Download or read book Naturalizing God written by Mikael Leidenhag and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-07-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can nature be considered a religious object? Religious naturalists answer yes, as they seek to carve out a middle path between supernaturalism and atheistic secularism. In this book, Mikael Leidenhag critically examines the religious proposals, philosophical commitments, and ecological ambitions of key religious naturalists, including Willem B. Drees, Charley D. Hardwick, Donald Crosby, Ursula Goodenough, Stuart Kauffman, Gordon Kaufman, Karl Peters, and Loyal Rue. Leidenhag argues that contemporary religious naturalism faces several problems, both with regard to its understanding of naturalism and the ways in which it seeks to uphold a religious conception of reality. He evaluates possible routes for moving forward, considering naturalistic and theistic proposals. He also analyzes the philosophical thesis of panpsychism, the idea that mind is a pervasive feature of the universe and reaches down to the fundamental levels of reality. The author concludes that panpsychism offers the most promising framework against which to understand the metaphysics and eco-ethical ambitions of religious naturalism.
Download or read book Minding Creation written by Joanna Leidenhag and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are humans the only creatures that can appreciate God's creation? What if consciousness is spread more widely across all things? This volume examines panpsychism through the lens of Christian doctrine. Minding Creation is the first substantial examination of what a panpsychist theory of consciousness implies for key theological debates concerning God's presence and action, evolution and the origin of the soul, human uniqueness and the environmental crisis. Joanna Leidenhag develops a theological panpsychism that is based on an exceptionally wide range of scholarship. Minding Creation draws on the theologies of historical figures such as Augustine of Hippo, Gottfried von Leibniz and others, in order to create a critical and constructive conversation with contemporary analytic philosophers of mind, such as Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, and David J. Chalmers. Leidenhag also discusses key concepts and issues, such as emergence theory, divine action, and ecology. She concludes that God created a universe from nothing which is filled with indwelling powers, sacramental value, and intrinsic experience. This is a creation in which the Holy Spirit is internally present at every point, a creation that worships God, and a creation that human beings must protect and lead in praise.
Download or read book Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values written by Donald A. Crosby and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where do the purposes, values, and existential meanings of the world come from? For many, they are conferred on the world and on humans within the world by a supernatural, transcendent, personal divine creator and sustainer. For others, they result from a God or divine presence residing within nature. For still others, they give evidence of mind and spirit as primordial principles suffusing nature from the outset and in all of its forms. In Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values, Donald A. Crosby takes issue with each of these views. His thesis is that mind, meaning, purpose, and value come into existence with the evolutionary emergence of life, and that evolution itself gives evidence of the creative power of two primordial natural principles: matter-energy and time. There is no overarching purpose, value, or meaning of nature as such, but there is a plethora of such factors evident in the evolved life forms of nature here on earth. This fact is especially evident in the day-to-day experiences, aspirations, and concerns of us evolutionarily-evolved human beings. Purpose, meaning, and value are therefore gifts of evolutionary nature, not of any supernatural or non-natural principle, presence, or power.
Download or read book Overcoming Reductionism and Crafting a New Synthesis written by Piotr Roszak and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conjunctive Explanations in Science and Religion written by Diarmid A. Finnegan and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the nature and relevance of conjunctive explanations in the context of science and religion. It explores questions concerning how scientific and religious explanations for features of the world or phenomena within it relate to each other and whether they might work together in mutually enriching ways. The chapters address topics including the relationship between Darwinian and teleological explanations, non-reductive explanations of mind and consciousness, and explanations of Christian faith and religious experience, while others explore theological and philosophical issues concerning the nature and feasibility of conjunctive explanations. Overall, the contributions help to provide conceptual clarity on how scientific and religious explanations might or might not work together conjunctively as well as exploring how these ideas relate to specific topics in science and religion more generally.
Download or read book Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association written by American Philosophical Association and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: List of members in v. 1- .
Download or read book A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy written by Graham Oppy and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-05-06 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PROSE 2020 Single Volume Reference Finalist! Philosophers throughout history have debated the existence of gods, but it is only in recent years that the absence of such a belief has become a significant topic of philosophical analysis, in particular for philosophers of religion. Although it is difficult to trace the historical contours of atheism as the lack of belief in a higher power, the reasoned, reflective, and thoughtful rejection of theism has become commonplace in many modern intellectual circles, including academic philosophy where disciplinary data indicates that a large majority of philosophers self-identify as atheists. As the first book of its kind to bring together a collection of writing on the philosophical aspects of atheism both historical and contemporary, the Companion to Atheism and Philosophy stages an explicit, constructive, and comprehensive conversation between philosophy and atheism to examine the ways in which atheist thought intersects with ideas and positions from a variety of philosophical and theological sub-disciplines. The Companion begins by addressing the foundational questions and lingering controversies which underpin philosophical thought about atheism, exploring the implications of major developments in the history of philosophy for the modern atheistic worldview. Divided into eight distinct sections, essays consider a range of thinkers who were widely believed to have been atheists—including David Hume, Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—and survey different kinds of objections to theism and atheism, including logical, evidential, normative, and prudential. Later chapters trace the relationship between atheism and metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy oriented around topics such as pragmatism, postmodernism, freedom, education, violence, and happiness. Deftly curated and thoughtfully composed, A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy is the most ambitious and authoritative account of philosophical thinking on atheism available, and is a first-rate resource for academics, professionals, and students of philosophy, religious studies, and theology.
