Religion, science, and naturalism -- Perception and religious experience -- Panexperientialism, freedom, and the mind-body relation -- Naturalistic, dipolar theism -- Natural theology based on naturalistic theism -- Evolution, evil, and eschatology -- The two ultimates and the religions -- Religion, morality, and civilization -- Religious language and truth -- Religious knowledge and common sense.

Edited by Richard McKeon, with an introduction by C.D.C. Reeve Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle—constituted out of the definitive Oxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover for sixty years—has long been considered the best available one-volume Aristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this edition includes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, (...) The Short Physical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, On Generation and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety. (shrink)

Strong forms of dualism and eliminative materialism block any significant dialogue between the neurosciences and theology. The present article thus challenges the Sufficiency Thesis, according to which neuroscientific explanations will finally be sufficient to fully explain human behavior. It then explores the various ways in which neuroscientific results and theological interpretations contribute to an overall theory of the person. Supervenience theories, which hold that mental events are dependent on their physical substrata but not reducible to them, are explained. Challenging the (...) determinism of “strong” supervenience, I defend a version of “soft” supervenience that allows for genuine mental causation. This view gives rise in turn to an emergentist theory of the person. Still, I remain a monist: there are many types of properties encountered in the world, although it is only the one nature that bears all these properties. The resulting position, emergentist monism, allows for diversity within the context of the one world. This view is open at the top for theological applications and interpretations while retaining the close link to neuroscientific study and its results. Theology offers an interpretation of the whole world based on a yet higher order of emergence, although the notion of God moves beyond the natural order as a whole. It therefore supplements the natural scientific study of the world without negating it. (shrink)

This series relates past thought from the history of Western theological traditions to areas of contemporary concern in fresh, innovative, and constructive ways.

The hole argument contends that a substantivalist has to view General Relativity as an indeterministic theory. A recent form of substantivalist reply to the hole argument has urged the substantivalist to identify qualitatively isomorphic possible worlds. Gordon Belot has argued that this form of substantivalism is unable to capture other genuine violations of determinism. This paper argues that Belot's alleged examples of indeterminism should not be seen as a violation of a form of determinism that physicists are interested in. What (...) is undetermined in these examples, and in the hole argument, is a haecceitistic feature of the world. It is argued that these features are not among those we should expect the physical state of the world to determine. This vindicates the substantivalist reply to the hole argument, but also illustrates that philosophers of physics cannot ignore metaphysics when characterizing determinism for a physical theory. (shrink)

Sartre explains the theory of existential psychoanalysis in this treatise on human reality.

Presents German physicist Werner Heisenberg's 1958 text in which he discusses the philosophical implications and social consequences of quantum mechanics and other physical theories.

Bell's theorem is used to guide the formulation of a unified theory of reality that incorporates the basic principles of relativistic quantum theory.

The ambivalent reputation of theology as an academic discipline is attributed to the often circular character of its procedures based on presumed authoritative sources. Recently, science too has come under the shadow of “postmodernist” critiques but, it is argued, has been able to withstand them successfully and make epistemologically warrantedclaims to be depicting reality—thereby vindicating human rationality. Evolutionary epistemological considerations also reinforce confidence in the more general deliverances of the human exploration of reasonableness through inference to the best explanation (IBE). (...) The consequences of applying IBE, with its associated criteria, in theological investigation are considered in relation to theology as it is and as it might be. A number of issues critical for thedevelopment of a credible theology are identified. In spite of the challenging and somewhat negative view of contemporary theology to which this leads, hope is expressed that a genuinely credible “evangelical,”“catholic,” and liberal theology may yet emerge for the new millennium. (shrink)

Physicalism ? or roughly the view that the stuff that physics talks about is all the stuff there is ? has had a popular press in philosophical circles during the twentieth century. And yet, at the same time, it has become quite fashionable lately to believe that the mind matters in this world after all and that psychology is an autonomous science irreducible to physics. However, if (true, downward) mental causation implies non-reducibility and Physicalism implies the converse, it is hard (...) to see how these two views could be compatible. This paper reviews some classical arguments purportedly showing how the autonomy of the special sciences can be upheld without violating the laws of physics or the principle that physics constitutes a complete and closed system. These arguments are presented in order of increasing strength, indicating how the more popular arguments in fact fall short of establishing anti-reductionism of the intended kind. New arguments are added which claim to demonstrate quite effectively how downward causation is possible compatibly with the reign of physics. The paper begins with a section which distinguishes various kinds of reductionism. (shrink)

