Peter van Inwagen

In May 2011 it was announced that he is to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005, and was President of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2008/09. He was the President of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013.

Van Inwagen gave the 2003 Gifford Lectures; they are published in his The Problem of Evil. There Van Inwagen argues that the problem of evil is a philosophical argument and, like most philosophical arguments, fails.

Van Inwagen's 1983 monograph An Essay on Free Will played an important role in rehabilitating libertarianism with respect to free will in mainstream analytical philosophy. In the book, he introduces the term incompatibilism about free will and determinism, to stand in contrast to compatibilism—the view that free will is compatible with determinism.

Van Inwagen lives in Granger, Indiana, with his wife Elisabeth. Van Inwagen converted to Christianity in 1980.

Peter van Inwagen (/væn ɪnˈwɑːɡən/; born September 21, 1942) is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a Research Professor of Philosophy at Duke University each spring. He previously taught at Syracuse University and earned his PhD from the University of Rochester in 1969 under the direction of Richard Taylor. Van Inwagen is one of the leading figures in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of action. He was the president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013.