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About 10 years ago, J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae, two professors at Biola University's Talbot School of Theology, set a goal for themselves. In the ensuing 20 years, they wanted to send 100 Master of Arts in philosophy graduates into the best doctoral programs in the country. Their hope was that once these students earned their Ph.D.s, they'd have a chance to teach philosophy at secular schools.

The plan has "just exploded beyond what we dreamed about," says Rae.

Take, for example, the pride of Talbot's philosophy department, Tom Crisp. He earned his master's degree in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot. Then he excelled at the University of Notre Dame, which has one of this country's top Ph.D. programs in philosophy. Crisp studied under Notre Dame philosophy of religion professor Alvin Plantinga, an evangelical who is one of the most respected philosophers in this country. Having graduated from Notre Dame, Crisp took a job as assistant professor of philosophy at Florida State University. At last year's meeting of Metaphysical Mayhem—the prestigious, invitation-only, "Who's Who" of metaphysics—Crisp was asked to give a paper. Crisp is "widely—and in my opinion rightly—regarded as one of the best young philosophers around," Plantinga says.

"Talbot is placing people in various graduate programs," says Crisp. "There are at least six of us in the last five years who have gotten placed into Notre Dame. I have friends from Talbot who have gotten into UCLA, Cornell, Oxford, the University of Arizona, and these are top graduate philosophy departments." The list includes other prestigious programs in philosophy.

As of April, close to 80 Talbot grads had already earned their doctorates or been accepted into doctoral programs, and Talbot's master of philosophy program had 110 full-time students. For an M.A. program in philosophy, "that's astonishing," says Dean Zimmerman, the founder of Metaphysical Mayhem and associate professor of philosophy at Rutgers. "If I were to tell my colleagues that, their jaws would just drop." Christianity Today interviewed several other distinguished philosophers for this story; none of them could think of a master's in philosophy program with greater enrollment.

Of course, quantity doesn't always equal quality.

Oxford University's equivalent to Talbot's master's degree program has "40 to 35 students per year," says Richard Swinburne, Oxford's famed professor of philosophy. "Many are turned down." The teachers at Biola are "able philosophers" who "do careful research," Swinburne says, but he finds it "odd" that only six faculty—two of them splitting their time between departments and one an adjunct research professor—take care of 110 students. "It can only be at the expense of quality," he says. The main instrument of teaching philosophy at Oxford is a weekly one-on-one tutorial.

Doug Geivett, chairman of Talbot's philosophy department, admits that the faculty-to-student ratio is a "potential problem." "It isn't as easy now as it was in the early days for our community to gather in my living room or in my office," he says. That's why his department tries to take every opportunity to put students and faculty in small groups. Colleagues from the undergraduate department and visiting lecturers—who have included such luminaries as William Alston, past president of the American Philosophical Association—occasionally offer seminars at Talbot.

Finally, Geivett says, the quality must not be so bad since "we're placing people in the best Ph.D. programs in the country."

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June 2003, Vol. 47, No. 6