Which Comes First, the Intellect or the Will?

Jeff Waddington compares Alvin Plantinga and Jonathan Edwards on the perennial anthropological question regarding the relationship between the intellect and the will. In 2000, distinguished Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga offered an account of how Christian belief squares with warrant in the culmination of his warrant series, Warranted Christian Belief. Key to this analysis is Plantinga’s version of the sensus divinitatus, which is then extended to include explicitly Christian belief with three elements: The Bible, the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit, and faith. Faith, for Plantinga, involves both the intellect and the will. In the book, Plantinga discusses the relationship between the intellect and the will and assesses the view of Jonathan Edwards. In this episode, Jeff Waddington argues his case that Plantinga has misconstrued Edwards. Instead of prioritizing the intellect, Waddington believes Edwards rejects a hierarchical faculty psychology.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy