Alvin Carl Plantinga[a] (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic.

He has delivered the Gifford Lectures twice and was described by Time magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God".

[9][13] As an adolescent, Alvin Plantinga's family moved from Michigan to North Dakota for his father's job at Jamestown College.

Alvin Plantinga moved to Grand Rapids with his family and attended Calvin University for a semester.

Awardees deliver a lecture at Baylor University and their name is put on a plaque with Plantinga's image in the Institute for Studies in Religion.

[28][29] Plantinga has also developed a more comprehensive epistemological account of the nature of warrant which allows for the existence of God as a basic belief.

[31] Plantinga proposed a "free-will defense" in a volume edited by Max Black in 1965,[32] which attempts to refute the logical problem of evil, the argument that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God.

[33] Plantinga's argument (in a truncated form) states that "It is possible that God, even being omnipotent, could not create a world with free creatures who never choose evil.

Critics thus maintain that, if we take such doctrines to be (as Christians usually have), God could have created free creatures that always do right, contra Plantinga's claim.

[36] Plantinga's well-received book God, Freedom and Evil, written in 1974, gave his response to what he saw as the incomplete and uncritical view of theism's criticism of theodicy.

More specifically, he argues belief in God is properly basic, and due to a religious externalist epistemology, he claims that it could be justified independently of evidence.

In the first book of the trilogy, Warrant: The Current Debate, Plantinga introduces, analyzes, and criticizes 20th-century developments in analytic epistemology, particularly the works of Chisholm, BonJour, Alston, Goldman, and others.

[38] In the book, Plantinga argues specifically that the theories of what he calls "warrant"—what many others have called justification (Plantinga draws out a difference: justification is a property of a person holding a belief while warrant is a property of a belief)—put forth by these epistemologists have systematically failed to capture in full what is required for knowledge.

[41] Plantinga explains his argument for proper function with reference to a "design plan", as well as an environment in which one's cognitive equipment is optimal for use.

Ultimately, Plantinga argues that epistemological naturalism- i.e. epistemology that holds that warrant is dependent on natural faculties—is best supported by supernaturalist metaphysics—in this case, the belief in a creator God or designer who has laid out a design plan that includes cognitive faculties conducive to attaining knowledge.

"[50] A version of his argument is as follows:[51] Plantinga argued that, although the first premise is not rationally established, it is not contrary to reason.

Michael Martin argued that, if certain components of perfection are contradictory, such as omnipotence and omniscience, then the first premise is contrary to reason.

On the other hand, if God created man "in his image" by way of an evolutionary process (or any other means), then Plantinga argues our faculties would probably be reliable.

This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it... Clearly there are any number of belief-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour.

[56]The argument has received favorable notice from Thomas Nagel[57] and William Lane Craig,[58] but has also been criticized as seriously flawed, for example, by Elliott Sober.

[59][60] Even though Plantinga believes that God could have used Darwinian processes to create the world, he stands firm against philosophical naturalism.

[61]Plantinga participated in groups that support the Intelligent Design Movement, and was a member of the "Ad Hoc Origins Committee"[62] that supported Philip E. Johnson's 1991 book Darwin on Trial, he also provided a back-cover endorsement of Johnson's book: "Shows how Darwinian evolution has become an idol.

[65] In a March 2010 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, philosopher of science Michael Ruse labeled Plantinga as an "open enthusiast of intelligent design".

[66] In a letter to the editor, Plantinga made the following response: Like any Christian (and indeed any theist), I believe that the world has been created by God, and hence "intelligently designed".