Download or read book Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory written by Gijsbert Van den Brink and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many books aim to help beginners explore whether or not evolutionary science is compatible with Christian faith. This one probes more deeply to ask: What do we learn from modern evolutionary science about key issues that are of special theological concern? And what does Christian theology, especially in its Reformed expressions, say about those same key issues? Gijsbert van den Brink begins by describing the layers of meaning in the phrase “evolutionary theory” and exploring the question of how to interpret the Bible with regard to science. He then works through five key areas of potential conflict between evolutionary theory and Christian faith, spelling out scientific findings and analyzing Christian doctrinal concerns along the way. His conclusion: although some traditional doctrinal interpretations must be adjusted, evolutionary science is no obstacle to classical Christian faith.
Download or read book Encountering Naturalism written by Thomas W. Clark and published by . This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Process Philosophy and Christian Thought written by Delwin Brown and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism written by Jim Slagle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary discussions in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind are dominated by the presupposition of naturalism. Arguing against this established convention, Jim Slagle offers a thorough defence of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (EAAN) and in doing so, reveals how it shows that evolution and naturalism are incompatible. Charting the development of Plantinga's argument, Slagle asserts that the probability of our cognitive faculties reliably producing true beliefs is low if ontological naturalism is true, and therefore all other beliefs produced by these faculties, including naturalism itself, are self-defeating. He critiques other well-known epistemological approaches, including those of Descartes and Quine, and deftly counters the many objections against the EAAN to conclude that metaphysical naturalism should be rejected on the grounds of self-defeat. By situating Plantinga's argument within a wider context and showing that science and evolution cannot entail naturalism, Slagle renders this most common metaphysical view irrational. As such, the book advocates an important reconsideration of contemporary thought at the intersection of philosophy, science and religion.
Download or read book Genes Genesis and God written by Holmes Rolston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-02-13 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the phenomena of religion can not be reduced to the phenomena of biology.
Download or read book God Without Measure Working Papers in Christian Theology written by John Webster and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second volume, Webster progresses the discussion to include topics in moral theology, and the theology of created intellect. An opening chapter sets the scene by considering the relation of christology and moral theology. This is followed by a set of reflections on a range of ethical themes: the nature of human dignity; mercy; the place of sorrow in Christian existence; the nature of human courage; dying and rising with Christ as a governing motif in the Christian moral life; the presence of sin in human speech. Webster closes with studies of the nature of intellectual life and of the intellectual task of Christian theology.
Download or read book Platonism Naturalism and Mathematical Knowledge written by James Robert Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study addresses a central theme in current philosophy: Platonism vs Naturalism and provides accounts of both approaches to mathematics, crucially discussing Quine, Maddy, Kitcher, Lakoff, Colyvan, and many others. Beginning with accounts of both approaches, Brown defends Platonism by arguing that only a Platonistic approach can account for concept acquisition in a number of special cases in the sciences. He also argues for a particular view of applied mathematics, a view that supports Platonism against Naturalist alternatives. Not only does this engaging book present the Platonist-Naturalist debate over mathematics in a comprehensive fashion, but it also sheds considerable light on non-mathematical aspects of a dispute that is central to contemporary philosophy.
Download or read book God and Abstract Objects written by William Lane Craig and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an exploration and defense of the coherence of classical theism’s doctrine of divine aseity in the face of the challenge posed by Platonism with respect to abstract objects. A synoptic work in analytic philosophy of religion, the book engages discussions in philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metaontology. It addresses absolute creationism, non-Platonic realism, fictionalism, neutralism, and alternative logics and semantics, among other topics. The book offers a helpful taxonomy of the wide range of options available to the classical theist for dealing with the challenge of Platonism. It probes in detail the diverse views on the reality of abstract objects and their compatibility with classical theism. It contains a most thorough discussion, rooted in careful exegesis, of the biblical and patristic basis of the doctrine of divine aseity. Finally, it challenges the influential Quinean metaontological theses concerning the way in which we make ontological commitments.
Download or read book Living Without God written by Ronald Aronson and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ronald Aronson demonstrates that atheism represents much more than what one does not believe: that it is the precondition for a generous humanism. The two closing chapters are models of stoicism at its best.'' - Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great.
Download or read book Black Lives and Sacred Humanity written by Carol Wayne White and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifying African American religiosity as the ingenuity of a people constantly striving to inhabit their humanity and eke out a meaningful existence for themselves amid harrowing circumstances, Black Lives and Sacred Humanity constructs a concept of sacred humanity and grounds it in the writings of Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin. Supported by current theories in science studies, critical theory, and religious naturalism, this concept, as Carol Wayne White demonstrates, offers a capacious view of humans as interconnected, social, value-laden organisms with the capacity to transform themselves and create nobler worlds wherein all sentient creatures flourish. Acknowledging the great harm wrought by divisive and problematic racial constructions in the United States, this book offers an alternative to theistic models of African American religiosity to inspire newer, conceptually compelling views of spirituality that address a classic, perennial religious question: What does it mean to be fully human and fully alive?
