A new typology of modern atheisms: pilgrim atheism versus tourist atheism

This paper distinguishes between two types of modern atheisms: pilgrim atheism versus tourist atheism. Pilgrim atheism is based on and firmly supports the religion/science dichotomy. New Atheism is today’s well-known representative of pilgrim atheism which is characterised by its hostility to all religions. However, their very atheistic conception of the human being as a cognitively privileged animal depends on a theological conception of humanity, i.e. the human being is a God-like creature who can attain God’s objective knowledge. The second part of the paper is dedicated to exploring an emerging modern atheistic discourse: tourist atheism, emblematised by figures such as Alain de Botton. The fundamental argument of that part is that tourist atheists approach religion as a cultural heritage which still contains some benefits for non-believers. Thus, their strategy of approaching religions is not absolute rejection but engaging with them as repositories of useful sentiments, rituals, insights and ideas. Thus, tourist atheists do not hold the religion versus modernity dichotomy. The paper argues that tourist atheism, which has greater concerns for human subjectivity and internal pleasure of humans, is also an extension of another theological conception of humans as created in the image of God: humans who reproduce God’s autonomy and singularity.     

How to Use Cognitive Faculties You Never Knew You Had

Norman forms the belief that the president is in New York by way of a clairvoyance faculty he doesn’t know he has. Many agree that his belief is unjustified but disagree about why it is unjustified. I argue that the lack of justification cannot be explained by a higher‐level evidence requirement on justification, but it can be explained by a no‐defeater requirement. I then explain how you can use cognitive faculties you don’t know you have. Lastly, I use lessons from the foregoing to compare Norman's belief, formed by clairvoyance, with Sally's theistic belief, formed by a sensus divinitatis.     

THE IMAGO DEI AS THE MIND OF JESUS CHRIST

In this essay I examine David Clough's interpretation of the imago Dei and his use of “creaturely” language in his book On Animals: Volume 1, Systematic Theology. Contrary to Clough, I argue that the imago Dei should be interpreted as being uniquely human. Using a neuroscientific approach, I elaborate on my claim that while Jesus is the image of God perfected, the imago Dei is best understood as having the mind of Christ. In regards to language, I make the case that using terms such as “creature” when referring to nonhuman animals is problematic in that it can serve to alienate human beings from their capacity to image God. In addition I argue that “creaturely” language raises concerns for the African American community given Western Christianity's history as it relates to their valuation of black bodies and human enslavement.     

God and Contemporary Science: Philip Clayton's Defense of Panentheism

Philip Clayton's God and Contemporary Science is summarized and discussed. Clayton presents a theological reading of biblical texts. In my opinion, science-and-religion studies should deal more substantially with insights of secular studies on the situated character of these texts. Clayton uses the relationship between mind and brain as analogy for the relationship between God and the world. This runs the risk of understanding God as analogous to the mind and hence secondary and emergent relative to the world. Besides, Clayton's arguments for “mental causation” are wanting. But then, why should a defender of panentheism decouple the mental and the material?     

THEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY,CLASSICAL THEISM,AND “LIVED TIME” IN ANTJE JACKELÉN'S TIME AND ETERNITY

Antje Jackelén's Time and Eternity successfully employs the method of correlation and a close study of the question of time to enter the dialogue between science and theology. Hermeneutical attention to language is a central element of this dialogue, but we must be aware that much science is untranslatable into ordinary language; it is when we get to the bigger metaphysical assumptions of science that true dialogue begins to happen. Thus, although the method of correlation is a useful way to approach this dialogue, there is not a strict equivalence in this relationship. Theology needs science more than science needs theology. In speaking of time and God we must keep in mind the relational nature of classical Christian theism, even in its most austere forms. We should not read Enlightenment ideas of God back into the classical Christian tradition or neglect the apophatic emphasis in Christian theism, which warned against assuming knowledge of the divine nature. God's relation to time always lies beyond our understanding. Studying the effects of either the Newtonian or Einsteinian concepts of time on our theological concepts should not detract our attention from the “lived time” that characterizes human experience. Consideration of the notion of time in the Madhyamaka Buddhist tradition reminds us that we cannot control the inner reality of time and that for humans time is something to be considered pragmatically.     

