Open theists deny that God knows future contingents. Most open theists justify this denial by adopting the position that there are no future contingent truths to be known. In this paper we examine some of the arguments put forward for this position in two recent articles in this journal, one by Dale Tuggy and one by Alan Rhoda, Gregory Boyd, and Thomas Belt. The arguments concern time, modality, and the semantics of ‘will’ statements. We explain why we find none of (...) these arguments persuasive. This wide road leads only to destruction. (shrink)

This is a review of *The Kalām Cosmological Argument* (edited by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig). In this review, I focus primarily on the papers in the first volume by Waters, Loke, and Oderberg. (I have also written an independent review of the second volume.).

A review of William Lane Craig, Erik J. Wielenberg, and Adam Lloyd Johnson's "A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?".

This paper is a reply to Professor William Lane Craig's “Graham Oppy On The kalām Cosmological Argument” Sophia 32.1, 1993, pp. 1–11. Further references to the literature are contained therein.

Kalam cosmological arguments have recently been the subject of criticisms, at least inter alia, by physicists---Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking---and philosophers of science---Adolf Grunbaum. In a series of recent articles, William Craig has attempted to show that these criticisms are “superficial, iII-conceived, and based on misunderstanding.” I argue that, while some of the discussion of Davies and Hawking is not philosophically sophisticated, the points raised by Davies, Hawking and Grunbaum do suffice to undermine the dialectical efficacy of kalam cosmological (...) arguments. (shrink)

William Lane Craig has argued that there cannot be actual infinities because inverse operations are not well-defined for infinities. I point out that, in fact, there are mathematical systems in which inverse operations for infinities are well-defined. In particular, the theory introduced in John Conway's *On Numbers and Games* yields a well-defined field that includes all of Cantor's transfinite numbers.

The hypothesis that God supernaturally raised Jesus from the dead is argued by William Lane Craig to be the best explanation for the empty tomb and postmortem appearances of Jesus because it satisfies seven criteria of adequacy better than rival naturalistic hypotheses. We identify problems with Craig’s criteria-based approach and show, most significantly, that the Resurrection hypothesis fails to fulfill any but the first of his criteria—especially explanatory scope and plausibility.

This paper is a response to William Lane Craig's criticisms of my previous paper "Uncaused Beginnings". I argue that Craig's criticisms do not inflict any damage on the arguments of that earlier paper.

In ‘Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument’ , 367–75), Professor William Lane Craig undertakes to demonstrate that J. L. Mackie's analysis of the kalam cosmological argument in The Miracle of Theism is ‘superficial’, and that Mackie ‘has failed to provide any compelling or even intuitively appealing objection against the argument’ . I disagree with Craig's judgement; for it seems to me that the considerations which Mackie advances do serve to refute the kalam cosmological argument. Consequently, (...) the purpose of this paper is to reply to Craig's criticisms on Mackie's behalf. (shrink)

In this paper we critically evaluate an argument put forward by William Lane Craig for the existence of God based on the assumption that if there were no God, there could be no objective morality. Contrary to Craig, we show that there are some necessary moral truths and objective moral reasoning that holds up whether there is a God or not. We go on to argue that religious faith, when taken alone and without reason or evidence, (...) actually risks undermining morality and is an unreliable source of moral truths. We recommend a viewpoint on morality that is based on reason and public consensus, that is compatible with science, and that cuts across the range of religious and non-religious positions. (shrink)

This article is a rebuttal to Robert G. Cavin and Carlos A. Colombetti’s article, “Assessing the Resurrection Hypothesis: Problems with Craig’s Inference to the Best Explanation,” which argues that the Standard Model of current particle physics entails that non-physical things (like a supernatural God or a supernaturally resurrected body) can have no causal contact with the physical universe. As such, they argue that William Lane Craig’s resurrection hypothesis is not only incompatible with the notion of Jesus (...) physically appearing to the disciples, but the resurrection hypothesis is significantly limited in both its explanatory scope and explanatory power. This article seeks to demonstrate why their use of the Standard Model does not logically entail a rejection of the physical resurrection of Jesus when considering the scope and limitations of science itself. (shrink)

In a pair of recent essays, William Lane Craig has argued that certain open theist understandings of the nature of the future are both semantically and modally confused. I argue that this is not the case and show that, if consistently observed, the customary semantics for counterfactuals Craig relies on not only undermine the validity of his complaint against the open theist, they actually support an argument for the openness position.

Reprinted in Philosophical and Theological Essays on the Trinity, Oxford, 2009, eds Michael Rea and Thomas McCall. In this essay, I assess a certain version of ’social Trinitarianism’ put forward by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, ’trinity monotheism’. I first show how their response to a familiar anti-Trinitarian argument arguably implies polytheism. I then show how they invoke three tenets central to their trinity monotheism in order to avoid that implication. After displaying these tenets more (...) fully, I argue that Trinitarians would do well to hold Moreland’s and Craig’s trinity monotheism at arms length. (shrink)

Hypotheses about the shape of causal reality admit of both theistic and non-theistic interpretations. I argue that, on the simplest hypotheses about the causal shape of reality—infinite regress, contingent initial boundary, necessary initial boundary—there is good reason to suppose that non-theism is always either preferable to, or at least the equal of, theism, at least insofar as we restrict our attention merely to the domain of explanation of existence. Moreover, I suggest that it is perfectly proper for naturalists to be (...) undecided between these simple hypotheses about the causal shape of reality: contrary to the proponents of cosmological arguments, there are no decisive objections to any of these simple hypotheses. (I argue this case in detail in connection with objections offered by William Lane Craig; however, I believe that the case holds quite generally.). (shrink)

This 9,000+ word entry briefly assesses five models of the Trinity, those espoused by (i) Richard Swinburne, (ii) William Lane Craig, (iii) Brian Leftow, (iv) Jeff Brower and Michael Rea, and (v) Peter van Inwagen.

ABSTRACTIn the late 1970s the big bang model of cosmology was widely accepted and interpreted as implying the universe had a beginning. At the end of that decade William Lane Craig revived an argument for God known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument based on this scientific consensus. Furthermore, he linked the big bang to the supposed biblical concept of creation ex nihilo found in Genesis. I shall critique Craig's position as expressed in a more recent update (...) and argue that contemporary cosmology no longer understands the big bang as the ultimate beginning, seriously undermining the KCA. I will further contend that book of Genesis should not be understood as describing creation ex nihilo anyway. (shrink)

Many physicists have thought that absolute time became otiose with the introduction of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig disagrees. Craig argues that although relativity is empirically adequate within a domain of application, relativity is literally false and should be supplanted by a Neo-Lorentzian alternative that allows for absolute time. Meanwhile, Craig and co-author James Sinclair have argued that physical cosmology supports the conclusion that physical reality began to exist at a finite time in the past. (...) However, on their view, the beginning of physical reality requires the objective passage of absolute time, so that the beginning of physical reality stands or falls with Craig's Neo-Lorentzian metaphysics. Here, I raise doubts about whether, given Craig's NeoLorentzian metaphysics, physical cosmology could adequately support a beginning of physical reality within the finite past. Craig and Sinclair's conception of the beginning of the universe requires a past boundary to the universe. A past boundary to the universe cannot be directly observed and so must be inferred from the observed matter-energy distribution in conjunction with auxilary hypotheses drawn from a substantive physical theory. Craig's brand of Neo Lorentzianism has not been sufficiently well specified so as to infer either that there is a past boundary or that the boundary is located in the finite past. Consequently, Neo Lorentzianism implicitly introduces a form of skepticism that removes the ability that we might have otherwise had to infer a beginning of the universe. Furthermore, in analyzing traditional big bang models, I develop criteria that Neo-Lorentzians should deploy in thinking about the direction and duration of time in cosmological models generally. For my last task, I apply the same criteria to bounce cosmologies and show that Craig and Sinclair have been wrong to interpret bounce cosmologies as including a beginning of physical reality. (shrink)

This paper is a critical review of *Big Bang Cosmology* by Quentin Smith and William Lane Craig. (The book is a collection of previously published papers; most are concerned, in one way or another, with kalam cosmological arguments for the existence of God.).

Theistic metaethics usually places one key restriction on the explanation of moral facts, namely: every moral fact must ultimately be explained by some fact about God. But the widely held belief that moral truths are necessary truths seems to undermine this claim. If a moral truth is necessary, then it seems like it neither needs nor has an explanation. Or so the objection typically goes. Recently, two proponents of theistic metaethics — William Lane Craig and Mark Murphy (...) — have argued that this objection is flawed. They claim that even if a truth is necessary, it does not follow that it neither needs nor has an explanation. In this article, I challenge Craig and Murphy’s reasoning on three main grounds. First, I argue that the counterexamples they use to undermine the necessary truth objection to theistic metaethics are flawed. While they may provide some support for the notion that necessary truths can be explained, they do not provide support for the notion that necessary moral truths can be explained. Second, I argue that the principles of explanation that Murphy and Craig use to support theistic metaethics are either question-begging (in the case of Murphy) or improperly motivated (in the case of Craig). And third, I provide a general defence of the claim that necessary moral truths neither need nor have an explanation. (shrink)

Quentin Smith argues that if God exists, He had a duty to ensure life's existence; and He couldn't rationally have done so and made a big bang unless a counter-factual like "If God had made a big bang, there would have been life," was true pre-creation. But such counter-factuals are not true pre-creation. I argue that God could have made a big bang without irrationality; and that He could have ensured life without making big bangs non-random. Further, a proper understanding (...) of the truth-conditions of counter-factuals like the one above lets them have determinate truth-values pre-creation. But the explanation of how the above counter-factual can be true pre-creation is more complicated than that offered by William Lane Craig. (shrink)

William Lane Craig’s God over All argues against the kind of “divine conceptualism” about abstract objects which I defend. In this conference presentation I note several points of agreement with and appreciation for Craig’s important work. I then turn to five points of critique and response pertaining to: the sovereignty-aseity intuition, the reality of false propositions, God’s having “inappropriate” thoughts, propositions being purely private and incommunicable, and a consistent view of God’s own ontological commitments. I conclude (...) by summarizing our two key differences, indicating that we may have much more in common than first appears. (shrink)

William Lane Craig modified Bertrand Russell’s Tristram Shandy example in order to derive an absurdity that would demonstrate the finitude of the past. Although his initial attempt at such an argument faltered, further developments in the literature suggested that such an absurdity was indeed in the offing provided that a couple extra statements were also shown to be true. This article traces the development of a particular line of argument that arose from Craig’s Tristram Shandy example (...) before advancing an argument of its own that attempts to fill in the relevant gaps so as to yield a new argument for the finitude of the past. (shrink)

William Lane Craig has revived interest in the medieval kalām argument to the point where it is now one of the most discussed arguments for God’s existence in the secondary literature. Still, the reception of Craig’s argument among philosophers of religion has been mostly critical. In the interest of developing an argument that more philosophers of religion would be inclined to support, I will lay the philosophical groundwork for a new kalām cosmological argument that, in contrast (...) with Craig’s argument, does not adopt such controversial positions as the dynamic theory of time and the metaphysical impossibility of an actual infinite. (shrink)

A review of Robert. B. Stewart's edited volume concerning a discussion between William Dembski and Michael Ruse. Further contributions are included from William Lane Craig and others.

Wes Morriston contends that William Lane Craig's argument for the impossibility of a beginningless past results in an equally good argument for the impossibility of an endless future. Craig disagrees. I show that Craig's reply reveals a commitment to an unmotivated position concerning the relationship between actuality and the actual infinite. I then assess alternative routes to the impossibility of a beginningless past that have been offered in the literature, and show that, contrary to initial (...) appearances, these routes similarly seem to support the impossibility of an endless future. (shrink)

Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind. After explaining my view, I defend it against a variety of objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland.

A discussion of the recent prominence of 'new atheism' and 'Christian nationalism' in the United States.

Review of Craig And Mroeland: *Naturalism: A Critical Analysis*.

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the key arguments espoused by William Lane Craig for the thesis that the universe began to exist. Recently, Malpass, Mind, 131(523), 786–804 (2021) has developed a challenge to the SAA by way of constructing a counterexample that originates in the work of Fred Dretske. In this paper, I show that the Malpass-Dretske counterexample is in fact no counterexample to the argument. Utilizing a distinction between properties of members and properties (...) of collections, I argue that Malpass’ counterexample has no bearing on the soundness of the SAA. I also develop a novel parity argument against Malpass’ argument that I demonstrate can only be resolved by way of the aforementioned analysis. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two strategies for providing tenseless truth-conditions for tensed sentences: the token-reflexive theory and the date theory. Both theories have faced a number of objections by prominent A-theorists such as Quentin Smith and William Lane Craig. Traditionally, these two theories have been viewed as rival methods for providing truth-conditions for tensed sentences. I argue that the debate over whether the token-reflexive theory or the date theory is true has arisen from a failure to (...) distinguish between conditions for the truth of tensed tokens and conditions for the truth of propositions expressed by tensed tokens. I demonstrate that there is a true formulation of the token-reflexive theory that provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of tensed tokens, and there is a true formulation of the date theory that provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of propositions expressed by tensed tokens. I argue that once the views are properly formulated, the A-theorist’s objections fail to make their mark. However, I conclude by claiming that even though there is a true formulation of the token-reflexive theory and a true formulation of the date theory, the New B-theory nonetheless fails to provide a complete account of the truth and falsity of tensed sentences. (shrink)

We respond to Stephen T. Davis’ criticism of our earlier essay, “Assessing the Resurrection Hypothesis.” We argue that the Standard Model of physics is relevant and decisive in establishing the implausibility and low explanatory power of the Resurrection hypothesis. We also argue that the laws of physics have entailments regarding God and the supernatural and, against Alvin Plantinga, that these same laws lack the proviso “no agent supernaturally interferes.” Finally, we offer Bayesian arguments for the Legend hypothesis and against the (...) Resurrection hypothesis. (shrink)

In "The Compatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (Dec. 2003) , Brian Holtz offers two objections to my argument in "The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (in Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal , edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Routledge, 2000). His responses are: (1) my argument can be deflected by adopting a pragmatic or empiricist "definition" of "truth", and (2) the extra-spatiotemporal cause of the simplicity of the laws need not be God, or (...) any other personal being. (shrink)

While there has been much work on cosmological arguments, novel objections will be presented against the modern day rendition of the Kalām cosmological argument as standardly articulated by William Lane Craig. The conclusion is reached that this cosmological argument and several of its variants do not lead us to believe that there is inevitably a supernatural cause to the universe. Moreover, a conditional argument for atheism will be presented in light of the Big Bang Theory.

This paper begins with a fairly careful and detailed discussion of the conditions under which someone who presents an argument ought to be prepared to concede that the argument is unsuccessful. The conclusions reached in this discussion are then applied to William Lane Craig’s defense of what he calls “the kalam cosmological argument.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chief contention of the paper is that Craig ought to be prepared to concede that “the kalam cosmological argument” is not (...) a successful argument. The paper pays particular attention to Craig’s recent criticisms of Adolf Grünbaum’s contention that “the kalam cosmological argument” presupposes “the normalcy of nothingness”; and it also addresses some methodological issues raised by Craig’s response to my previous criticisms of his replies to critiques of “the kalam cosmological argument” provided by Grünbaum, Hawking, and Davies. (shrink)

Are science and religion compatible when it comes to understanding cosmology (the origin of the universe), biology (the origin of life and of the human species), ethics, and the human mind (minds, brains, souls, and free will)? Do science and religion occupy non-overlapping magisteria? Is Intelligent Design a scientific theory? How do the various faith traditions view the relationship between science and religion? What, if any, are the limits of scientific explanation? What are the most important open questions, problems, or (...) challenges confronting the relationship between science and religion, and what are the prospects for progress? These and other questions are explored in Science and Religion: 5 Questions--a collection of thirty-three interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the world's most influential and prominent philosophers, scientists, theologians, apologists, and atheists. Contributions by Simon Blackburn, Susan Blackmore, Sean Carroll, William Lane Craig, William Dembski, Daniel C. Dennett, George F.R. Ellis, Owen Flanagan, Owen Gingerich, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, John F. Haught, Muzaffar Iqbal, Lawrence Krauss, Colin McGinn, Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Timothy O'Connor, Massimo Pigliucci, John Polkinghorne, James Randi, Alex Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Robert John Russell, John Searle, Michael Shermer, Victor J. Stenger, Robert Thurman, Michael Tooley, Charles Townes, Peter van Inwagen, Keith Ward, Rabbi David Wolpe. (shrink)

