QUANTUM PHYSICS AND FREEDOM IN A WHITEHEADIAN PERSPECTIVE

This paper attempts to demonstrate the critical significance of early advances in quantum physics for Alfred North Whiteheads development of the categories of his metaphysics and to illustrate the capacity of his system to serve as a bridge between the sciences and the humanities by relating specific Whiteheadian categories to concrete microphysical behavior with special reference to the notion of freedom.     

GOD EMBODIED IN,GOD BODYING FORTH THE WORLD: EMERGENCE AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

Abstract. I expand on Philip Clayton's application of emergence—in the context of a metaphysical position he calls emergent monism—to conceiving God's relationship to the world. Like Clayton, I adopt a panentheistic perspective, but in a way that I argue is consistent with classical philosophical theism and its grammatical analysis of Christian discourse about divine transcendence. In order to exploit further the analogical potential of an emergentist account of human mentality and agency, I argue that the standard panentheistic metaphor The world is the body of God should be complemented by the metaphor God is the body of the world.     

GOD IN THE CAVE

When Finite and Infinite Goods was published in 1999, it took its place as one of the few major statements of a broadly Augustinian ethical philosophy of the past century. By “broadly Augustinian” I refer to the disposition to combine a Platonic emphasis on a transcendent source of value with a traditionally theistic emphasis on the value‐creating capacities of absolute will. In the form that this disposition takes with Robert Merrihew Adams, it is the resemblance between divine and a finite excellence that makes the finite excellence objectively of value, and it is the correspondence of an obligation to a divine command that makes the obligation objectively obligatory. I look closely at the complexity of this ethical division of labor—between the good and the right—mainly as it appears in the context of Finite and Infinite Goods, but also with attention to the broader corpus of Adams's writings, particularly his work on Leibniz and the essays of his that have been gathered together in The Virtue of Faith. I argue that there is a creative tension in his work between his desire to secure an objective basis for ethics and his affirmation of the value of grace, a love that is not proportioned to the excellence of its object. This tension, I further argue, ought to be resolved in the direction of grace.     

LANGUAGE AND TRUTH IN HUA-YEN BUDDHISM

It has been observed in contemporary Buddhist studies that new and distinct ways of expressing Buddhist "ultimate truth" and its relation to ordinary truth and experience began to emerge in the Chinese Buddhist tradition in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. During this period of Chinese history, several systems of Buddhist thought arose that seemed to mitigate the primacy of negative language in references to "ultimate truth" and the predominantly negative evaluation of conventional truth and experience that had dominated the tradition previously. This development has been noticed especially in the Sui/T'ang systems of Buddhist thought, T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen, as well as in later Ch'an thought and practice.     

TO SEE GOD IN HIS BEAUTY: AVRAHAM CHALFI AND THE MYSTICAL QUEST FOR THE EVASIVE GOD

Avraham Chalfi's poetry contains some of the main themes of the mystical experience, namely, the attempt “to see God in his Beauty” and the quest to gain an intimate communion with the Divine.1 I am grateful to the poet Raquel Chalfi for sharing of her memories and insights to her uncle Avraham Chalfi's life and work. The discussions we had contributed to my appreciation of Chalfi's poetry and character. I would also like to thank Claire Rechnitzer for her help in the translations of Chalfi's poems and to Prof. Jonathan Garb, my graduate student Mr. Vadim Putzu and the anonymous readers for their insightful comments. Of course, I take full responsibility for all errors that remain. View all notes Uncovering the intertextual references and the repertoire of his allusions positions this poetry within the ever-evolving mystical-religious discussion. Chalfi's theology transforms the Jewish mystical tradition into a critical, at times even fierce, encounter with God and turns fundamental elements, such as ascent to the Pardes and the respective roles of the mystic and God, on their heads. Exploring Chalfi's mystical poems expands our awareness of the theological elements embedded in a variety of modern secular Hebrew poems and their contribution to the evolution and diversification of the canon of Jewish thought.     

SCIENCE AND GOD THE CREATOR

Abstract. Variable judgments, both negative and positive, have been made by scientists (mainly physicists and astronomers) on the theological implications of their Findings. It is urged that science and theology are most appropriately related through a critical realist approach. On this basis some implications for our conceptions of God and our scientific perspectives on the created world are explored with respect to both divine Being and divine Becoming. A positive assessment of nature as created concludes the article.     

GOD AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD

There are a number of apparent parallels between belief in God and belief in the existence of an external world beyond our experiences. Both beliefs would seem to condition one's overall view of reality and one's place within it – and yet it is difficult to see how either can be defended. Neither belief is likely to receive a purely a priori defence and any empirical evidence that one cites either in favour of the existence of God or the existence of the external world would seem to blatantly beg the question against a doubter. I will explore just how far this parallel can be pushed by examining some strategies for resisting external world scepticism 1 .