Name: Dallas Willard
Why you’ve heard of him: While Dr. Willard isn’t widely known outside of his academic field, his books and articles have had a profound impact within evangelical circles.
Position: Professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Previous: He has taught at USC since 1965, where he was Director of the School of Philosophy from 1982-1985. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin (Madison, 1960-1965), and has held visiting appointments at UCLA (1969) and the University of Colorado (1984).
Education:
Tennessee Temple College (B.A., 1956, Psychology)
Baylor University (B.A., 1957, Philosophy and Religion)
Baylor University and the University of Wisconsin (Ph. D., 1964: Major in Philosophy, Minor in the History of Science)
Area of interest/expertise: Spiritual disciplines, Christian discipleship, epistemology, the philosophy of mind and of logic, the philosophy of Edmund Husserl
Books: Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God (1999), The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (1998), The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (1998), Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (2002)
Assessment: At a time when most critics were decrying the loss of the “evangelical mind”, Dr. Willard was quietly working to restore our intellectual dignity. As a philosopher, he has provided an example of how to thrive in the often hostile environment of academia while maintaining his allegiance to a Christian worldview. As an author and speaker, Willard has helped to restore the focus on the spiritual disciplines and discipleship in the life of evangelicals.
Articles on the Web: on Christianity and on Philosophy
Essential Articles:
Jesus The Logician Christian Scholar's Review, 1999, Vol. XXVIII, #4, 605-614.
"Knowledge and Naturalism,” In Naturalism: A Critical Analysis, edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (London: Routledge, 2000), 51 pp.
"Why Bother With Discipleship?" RENOVARE Perspective, Vol. V, No. 4. First published in a Biola University bulletin.
The Key to the Keys of the Kingdom
(This is #3 in the Know Your Evangelicals series.)
1
Hey, thanks for this. I have to give this guy's work a second look, now. He has a very interesting CV, and I never noticed him enough (though of course I've seen his name on bookstore shelves) to have an estimate of him. Nice to have a quick vitals chart.
Cheers,
PGE
2
I'd be very interested in a "Know Your Denominations" series sometime.
posted on 01.18.2006 12:28 PM4
Considering how frequently Willard is being quoted by emergent folk, especially McLaren, he can't stay a secret for long.
posted on 01.18.2006 10:00 PM5
Dr. Willard isn’t widely known outside of his academic field
He isn't really that widely known inside his academic field. As with J.P. Moreland, Peter Kreeft, and William Lane Craig, it's really only among Christian apologetics fans that he's known. The only mention of his works ever during my Ph.D. program has been a reference by a Christian philosopher to a devotional work he wrote. I actually have no idea what philosophical contributions he's had. I don't know Husserl, so maybe he's known in that field, but I know he's not one of the standard figures in philosophy of mind or epistemology. His work in philosophy of religion might be a little better known, but that's a fringe discipline in the contemporary scene. This doesn't mean he hasn't made any worthwhile contributions, just that it's not on my radar after 7.5 years in a Ph.D. program.
posted on 01.28.2006 7:44 AM