3. The Goal of Articulation

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface xi
4. God without the Supernatural 1
5. 1. The Apologetics of Understanding
6. 1. On Our Conception of God 8
7. 2. Why We Still Need Apologetics 11
8. 3. The Goal of Articulation 20
9. 4. Versions of the Apologetics of Understanding 26
10. 5. In Defense of Speculation 35
11. 6. A Survey of Theocentric Understanding 37
12. 7. A Comparison with Other Apologetic Projects 41
13. 2. The Theocentric Understanding of Life
14. 1. The Suitability of Our Universe for Life 46
15. 2. On the Motive for Creation 51
16. 3. Creation as the Overflow ofJoy 55
17. 4. The Afterlife without the Supernatural 56
18. 5. The Afterlife and the Problem of Personal Identity 66
19. 6. The “Mechanics” of Creation 68
20. 7. The Extra Constraint on Action 70
21. 8. Is Agency Causation Redundant? 73
22. 9. Two Further Objections 79
23. 10. When Was This Universe Created, and Out of What? 81
24. 11. Theocentric and Scientific Understanding 85
25. 3. The Naturalistic Understanding of Life
26. i. What Is Naturalism? 88
27. 2. What Is the Argument for Naturalism? 89
28. 3. A Proposal Derived from Hume 91
29. 4. Anthropic Explanations 93
30. 5. Scientific Plenitude 97
31. 6. Explanation by Means of Laws 98
32. 7. The Inevitable Limitation of Scientific Explanation 100
33. 8. The Appeal to Simplicity 103
34. 9. Necessitarianism 104
35. 10. The Comparison of Theocentric with Naturalistic Understanding 106
36. 4. The Breadth of Theocentric Understanding
37. 1. The Regularity of the Universe 110
38. 2. Naturalistic Accounts of Laws of Nature 115
39. 3. Our Capacity for Intellectual Progress 117
40. 4. Understanding Moral Supremacy 121
41. 5. The Resilience of Moral Supremacy 126
42. 6. Further Discussion of Moral Supremacy 129
43. 7. The Understanding of Beauty 133
44. 8. The Serendipity of Mathematics 136
45. 9. The Case Against Naturalism 138
46. 5. Non-naturalistic Rivals to Anthropic Theism
47. 1. A Survey of the Rivals to Anthropic Theism 139
48. 2. Pantheism and Polytheism 141
49. 3. The Rejection of Metaphysical Plenitude 143
50. 4. Evaluative Understanding 149
51. 5. Against Idealistic Understanding 154
52. 6. A God of Malice? 157
53. 7. Art for Art’s Sake? 159
54. 8. The Conditional Superiority of Theocentric Understanding 162
55. 6. The Theoretical Niche Argument
56. 1. The Analogy between God and the Mind 163
57. 2.The Idea of a Theoretical Niche 164
58. 3. Physicalism as an Attempt at Understanding 166
59. 4. The Functionalist Characterization of Mental States 168
60. 5. Appearances 169
61. 6. Consciousness 172
62. 7. The Unity of the Mental 175
63. 8. The Argument from Introspective Understanding 175
64. 9. Unrestricted Consciousness 177
65. 10. Physicalism—The Hard Case 179
66. 11. Substance Dualism—The Easy Case 181
67. 12. Attribute Dualism 183
68. 13. The No Planning Thesis 185
69. 14. Knowledge of the Possible 187
70. 7. Speculating about Consciousness
71. 1. A Double Aspect Theory 191
72. 2. A Solution to the Correlation Problem 193
73. 3. The Unity of the Mental 196
74. 4. To What Category Does Consciousness Belong? 198
75. 5. Of What Is There Consciousness? 201
76. 6. Generalizing the Principle of Harmony 203
77. 7. Theistic Eudemonism 204
78. 8. But Is Unrestricted Consciousness the Same as God? 208
79. 9. The Point-of-View Problem 210
80. 8. A Speculative Understanding of Evil
81. 1. Should We Seek to Understand Evil? 214
82. 2. Plenitude Theodicy 216
83. 3. The Minor Adjustment Argument 219
84. 4. On Divine Intervention 221
85. 5. Plenitude, Care, and Respect 223
86. 6. Soul-Making Theodicy 231
87. 7. Panentheism and the Problem of Evil 233
88. Concluding Remarks
89. 1. Compromise versus Commitment 238
90. 2. The Amphibious Character of Faith 239
91. 3. My Project in Context 241
92. Works Cited 243
93. Index 251