SYNCRETISM OR CORRELATION: TEILHARD AND TILLICH'S CONTRASTING METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

Abstract. I revisit Paul Tillich's theological methodology and contrast his practice of correlation with the syncretistic methodological practices of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I argue that the method of correlation, as referred to in Robert John Russell's 2001 Zygon article, fails to uphold Tillich's self‐limitation of his own methodology with regard to Tillich's insistence upon the theological circle. I assert that the theological circle, as taken from Tillich's Systematic Theology I, is a central facet within his methodology and that this often‐ignored concept needs to be resuscitated if one is to remain authentically Tillichian in one's approach to the science‐and‐theology dialogue.     

NATURAL THEOLOGY AND EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

First it is argued that the linkage of natural theology to epistemology is invalid historically, epistemologically and metaphysically. Second it is argued that knowledge claims about the ultimate cause of everything should be evaluated not in terms of justified true belief but in terms of the intellectual virtue of wisdom.     

QUANTUM MECHANICS,TIME, AND THEOLOGY: INDEFINITE CAUSAL ORDER AND A NEW APPROACH TO SALVATION

Quantum mechanics has recently indicated that, at the fundamental level, temporal order is not fixed. This phenomenon, termed Indefinite Causal Order, is yet to receive metaphysical or theological engagement. We examine Indefinite Causal Order, particularly as it emerges in a 2018 photonic experiment. In this experiment, two operations A and B were shown to be in a superposition with regard to their causal order. Essentially, time, intuitively understood as fixed, flowing, and fundamental, becomes fuzzy. We argue that if Indefinite Causal Order is true, this is good evidence in favor of a B-theory of time, though such a B-theory requires modification. We then turn to theology, suggesting that a B-theoretic temporal ontology invites serious reconsideration of the doctrine of salvation. This paper concludes that the best explanation for salvation given a B-theory is mind-dependent salvific becoming, a type of psychological soteriological change that occurs through downward causation.     

BELIEF AND PRETENSE: A REPLY TO GENDLER

Abstract: In cases of imaginative contagion, imagining something has doxastic or doxastic‐like consequences. In this reply to Tamar Szabó Gendler's article in this collection, I investigate what the philosophical consequences of these cases could be. I argue (i) that imaginative contagion has consequences for how we should understand the nature of imagination and (ii) that imaginative contagion has consequences for our understanding of what belief‐forming mechanisms there are. Along the way, I make some remarks about what the consequences of the contagion cases are for the relation between knowledge and imagination.