On the rise over the past 20 years has been ‘moderate supernaturalism’, the view that while a meaningful life is possible in a world without God or a soul, a much greater meaning would be possible only in a world with them. William Lane Craig can be read as providing an important argument for a version of this view, according to which only with God and a soul could our lives have an eternal, as opposed to temporally (...) limited, significance, by virtue of our moral choices then making an ultimate difference. I present two major objections to this position. On the one hand, I contend that if God existed and we had souls that lived forever, then, in fact, all our lives would turn out the same. On the other hand, I maintain that, if this objection is wrong, so that our moral choices would indeed make an ultimate difference and thereby confer an eternal significance on our lives (only) in a supernatural realm, then Craig could not capture the view, aptly held by moderate supernaturalists, that a meaningful life is possible in a purely natural world. An eternal significance would be ‘too big’, reducing any meaning possible during an earthly life to nothing by comparison. I conclude that moderate supernaturalists would be wise to avoid appealing to eternal (or infinite) meaning when spelling out the way God and a soul could alone impart a great meaning to our lives; some other notion of greatness should be considered, perhaps one involving a temporary afterlife. (shrink)

This paper examines the Kalam Cosmological Argument, as expounded by,William Lane Craig, insofar as it pertains to the premise that it is metaphysically impossible for an infinite set of real entities to exist. Craig contends that this premise is justified because the application of the Cantorian theory to the real world generates counterintuitive absurdities. This paper shows that Craig’s contention fails because it is possible to apply Cantorian theory to the real world without thereby generating (...) counterintuitive absurdities, provided one avoids positing that an infinite set of real entities is technically a set within the meaning of such theory. Accordingly, this paper proposes an alternative version of the application of Cantorian theory to the real world thereby replacing the standard version of such application so thoroughly criticized by Craig. (shrink)

A key premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. However, while a number of philosophers have offered powerful criticisms of William Lane Craig’s defense of the premise, J.P. Moreland has also offered a number of unique arguments in support of it, and to date, little attention has been paid to these in the literature. In this paper, I attempt to go some way toward redressing this matter. In particular, I shall argue (...) that Moreland’s philosophical arguments against the possibility of traversing a beginningless past are unsuccessful. (shrink)

This is my main contribution to P. Gould (ed.) Beyond the Control of God?: Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects Bloomsbury. (The other contibutors to this work are: Keith Yandell; Paul Gould and Rich Davis; Greg Welty; William Lane Craig; and Scott Shalkowski.) I argue that, when it comes to a comparative assessment of the merits of theism and atheism, it makes no difference whether one opts for realism or fictionalism concerning abstract objects.

In this paper, I show how a solution to Lewis’ problem of temporary intrinsics is also a response to McTaggart’s argument that the A-series is incoherent. There are three strategies Lewis considers for solving the problem of temporary intrinsics: perdurantism, presentism, and property-indexing. William Lane Craig (Analysis 58(2):122–127, 1998) has examined how the three strategies fare with respect to McTaggart’s argument. The only viable solution Lewis considers to the problem of temporary intrinsics that also succeeds against McTaggart, (...) Craig claims, is presentism. This gives us prima facie reason to be presentists. But there is a strategy Craig does not consider-indexing, or relativizing, the copula. In this paper, I show that to the degree that indexing the copula solves the problem of temporary intrinsics, it also shows the invalidity of McTaggart’s argument. The upshot: the copula-indexer needn’t affirm the unreality of time, nor need she embrace presentism. (shrink)

I consider whether the self-ascription theory can succeed in providing a tenseless (B-theoretic) account of tensed belief and timely action. I evaluate an argument given by William Lane Craig for the conclusion that the self-ascription account of tensed belief entails a tensed theory (A-theory) of time. I claim that how one formulates the selfascription account of tensed belief depends upon whether one takes the subject of selfascription to be a momentary person-stage or an enduring person. I provide (...) two different formulations of the self-ascription account of tensed belief, one that is compatible with a perdurantist account of persons and the other that is compatible with an endurantist account of persons. I argue that a self-ascription account of tensed beliefs for enduring subjects most plausibly involves the self-ascription of relations rather than properties. I argue that whether one takes the subject of self-ascription to be a momentary personstage or an enduring person, the self-ascription theory provides a plausible B-theoretic account of how tensed belief and timely action are possible. (shrink)

Craig (1981) presents and defends several different kalam cosmological arguments. The core of each of these arguments is the following ur argument.