Fine-Tuning,Atheist Criticism,and the Fifth Way

Abstract

Like the “modern watchmaker” argument formulated by William Paley, the argument from fine-tuning should not be confused with Thomas Aquinas' fifth proof for the existence of God as expressed in the Summa Theologiae. While the former is based on efficient causality, the latter is based upon final causality. Though some atheist criticisms are relevant to the fine-tuning argument, they do not affect the Fifth Way. After briefly expositing the fine-tuning argument, I will argue that Aquinas' argument from the “governance of the world” offers a more convincing proof for God—one that evades atheistic criticisms leveled against design arguments.     

What Does Silicon Valley Have to Do with Jerusalem?

Abstract. Adapted from the introductory chapter of Minding God: Theology and the Cognitive Sciences (Peterson 2003), I here lay out a general approach for a dialogue between theology and cognitive science. Key to this task is an understanding of theology as the science or study of meaning and purpose. I give reasons why theology should be thought of in this sense and the potential fruitfulness of this approach.     

Christian Mysticism and Science: The Phenomenological Dimension

Abstract

In this second of three papers, I identify three fundamental phenomenological themes that have informed Christian mystical theology and then explore how these themes might be given further understanding via natural science. The first theme, detachment, minimizes any association with the secular world in favor of humility and openness to God. Detachment is chosen in consciousness using a resonant global workspace linked through the hippocampus to reconstructions of both declarative and emotional memory. The second theme, infused contemplation, is concerned with God's top-down revelation to the recollected mind of the mystic. The resulting top-down resonance creates an appropriate theory of mind for infused contemplation, as the human mind is now more perfectly linked with the mind of God. The third theme is mystical union, which both theology and science claim occurs within consciousness. Starting in intentional consciousness, the mystic undergoes an unmediated surrender beyond cognition to non-intentional consciousness. Because God fills the center of our being, a resonating luminosity can thus occur arising from the union of God and self within pure consciousness.     

Physicalism Without Reductionism: Toward a Scientifically, Philosophically, and Theologically Sound Portrait of Human Nature

This essay addresses three problems facing a physicalist (as opposed to dualist) account of the person. First, how can such an account fail to be reductive if mental events are neurological events and such events are governed by natural laws? Answering this question requires a reexamination of the concept of supervenience. Second, what is the epistemological status of nonreductive physicalism? Recent philosophy of science can be used to argue that there is reasonable scientific evidence for physicalism. Third, the soul has traditionally been seen as that which enables human beings to relate to God. What accounts for this capacity in a physicalist theory of the person? This essay argues that the same faculties that enable higher cognitive and emotional experience also account for the capacity for religious experience.     

Reforming Theology,Reframing Science

Abstract : What is the role of science in theology? What internal dynamics compel theology to take science seriously? Those are the questions—posed in a characteristically cautious academic fashion. There is a back‐story that needs to be told, however, if we are to get at these questions with the vigor they require: Without radical reformation of theology, there is little chance that we can even begin to work on the agenda that science poses to Christian faith and life. Faith is a journey in which we seek to make sense of the world and our lives in it in the light of the gospel we have received. The gospel is about God, God's presence and redemptive work in Jesus Christ and God's continuing presence in the Holy Spirit. But since it is God's presence and work in the world and for us, the gospel is also about the world and about human being—and that is where science comes in, provoking its reformation. Science is now an irreplaceable source of knowledge about the world and ourselves, and in some respects its knowledge is normative. Scientific knowledge has reshaped our view of the world and ourselves in ways that are so commonly known that it is unnecessary to elaborate. To relate our gospel to our actual lives in the empirical world—that is theology's motivation for taking science seriously. But theology must be reformed and reshaped if it is to be capable of taking science seriously. In this essay we focus on this reforming of theology.     

