THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

Abstract. Kant argues that any argument for a transcendent God presupposes the logically flawed ontological argument. The teleological argument cannot satisfy the demands of reason for a complete explanation of the meaning and purpose of our universe without support from the cosmological argument. I avoid the assumption of a perfect being, and hence the ontological argument, in my version of the cosmological argument. The necessary being can be identified with the creator of the universe by adding analogical mental relations. The creation of the universe is then shown to reflect modern scientific cosmology as well as stories and metaphors in the Eastern and Western religious traditions and to resolve the problem of evil.     

A GOD THAT COULD BE REAL IN THE NEW SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSE

We are living at the dawn of the first truly scientific picture of the universe‐as‐a‐whole, yet people are still dragging along prescientific ideas about God that cannot be true and are even meaningless (e.g., omniscience) in the universe we now know we live in. This makes it impossible to have a coherent big picture of the modern world that includes God. But we don't have to accept an impossible God or else no God. We can have a real God if we redefine God in light of knowledge no one ever had before. The key question is, “Could anything actually exist in the scientific universe that is worthy of the name, God?” My answer is yes: God is an “emergent phenomenon,” as real as the global economy or the government or the worldwide web, which are all emergent phenomena. But God arose from something deeper: the complex interactions of all humanity's aspirations. An emerging God has enormous implications.     

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 .     

GOD INCARNATE AND THE DEFEAT OF EVIL

In this essay, I assess Marilyn McCord Adams's important and provocative incarnation-centered approach to the problem of evil. In particular, I examine the central theological components of her approach: her novel but also problematic conceptions of creation, sin, redemption, grace, and eschatological consummation. My further goal is to use my critical analysis of Adams's approach in order to begin to articulate and defend an alternative incarnation-centered approach, based on a more classically orthodox conception of divine defeat of evil, which is both immune to the criticisms I raise against Adams's approach and possesses a higher degree of explanatory power.     

EUTHYPHRO AND THE GOODNESS OF GOD INCARNATE

A familiar problem is here viewed from an unfamiliar angle. The familiar problem is the Euthyphro dilemma: if God wills something because it is good, then goodness is independent of God, so God becomes, morally speaking, de trop. On the other hand, if something is good because God wills it, then, given the absence of constraint on what God may will, moral truths are – counterintuitively – contingent. An examination of the kinds of necessity and possibility at work in this conundrum leads us to the most promising solution: there is a metaphysical connection between God and goodness. What he wills is an expression of his nature. But (and this is the unfamiliar angle), that solution now poses an acute problem for an understanding of the Incarnation. For if God is constitutive of goodness, and Christ is God incarnate, then Christ is constitutive of goodness. But Christ, as a human, is subject to external moral evaluation and obligation, which entails that he is not constitutive of goodness. This metaethical difficulty is not easily met by the usual strategies by which Christ is understood to have two natures. Reflection on our moral relations to our past selves, however, suggests a way forward.     

GOD AND CHAOS: THE DEMIURGE VERSUS THE UNGRUND

Abstract. The human quest for meaning is an attempt to bring experience into conjunction with illuminating concepts. The second law of thermodynamics is of wide human concern, because it touches experience which is existentially charged and therefore which humans must interpret in broad metaphysical terms. Five types of experience have been incorporated into the second law: running down, degeneracy, mixed-up-ness, irreversibility of time, and emergence of new possibilities. The dominant Western tradition (Plato) places these experiences within a metaphysical scheme that evaluates them negatively, whereas a minority tradition (Berdyaev) evaluates them positively. The former makes entropy anti-God; the latter places entropy within God.     

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.     

ASTROPHYSICS AND CREATION: PERCEIVING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH SCIENCE AND PARTICIPATION

I explore how the notion of divine creation could be made understandable in a worldview dominated by empirical science. The crucial question concerns the empirical basis of belief in creation. Astronomical observations have changed our worldview in an exemplary manner. I show by an example from imaginative literature that human beings can perceive stars by means other than astronomical observation. This alternative mode may be described as “participatory perception,” in which a human experiences the world not by objectifying separation as in science, but by personal involvement. I relate such perceptions to “embodied cognitive science,” a topical interdisciplinary field of research in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. Embodied cognitions initiate processes that can convey personal experiences of the stars. Such cognitions may involve religious apprehensions and give rise to sophisticated values. It is argued that the knowledge available through astrophysics and interpretation of the universe as divine creation represent two different ways of perceiving the same reality and should thus be seen as mutually complementary.     

NIETZSCHE,THE CROSS,AND THE NATURE OF GOD

In this essay, I treat of a type of moral objection to Christian theism that is formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche. In an effort to provoke a negative moral‐aesthetic response to the conception of God underlying the Christian tradition, with the ultimate aim of recommending his own allegedly ‘healthier’ ideals, Nietzsche presents a number of distinct but related considerations. In particular, he claims that the traditional theological interpretation of the crucifixion of Jesus expresses the tasteless, vulgar, and morally objectionable character of God, thus rendering Him unworthy of belief. In response to Nietzsche's worries, I first of all argue that his account of the origins of the belief in God is both prima facie implausible and historically false. At the same time I recognize that Nietzsche is expressing, in his typically bombastic manner, a genuine and widely held worry about what the crucifixion, as an event in salvation history, says about the nature of God. In response to this worry, I draw on the work of Wilhelm Dilthey in order to support the contention that the concept of divine transcendence, which underlies Nietzsche's concern, has its proper place within the Greek metaphysical tradition, rather than in Christian faith. Building on the work of Franz Rosenzweig and Jürgen Moltmann, I outline a conception of God that more accurately reflects the claim that the cross is the definitive revelation of the divine nature while at the same time foreclosing on the possibility of the kind of response that Nietzsche articulates.