Usually, natural theology is understood as the project of providing arguments for the existence of God. This project is endorsed by Moreland and Craig. McGrath, on the other hand, says that this project fails. In the first part of this article, I show how McGrath’s dismissal of arguments for the existence of God follows from his view of natural theology. In the second part, I argue that McGrath’s natural theology contains an accurate critique of Moreland and Craig’s way (...) of doing natural theology, a critique that exposes two major problems in their treatment of the moral argument for the existence of God. In the third part, I propose a way of providing arguments for the existence of God that avoids the problems pointed out by McGrath, namely a way of arguing that seek to show how theology may improve a certain non-theistic understanding of a natural phenomenon. (shrink)

Leibniz said that the universe, if God-created, would exist at a unique, conjoint, physical maximum: Of all possible worlds, it would be richest in phenomena, but its richness would arise from the simplest physical laws and initial conditions. Using concepts of ‘‘variety’’ and algorithmic informational complexity, Leibniz’ claim can be reframed as a testable theory. This theory predicts that the laws and conditions of the actual universe should be simpler, and the universe richer in phenomena, than the presence of observers (...) would require. Tegmark has shown that inhabitants of an infinite multiverse would likely observe simple laws and conditions, but also phenomenal richness just great enough to explain their existence. Empirical observations fit the claim of divine choice better than the claim of an infinite multiverse. The future of the universe, including its future information-processing capacity, is predicted to be endless. -/- . (shrink)

Developments that suggest the universe is full of life make the Fermi paradox increasingly pressing, but our search for an extraterrestrial technological civilization (“ETC”) is handicapped by our ignorance of its probable nature and behavior. This paper offers a way around this problem by drawing on information theoretical concepts, including game theory and Bayesian probability. It argues that, whatever its ultimate goals, an ETC would have the same instrumental goals as other intelligent agents. Generically, these are self-preservation and the acquisition (...) of resources. For an advanced ETC, these generic goals imply the objectives of removing existential threats and acquiring strategic and non-strategic information. Since the most problematic existential threats for any ETC would be from other civilizations and planets hosting such civilizations would also be copious sources of information, these objectives would lead it to gather information from these locations and to protect itself against them. This dual-goals hypothesis resolves the Fermi paradox, redirects the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and makes testable predictions regarding ETC’s behavior on Earth if it is here. (shrink)

In response to Stephen Davis’s criticism of our previous essay, we revisit and defend our arguments that the Resurrection hypothesis is logically incompatible with the Standard Model of particle physics—and thus is maximally implausible—and that it cannot explain the sensory experiences of the Risen Jesus attributed to various witnesses in the New Testament—and thus has low explanatory power. We also review Davis’s reply, noting that he evades our arguments, misstates their conclusions, and distracts the reader with irrelevancies regarding, e.g., what (...) natural laws are, what a miracle is, and how “naturalism” and “supernaturalism” differ as worldviews. Contrary to what Davis claims (even in his abstract), we do not argue that “if the Standard Model of particle physics is true, then the resurrection of Jesus did not occur and physical things can only causally interact with other physical things.” Davis distorts our claims and criticizes straw men of his own creation. (shrink)

Leibniz claimed that the universe, if God-created, would be physically and morally optimal in this conjoint sense: Of all possible worlds, it would be richest in phenomena, but its richness would arise from the simplest physical laws and conditions. This claim raises two difficult questions. First, why would this “richest/simplest” world be morally optimal? Second, what is the optimal balance between these competing criteria? The latter question is especially hard to answer in the context of a multiverse or multi-domain universe. (...) Leibniz focused on goodness as God’s motive in creation. “This is the cause of the existence of the best: that his wisdom makes it known to God, his goodness makes him choose it, and his power lets him produce it.” This article suggests that love is God’s motive. Since love entails acting to both benefit and be with the beloved, limitless love would entail God’s becoming as much unified reality as possible. The physical laws that govern the universe and its vast richness of phenomena appear to be those that we should expect if this claim is true and there are ways of testing the closeness of this fit. The claim that God has become the world (pandeism) also offers a satisfying resolution to the problem of evil. (shrink)

Pandeism is the belief that God chose to wholly become our Universe, imposing principles at this Becoming that have fostered the lawful evolution of multifarious structures, including life and consciousness. This article describes and defends a particular form of pandeism: living God pandeism (LGP). On LGP, our Universe inherits all of God's unsurpassable attributes—reality, unity, consciousness, knowledge, intelligence, and effectiveness—and includes as much reality, conscious and unconscious, as is possible consistent with retaining those attributes. God and the Universe, together “God-and-Universe,” (...) is also eternal into the future and the past. The article derives testable hypotheses from these claims and shows that the evidence to date confirms some of these while falsifying none. Theism cannot be tested in the same way. (shrink)