My contribution to P&R’s Great Thinkers series has now been published. You can find more details on P&R’s website, including a sample chapter.
You can also read (or listen to) an interview about the book with Fred Zaspel at Books At a Glance.
I’ll be posting some excerpts from the book on my blog later this week, but for now here’s the publisher’s blurb and the table of contents:
David Hume (1711–1776)
Through his pursuit of a naturalistic grounding for morality and his forceful critique of supernaturalism, Scottish philosopher David Hume significantly undermined confidence in orthodox Christianity.
Professor, minister, and philosopher James Anderson summarizes the major points of Hume’s thought and offers a critical assessment from a distinctively Reformed perspective. He shows that Hume’s arguments, far from refuting the Christian worldview, indirectly support that worldview by exposing the self-defeating implications of naturalism. Deepen your understanding of this immensely influential thinker, and you will be better able to engage with today’s secular challenges to faith.
- Series Introduction
- Foreword by W. Andrew Hoffecker
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Why Hume Matters
- Abbreviations
- 1. Hume’s Life and Works
- 2. Hume’s Philosophical Project
- Three Distinctives of the Project
- A Two-Phase Project
- Hume’s Theory of the Mind
- A New Account of Causation
- Philosophy Psychologized
- 3. Hume’s Naturalistic Ethics
- Against Moral Rationalism
- Against Self-Interest Theories
- Hume’s Moral Theory
- A New Account of Justice
- 4. Hume’s Religious Skepticism
- Religion Naturalized
- Hume’s Critique of Natural Theology
- Hume’s Argument against Miracles
- Was Hume an Atheist?
- 5. Hume’s Continuing Relevance
- The Kantian Turn
- Utilitarianism
- Logical Positivism and Scientism
- Naturalized Epistemology
- The Evidentialist Challenge
- 6. A Reformed Assessment of Hume’s Thought
- Was Hume a Great Thinker?
- The Presumption of Naturalism
- The Presumption of Autonomy
- Internal Problems
- The Specter of Solipsism
- A Matter of Taste
- 7. A Reformed Response to Hume’s Religious Skepticism
- Defusing the Evidentialist Challenge
- Natural Theology Ex-Humed
- In Defense of Miracles
- 8. Hume and Christian Apologetics
- The Skeptical Sinkhole of Empiricism
- The Problem of Induction
- A Hume-Inspired Transcendental Argument
- Epilogue: The Humean Predicament
- Glossary
- Recommended Reading
- Index of Subjects and Names
Alvin Plantinga is one of the titans of contemporary Christian philosophy and it would be almost unforgivable to omit him from P&R’s Great Thinkers series. His writings over the course of a six-decade career combine an astonishing degree of creativity with rigorous analytical precision, a delightful sense of humor, and a refreshingly uncomplicated Christian piety. Until now, there has existed no reliable introduction to Plantinga’s work that I could enthusiastically recommend to students, pastors, and other interested readers. That deficiency is now remedied with the publication of Greg Welty’s Alvin Plantinga, a superlative addition to an already excellent series. As a seasoned teacher-scholar with advanced degrees in theology and philosophy and a firm commitment to confessional Reformed doctrine, Dr. Welty was the ideal person to write this book. In a concise and eminently readable style, Welty clearly explains Plantinga’s major contributions and argues that, despite Plantinga’s own deviations from the Reformed tradition at points, his most valuable contributions can be comfortably accommodated by that tradition. I would never suggest reading only one book on Plantinga, but if it must be one, make it this one.