Radicalizing numerical cognition

In recent decades, non-representational approaches to mental phenomena and cognition have been gaining traction in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. In these alternative approach, mental representations either lose their central status or, in its most radical form, are banned completely. While there is growing agreement that non-representational accounts may succeed in explaining some cognitive capacities (e.g. perception), there is widespread skepticism about the possibility of giving non-representational accounts of cognitive capacities such as memory, imagination or abstract thought. In this paper, I will critically examine the view that there are fundamental limitations to non-representational explanations of cognition. Rather than challenging these arguments on general grounds, I will examine a set of human cognitive capacities that are generally thought to fall outside the scope of non-representational accounts, i.e. numerical cognition. After criticizing standard representational accounts of numerical cognition for their lack of explanatory power, I will argue that a non-representational approach that is inspired by radical enactivism offers the best hope for developing a genuine naturalistic explanatory account for these cognitive capacities.

     

Spinoza’s Arguments for the Existence of God*

It is often thought that, although Spinoza develops a bold and distinctive conception of God (the unique substance, or Natura Naturans, in which all else inheres and which possesses infinitely many attributes, including extension), the arguments that he offers which purport to prove God’s existence contribute nothing new to natural theology. Rather, he is seen as just another participant in the seventeenth century revival of the ontological argument initiated by Descartes and taken up by Malebranche and Leibniz among others. That this is the case is both puzzling and unfortunate. It is puzzling because although Spinoza does offer an ontological proof for the existence of God, he also offers three other non‐ontological proofs. It is unfortunate because these other non‐ontological proofs are both more convincing and more interesting than his ontological proof. In this paper, I offer reconstructions and assessments of all of Spinoza’s arguments and argue that Spinoza’s metaphysical rationalism and his commitment to something like a Principle of Sufficient Reason are the driving force behind Spinoza’s non‐ontological arguments.     

Responsible Relationship: Imago Dei and the Moral Distinction between Humans and Other Animals

In light of modern evolutionary science, some theologians have criticized using the image of God to distinguish humans from other animals. This concept, however, still offers rich theological insight into the natures of both humans and other animals. Following the relational interpretations of Emil Brunner and Karl Barth, this article explores how the imago Dei may be used to distinguish human creatures without necessarily implying a division in kind between humans and other animal creatures. Humans are distinguished not by any superior abilities they might possess, but by the character of their relationship to God and other creatures.     

SPINOZA'S SUMMUM BONUM

Abstract: As Spinoza presents it, the knowledge of God is knowledge, primarily, of oneself and, secondarily, of other things. Without this know‐ledge, a mind may not consciously desire to persevere in being. That is why Spinoza claims that the knowledge of God is the most useful thing to the mind at IVP28. He claims that the knowledge of God is the highest good, however, not because it is instrumental to perseverance, but because it is also the best among those goods that we seek for their own sakes. It is acquiescentia in se ipso, the highest form of laetitia.     

EMPIRICISM FOR CYBORGS

One important debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists concerns whether we observe things using instruments. This paper offers a new perspective on the debate over instruments by looking to recent discussion in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Realists often speak of instruments as ‘extensions’ to our senses. I ask whether the realist may strengthen her view by drawing on the extended mind thesis. Proponents of the extended mind thesis claim that cognitive processes can sometimes extend beyond our brains and bodies into the environment. I suggest that the extended mind thesis offers a way to make sense of realists’ talk of instruments as extensions to the senses and that it provides the realist with a new argument against the constructive empiricist view of instruments.     

Christian Mysticism and Science: The Psychological Dimension

Abstract

In this third of three papers, I identify three fundamental psychological themes that have informed Christian mystical theology and then explore how these themes might be given further understanding via natural science. The first theme, desire, represents an ever greater love for God: an insatiability related to the limitations of human language. Such focused desire for God is likely associated with brain activity in the caudate nucleus (CN); associated permanent changes in the neuroplastic brain further enhance this desire. The second theme, discernment, is about listening to God, being open to God's graces, and waiting for the right time to make godly decisions. Such decisions reflect both cognitive and emotive skills, as verified by their overlapping neural circuits within the brain. Psychotherapy indicates that the mind can control the brain, consciously improving and directing chosen events, thus leading to enhanced discernment. The third theme is charity, which represents the universal link between love of God and love of neighbor. Neuroscience demonstrates how cognition gives rise to such features as willfulness, surrender, fragmentation and wholeness—all of which play significant roles in mystical experiences, including the evolution to charity. Love of neighbor can be taken as shared attention building on intersubjective perception; such shared attention represents a deep interaction of lovers in voluntary self-disclosure—surely the ultimate basis for charity.