God without the Supernatural : : A Defense of Scientific Theism / / Peter Forrest.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Forrest, Peter,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1996
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)

Peter Forrest expounds a program of best-explanation apologetics. He contends that since the existence of God would provide the best possible explanation of various facts, those facts support theism. Among the facts cited are the suitability of the universe for life, the regularity of the universe, the human capacity for intellectual progress, the experience of a moral order, and various forms of beauty. The beauty that interests Forrest as evidence for the existence of God includes sensuous beauty; the beauty of the natural order, as revealed by the sciences; and the beauty of necessity discovered by mathematicians.In addressing the need for an adequate motive for creation, Forrest conjectures that God created the universe for embodied persons not for their life on earth alone but also for an afterlife. Forrest acknowledges the speculative nature of such an account. He suggests that philosophical speculation is also required to defend theism against the charge that it is too extravagant a hypothesis to be warranted. Again, he provides a speculative defense against the argument from evil. He explains how such speculations can be used to support best explanation arguments without the conclusions themselves being rendered purely speculative.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- God without the Supernatural -- 1. The Apologetics of Understanding -- 1. On Our Conception of God -- 2. Why We Still Need Apologetics -- 3. The Goal of Articulation -- 4. Versions of the Apologetics of Understanding -- 5. In Defense of Speculation -- 6. A Survey of Theocentric Understanding -- 7. A Comparison with Other Apologetic Projects -- 2. The Theocentric Understanding of Life -- 1. The Suitability of Our Universe for Life -- 2. On the Motive for Creation -- 3. Creation as the Overflow ofJoy -- 4. The Afterlife without the Supernatural -- 5. The Afterlife and the Problem of Personal Identity -- 6. The “Mechanics” of Creation -- 7. The Extra Constraint on Action -- 8. Is Agency Causation Redundant? -- 9. Two Further Objections -- 10. When Was This Universe Created, and Out of What? -- 11. Theocentric and Scientific Understanding -- 3. The Naturalistic Understanding of Life -- i. What Is Naturalism? -- 2. What Is the Argument for Naturalism? -- 3. A Proposal Derived from Hume -- 4. Anthropic Explanations -- 5. Scientific Plenitude -- 6. Explanation by Means of Laws -- 7. The Inevitable Limitation of Scientific Explanation -- 8. The Appeal to Simplicity -- 9. Necessitarianism -- 10. The Comparison of Theocentric with Naturalistic Understanding -- 4. The Breadth of Theocentric Understanding -- 1. The Regularity of the Universe -- 2. Naturalistic Accounts of Laws of Nature -- 3. Our Capacity for Intellectual Progress -- 4. Understanding Moral Supremacy -- 5. The Resilience of Moral Supremacy -- 6. Further Discussion of Moral Supremacy -- 7. The Understanding of Beauty -- 8. The Serendipity of Mathematics -- 9. The Case Against Naturalism -- 5. Non-naturalistic Rivals to Anthropic Theism -- 1. A Survey of the Rivals to Anthropic Theism -- 2. Pantheism and Polytheism -- 3. The Rejection of Metaphysical Plenitude -- 4. Evaluative Understanding -- 5. Against Idealistic Understanding -- 6. A God of Malice? -- 7. Art for Art’s Sake? -- 8. The Conditional Superiority of Theocentric Understanding -- 6. The Theoretical Niche Argument -- 1. The Analogy between God and the Mind -- 2.The Idea of a Theoretical Niche -- 3. Physicalism as an Attempt at Understanding -- 4. The Functionalist Characterization of Mental States -- 5. Appearances -- 6. Consciousness -- 7. The Unity of the Mental -- 8. The Argument from Introspective Understanding -- 9. Unrestricted Consciousness -- 10. Physicalism—The Hard Case -- 11. Substance Dualism—The Easy Case -- 12. Attribute Dualism -- 13. The No Planning Thesis -- 14. Knowledge of the Possible -- 7. Speculating about Consciousness -- 1. A Double Aspect Theory -- 2. A Solution to the Correlation Problem -- 3. The Unity of the Mental -- 4. To What Category Does Consciousness Belong? -- 5. Of What Is There Consciousness? -- 6. Generalizing the Principle of Harmony -- 7. Theistic Eudemonism -- 8. But Is Unrestricted Consciousness the Same as God? -- 9. The Point-of-View Problem -- 8. A Speculative Understanding of Evil -- 1. Should We Seek to Understand Evil? -- 2. Plenitude Theodicy -- 3. The Minor Adjustment Argument -- 4. On Divine Intervention -- 5. Plenitude, Care, and Respect -- 6. Soul-Making Theodicy -- 7. Panentheism and the Problem of Evil -- Concluding Remarks -- 1. Compromise versus Commitment -- 2. The Amphibious Character of Faith -- 3. My Project in Context -- Works Cited -- Index