I begin this study with a review of the 18th-century figures, Leibniz, Wolff, Crusius, Hume and the pre-critical Kant concerning causation, free will and compatibilism. This review provides the background for an investigation into and a reconstruction of Kant's thesis of the compatibility of causal determinism and human freedom. I formulate Kant's argument for causal determinism and present his defense of that argument, devoting an extended discussion to the recent literature regarding its key premise, the Law of Universal Causation. Then (...) I identify and analyze two senses of 'will', the legislative function of practical reason and the executive function of the power of choice, and four senses of 'freedom of the will', spontaneity, independence, autonomy and heteronomy. ;On the strength of these discussions, I attribute to Kant the views that causal determinism obtains and that human beings have free will. After considering and finding unsatisfactory the traditional readings of Kant's resolution of the apparent incompatibility of these two theses, I explicate Kant's often misunderstood distinction between things in themselves and appearances. On the basis of the features of this distinction together with my exposition of Kant's theory of freedom, I ascribe to Kant a token-token identity thesis regarding human actions and natural events, but a type-type irreducibility thesis regarding the sorts of descriptions applicable to human actions and natural events. The consequent compatibilist resolution, in addition to furnishing a way of reading problematic passages underlying standard incompatibilistic interpretations, yields a compatibilism which neither sacrifices the epistemology of the Critique of Pure Reason, nor leaves Kant with only an impoverished theory of human free will. ;Finally, I bring the results of this inquiry into the current debate over the problem of freedom and determinism. Specifically, for the purpose of providing Kantian critiques of current positions and current critiques of the Kantian position, I place Kant's view of token-token identity and type-type irreducibility within the context of contemporary philosophy of mind, aligning him with philosophers who share not only his compatibilism, but also, to a surprising degree, the particulars of his version of compatibilism. (shrink)

Paul Davies explains the significance of the amazing quantum universe, where fact is stranger than any science fiction. He takes us into a world where commonsense notions of space, time, and causality must be left behind as the realm of solid matter dissolves into vibrating patterns of ghostly energy, and where mind and matter are interwoven in a subtle and holistic manner. An Australian physicist and author of GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS, Davies writes for the lay reader in simple (...) language. (shrink)

Relates the discoveries of quantum physics to the workings of the human mind and explores the process of observing shapes and how and what the mind perceives.

The affirmation that God acts in history has roots deep within the religious traditions of the West. The God depicted in biblical narrative is by no means a detached spectator, unconcerned with the course of events in the world. Rather, God engages human beings in and through their history, shaping the destinies of individuals and communities. While this way of thinking about God has profoundly shaped the theological imagination of the biblical religions, it has become a source of persistent puzzlement (...) in modern theology. The rise of the natural sciences has demonstrated the power of understanding our world as governed by natural law, and this poses difficult questions about how God can be understood to act in a such a world. Furthermore, a compelling set of religious and ethical objections can be urged against the idea that God performs particular actions in history; the problem of evil arises here with great force. This book brings together a group of well-known philosophers and theologians for a sharply focused exchange on these crucial questions about the God who acts. (shrink)

How are God and creatures related? How can one reconcile the sovereigntyand power of God with creatures' capacity to act freely? Kathryn Tanner's important and original work seeks an answer in the featuresand limits of traditional Christian discourse. Her search for a unique kernal orregulative dimension of the Christian doctrine of God-world relations leadsher to identify in the tradition an operative "grammar&334; of meaningful theological discourse that not only informs the past but can guide the future.

Strong claims have been made for emergence as a new paradigm for understanding science, consciousness, and religion. Tracing the past history and current definitions of the concept, Clayton assesses the case for emergent phenomena in the natural world and their significance for philosophy and theology. Complex emergent phenomena require irreducible levels of explanation in physics, chemistry and biology. This pattern of emergence suggests a new approach to the problem of consciousness, which is neither reducible to brain states nor proof of (...) a mental substance or soul. Although emergence does not entail classical theism, it is compatible with a variety of religious positions. Clayton concludes with a defence of emergentist panentheism and a Christian constructive theology consistent with the new sciences of emergence. (shrink)

Materialist explanations of cause and effect tend to embrace epiphenomenalism. Those who try to avoid epiphenomenalism tend to deny either the extrinsicness of meaning or the intrinsicness of causality. I argue that to deny one or the other is equally implausible. Rather, I prefer a different strategy: accept both premises, but deny that epiphenomenalism is necessarily the conclusion. This strategy is available because the premises do not imply the conclusion without the help of an additional premise—namely, that behavior explained by (...) reasons is caused by the reasons that explain it—and this premise is false. (shrink)

Materialist explanations of cause and effect tend to embrace epiphenomenalism. Those who try to avoid epiphenomenalism tend to deny either the extrinsicness of meaning or the intrinsicness of causality. I argue that to deny one or the other is equally implausible. Rather, I prefer a different strategy: accept both premises, but deny that epiphenomenalism is necessarily the conclusion. This strategy is available because the premises do not imply the conclusion without the help of an additional premise—namely, that behavior explained by (...) reasons is caused by the reasons that explain it—and this premise is false. (shrink)

Mainstream modern science, with its analytical methods and its “objective” teachings, is the dominant force in modern culture. If science simply discovered and taught the truth about reality, who could object? But mainstream science does not simply “discover the truth”; instead it relies in part on a set of unscientific, false philosophical presuppositions as the basis for many of its conclusions. Thus, crucial aspects of what modern science teaches us are simply shabby philosophy dressed up in a white lab coat.

It's hard to say exactly when modern science began. Many scholars would date it at roughly 1600, when both Kepler and Galileo started using precision measurement to map the universe. But one thing is certain: starting from whatever date we choose, modern science was, in many important ways and right from the start, deeply antagonistic to established religion.