parsing-plantinga-is-there-such-a-person-as-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/parsing-plantinga-is-there-such-a-person-as-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Parsing Plantinga: is there such a person as God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"teapot\"Here’s a very interesting interview<\/a><\/strong> with probably the greatest living Christian philosopher<\/a>. Like many of my peers, I’m a big fan. Read the whole thing to see why I picked a teapot. Here are some relevant bits (with my own bolding):<\/p>\n

I take atheism to be the belief that there is no such person as the God<\/strong> of the theistic religions.<\/p>\n

The first being of the universe, perfect in goodness, power and knowledge, creates<\/strong> free creatures. These free creatures turn their backs on him<\/strong>, rebel against him and get involved in sin and evil. Rather than treat them as some ancient potentate might \u2014 e.g., having them boiled in oil \u2014 God responds by sending his son<\/strong> into the world to suffer and die so that human beings might once more be in a right relationship to God. God himself<\/strong> undergoes the enormous suffering involved in seeing his son<\/strong> mocked, ridiculed, beaten and crucified. And all this for the sake of these sinful creatures.<\/p>\n

The most important ground of belief is probably not philosophical argument but religious experience. Many people of very many different cultures have thought themselves in experiential touch with a being<\/strong> worthy of worship. They believe that there is such a person<\/strong>, but not because of the explanatory prowess of such belief.<\/p>\n

Thomas Nagel, a terrific philosopher and an unusually perceptive atheist, says he simply doesn\u2019t want there to be any such person as God<\/strong>. And it isn\u2019t hard to see why. For one thing, there would be what some would think was an intolerable invasion of privacy: God would know<\/strong> my every thought long before I thought it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is Plantinga a trinitarian? <\/strong>(definition)<\/a> Sic et non:<\/p>\n