Invited Speakers

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Alvin Plantinga

Dr. Plantinga is director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame University where he is also the John O’Brien Professor of Philosophy. He has published more than one hundred articles on a wide variety of topics within the domains of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. His recent two volume work on epistemology was hailed as "one of the major accomplishments of twentieth-century epistemology" by Richard Foley of Rutgers University. Among his books are: Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Warrant: The Current Debate (New York: Oxford U. Press 1993); Faith and Rationality (ed. with Nicholas Wolterstorff, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983); Does God Have a Nature? (Marquette University Press, 1980); God, Freedom, and Evil (Evanston: Harper & Row, 1974); The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974); God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967).

Dr. Plantinga will address the conference on three plenary occasions on the general theme of Christian scholarship.

Invited Speaker: Dr. William P. Alston

Dr. Alston is Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University. Dr. Alston’s published articles number more than one hundred and range over many topics including the problem of evil, realism, epistemic warrant and justification, divine action, and religious language to name a few. He authored eighteen articles for the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: MacMillan and Free Press, 1967). He has written (or co-edited) nine books. Five recent books include: A Realistic Conception of Truth (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); The Reliability of Sense Perception (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Perceiving God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press, 1991); Divine Nature and Human Language (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press, 1989); and Epistemic Justification (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press, 1989). His works have been cited for "combining subtle and detailed argument with comparative brevity."

Dr. Alston will present a paper at our conference entitled, "Realism and the Christian Faith."

Invited Speaker: Dr. George M. Marsden

Dr. Marsden has been the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame since 1992. He has won a number of honors, awards, and fellowships for his historical research and served as president of the American Society of Church History in 1992. More recently he has completed extensive research into the secularization of American Universities for a four year Pew Grant project. His more recent books include, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); The Secularization of the Academy, (edited with Bradley J. Longfield, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1991); and Religion and American Culture (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990).

Dr. Marsden will present a paper at our conference entitled, "What Difference Christian Perspectives Make for the Humanities."