Dr Alvin Plantinga is John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. He studied at Calvin College, (A.B., 1954), the University of Michigan (M.A. , 1955) and Yale University, where he received his Ph.D., in 1958 with a thesis in ethics.

Dr Plantinga has received a number of academic awards and honours, including honorary degrees from Glasgow University (l982) and the Free University of Amsterdam (1995), and has served as President of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division, 1981-82) and the President of the Society of Christian Philosophers (l983-86)

He has been invited to give a number of distinguished lectures, including the Aquinas Lecture (Marquette University, 1980), the Gifford Lectures (the University of Aberdeen, 1987) and the Wilde Lectures (Oxford University, 1988)

Professor Plantinga has taught at Wayne State University (1958-63), Calvin College, for 19 years from 1963-82, and, since 1982, at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of God and Other Minds (1967), The Nature of Necessity (1974), God, Freedom and Evil (1974), Warrant: the Current Debate (1992), Warrant and Proper Function (1992), and, this year, Warranted Christian Belief.