Plantinga to deliver inaugural Connell Lecture

	Alvin C. Plantinga, Ph.D.

Alvin C. Plantinga, Ph.D., one of the world’s most renowned analytic philosophers, will deliver a lecture entitled “Evolution vs. Atheism” on March 23 at 7:30 p.m. in the Perella Auditorium.
Plantinga’s talk, the inaugural one in the Connell Lecture Series, is free and open to the public.
Plantinga, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has been hailed as the philosopher most influential in setting the agenda and focusing the questions in contemporary philosophy of religion.
“Alvin Plantinga is recognized the world over as an elegant and creative thinker, one of the truly marvelous philosophical minds at work today,” says Lloyd Steffen, university chaplain at Lehigh and chair of the religion studies department. “He has sparked important conversations and lively debate in the philosophy of religion. And prolific as he has been as a writer, it is the voluminous writings about his work that give a true indication of his stature in the world. We are pleased that Professor Plantinga has accepted Lehigh’s invitation to deliver the inaugural Connell Lecture.”
Plantinga is the recipient of several honorary degrees and numerous research awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences. He’s served as president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983-86. The author or editor of scores of books (including God, Freedom and Evil, The Nature of Necessity, and Warranted Christian Belief), Plantinga is also the subject of more than a dozen scholarly monographs.
The Connell Lecture Series is named for Richard Connell, a 1962 graduate of Lehigh, and his wife, Cindy, of Grosse Point, Mich. Upon his graduation from Lehigh with a degree in business administration, Richard Connell enjoyed a successful career with Price Waterhouse & Co. before retiring as partner in 1995. He later joined the Skillman Foundation in Detroit, serving as its vice president/treasurer, and chief investment officer until 2005.
--Linda Harbrecht