Evaluates religious naturalists' attempts to find a middle path between supernaturalism and atheistic secularism, and explores naturalistic, theistic, and panpsychist solutions.Can nature be considered a religious object? Religious naturalists answer yes, as they seek to carve out a middle path between supernaturalism and atheistic secularism. In this book, Mikael Leidenhag critically examines the religious proposals, philosophical commitments, and ecological ambitions of key religious naturalists, including Willem B. Drees, Charley D. Hardwick, Donald Crosby, Ursula Goodenough, Stuart Kauffman, Gordon Kaufman, Karl Peters, and Loyal Rue. Leidenhag argues that contemporary religious naturalism faces several problems, both with regard to its understanding of naturalism and the ways in which it seeks to uphold a religious conception of reality. He evaluates possible routes for moving forward, considering naturalistic and theistic proposals. He also analyzes the philosophical thesis of panpsychism, the idea that mind is a pervasive feature of the universe and reaches down to the fundamental levels of reality. The author concludes that panpsychism offers the most promising framework against which to understand the metaphysics and eco-ethical ambitions of religious naturalism.
Mikael Leidenhag is the Science and Theology Editor in the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: The Religious Naturalists to Be DiscussedCurrent Research on Religious NaturalismMetaphysical Grounding ProblemsChapter Overview1. Explicating Religious NaturalismIntroducing Religious NaturalismThe Nature of NaturalismReligious Aspects of RealityReligious Naturalism and Traditional ReligionThe Function of Religious LanguageConclusions2. What Is Naturalistic about Religious Naturalism?The Central Pillars of NaturalismMonistic NaturalismPluralistic NaturalismSummary of Monistic Naturalism and Pluralistic NaturalismConclusions3. The Metaphysical Grounding Problems of Monism and PluralismMonistic Naturalism and the Issue of AntireductionismPluralistic Naturalism and Emergence TheorySome Grounding Problems for Pluralistic NaturalismConclusions4. The Religious Dimension of Religious NaturalismReligious Realism in Rue and CrosbyReligious Antirealism in Hardwick and DreesUnderstanding Pragmatic Religious RealismConclusions5. The Problem of Religious Discourse in Religious NaturalismThe Tension between Physicalism and Christian FaithLimit-Questions and the Status of NaturalismPragmatic RealismFunctional Religion and Theological RealismObjectivist Religion and the Problem of EvilConclusions6. Alternative Ontology 1: Naturalistic OptionsLiberal NaturalismAgnostic NaturalismPragmatic NaturalismConclusions7. Alternative Ontology 2: Theistic OptionsBackground to PanentheismWhy Panentheism Entails DualismThe Positive Status of Panentheism and the Question of Religious NaturalismGod and Values: A Proposal by Fiona EllisConclusions8. Alternative Ontology 3: PanpsychismPanpsychism TodayThree Arguments for PanpsychismBetween Strong and Weak PanpsychismThe Panpsychist Dimension of Emergence TheoryMetaphysical Objections to PanpsychismThe Religious Relevance of PanpsychismConclusions9. Concluding Remarks and Looking AheadPanpsychism and TeleologyPanpsychism and Eco-EthicsSubjectivity and the Promise of PanpsychismNotesReferencesName IndexSubject Index