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Van Inwagen to Deliver Mary Olive Woods Lecture Sept. 29

September 6, 2016

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MACOMB, IL – Peter van Inwagen, the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Research Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, will deliver the 30th annual Mary Olive Woods Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29 at the Western Illinois University Union Heritage Room.

The lecture at WIU is titled "Evil and the Existence of God."

In his lecture, van Inwagen will respond to the argument that concludes evil and an omnipotent, morally perfect God cannot co-exist. He argues that there may be good reasons for God to allow the existence of evil.

Van Inwagen has previously delivered the Maurice Lectures at King's College, London, the Wilde Lectures at Oxford University; the Jellema Lectures at Calvin College, the Stewart Lectures at Princeton University; and the Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews and served as president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 - 2013.

Van Inwagen is the author of "An Essay of Free Will"; "Material Beings"; "Metaphysics"; "God, Knowledge, and Mystery"; "Ontology, Identity, and Modality"; "The Problem of Evil"; "Existence: Essays in Ontology"; and the forthcoming "Thinking about Free Will." He is also the author of 150 published articles.

The Mary Olive Woods Foundation and the WIU Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies sponsor the 30th annual lecture. The Mary Olive Woods Foundation also provides several thousand dollars in student scholarships each year in addition to an annual lecture presentation.

For more information about the lecture series, visit bit.ly/1JmU7Dt.

Posted By: Jade Tieman (WIUNews@wiu.edu)
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