science

Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Peter Kreeft rather than just read about it. In short: Peter John Kreeft (; born March 16, 1937) is an American professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College. A convert to Catholicism, he is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics.

Key takeaways

Peter Kreeft belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Peter Kreeft to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Peter Kreeft from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Peter John Kreeft (; born March 16, 1937) is an American professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College. A convert to Catholicism, he is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics. He also formulated, together with Ronald K. Tacelli, Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics.

Academic career

Peter John Kreeft was born March 16, 1937, in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of John and Lucy Kreeft. He graduated in 1955 from Eastern Christian High School, where his class hymn was sung at graduation ceremonies. Raised in Wyckoff, New Jersey, he took his BA at Calvin College (1959) and an MA at Fordham University (1961). He completed his doctoral studies in 1965, also at Fordham, where he completed a dissertation under the direction of W. Norris Clarke. He subsequently completed his post-graduate studies at Yale University. Kreeft joined the philosophy faculty of the Department of Philosophy of Boston College in 1965. He has debated several academics on issues related to God's existence. Shortly after he began teaching at Boston College, he was challenged to a debate on the existence of God between himself and Paul Breines, an atheist and history professor, which was attended by a majority of undergraduate students. Kreeft later used many of the arguments in this debate to create the Handbook of Christian Apologetics with then undergraduate student Ronald K. Tacelli. In 1971, Kreeft published an article titled "Zen In Heidegger's 'Gelassenheit'" in the peer-reviewed journal International Philosophical Quarterly, of Fordham University. In 1994, he was an endorser of the document "Evangelicals and Catholics Together". He also formulated, with R. Tacelli, "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God".

Conversion to Catholicism Kreeft converted from Calvinism to Catholicism during his college years. A key turning point came when he was asked by a Calvinist professor to investigate the claims of the Catholic Church that it traced itself to the early Church. He said that, on his own, he "discovered in the early Church such Catholic elements as the centrality of the Eucharist, the real presence, prayers to saints, devotion to Mary, an insistence on visible unity, and apostolic succession." The "central and deciding" factor for his conversion was "the Church's claim to be the one Church historically founded by Christ." He reportedly applied C. S. Lewis's trilemma (that either Jesus is a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord): "I thought, just as Jesus made a claim about His identity that forces us into one of only two camps ... so the Catholic Church’s claim to be the one true Church, the Church Christ founded, forces us to say either that this is the most arrogant, blasphemous and wicked claim imaginable, if it is not true, or else that she is just what she claims to be." According to Kreeft's personal account, his conversion to Catholic Christianity was influenced by, among other things, Gothic architecture and Thomistic philosophy, the writings of St. John of the Cross, the logic of asking saints to pray for us, and a visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City when he was twelve years old, "feeling like I was in heaven ... and wondering why, if Catholics got everything else wrong, as I had been taught, they got beauty so right..." Although a Catholic, he places central emphasis on the unity between Catholics and Protestants.

Bibliography

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Peter Kreeft

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Peter Kreeft claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Peter Kreeft before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Peter Kreeft ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Peter Kreeft

In research: Peter Kreeft appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Peter Kreeft in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Peter Kreeft is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1937 births, 20th-century American Roman Catholic theologians, 20th-century American educators, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Peter Kreeft outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Peter Kreeft in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Peter Kreeft means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Peter Kreeft out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Peter Kreeft in simple terms?

Why does Peter Kreeft matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Peter Kreeft?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Peter Kreeft.