"Advice to Christian Philosophers, 40 Years Later" - Christian B. Miller, Meghan Sullivan, Devin Gouvêa, Gregory Robson, Matthew Frise, and Philip Swenson

By Christian B. Miller, Meghan Sullivan, Devin Gouvêa, Gregory Robson, Matthew Frise, and Philip Swenson

It has been 40 years since the publication of Alvin Plantinga’s highly influential, “Advice to Christian Philosophers.” Many Christian philosophers are indebted to Plantinga for inspiring them to think more deeply about the form that Christian philosophy might take in their scholarship, and especially about the importance of scholarly autonomy and integrity.

The goal of this paper is to follow in Plantinga’s footsteps by setting out advice for the next generation of Christians taking up the vocation of philosophy. We have in mind especially Christians who are in graduate school, post-doctoral positions, or early career faculty. We are also hopeful that much of what we say will be of value to Christians still struggling to live out their vocation in the profession (like us), and to non-Christians who teach or mentor Christian students or take Christianity seriously as a meritorious subject of teaching and research.

In his article, Plantinga focused on case studies involving verificationism, the problem of evil, and personhood. So one thing our project could do is simply extend Plantinga’s advice to topics more prominent in the Christian philosophical literature today, such as faith, cognitive science of religion, religion in the public square, and atonement.

Such a project is no doubt important. But our goal is far more ambitious – it is to dramatically broaden the scope of Plantinga’s advice. He focused on thinking about how best to carry out academic research in philosophy as a Christian. But research is only one component of the lives of Christian philosophers. Indeed, for many it is a secondary or even marginal component of their lives in the profession. In our careers, we must consider all their components. Hence this paper explores the life of a Christian philosopher in the context of the profession, the classroom, public philosophy, and, yes, research as well. We end by thinking about the next forty years, and what Christian philosophy might look like in the future.