Peter van Inwagen was born on 21 September 1942 in Rochester, New York. A leading figure in contemporary metaphysics and the philosophy of religion, his 1983 monograph, An Essay on Free Will, helped rehabilitate libertarianism in mainstream analytical philosophy. Awarded a PhD from the University of Rochester in 1969, he taught at Syracuse University for twenty-four years. In 1995, he was appointed John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was also President of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013. In addition to being appointed Gifford Lecturer, he was also F.D. Maurice Lecturer, Wilde Lecturer, Stewart Lecturer, and Jellema Lecturer. Notable works include Time and Cause (1980), An Essay on Free Will, co-edited with Alvin Plantinga (1985), Material Beings (1990), Metaphysics (1993), God, Knowledge and Mystery (1995), The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics (1997), Ontology, Identity and Modality (2001), and Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil (2004).
