This book, one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus, and others are contributing, is an exploration and defense of the notion of modality de re, the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. Plantinga develops his argument by means of the notion of possible worlds and ranges over such key problems as the nature of essence, transworld identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence (...) of unactual objects in other possible worlds. He also applies his logical theories to the elucidation of two problems in the philosophy of religion: the problem of evil and the ontological argument. (shrink)

This investigation takes full account of the findings of the social and historical sciences while offering a religious interpretation of the religions as different culturally conditioned responses to a transcendent Divine Reality.

Introduction i. Character of the Book The central thesis of this book is that experiential awareness of God, or as I shall be saying, the perception of God, ...