Alternative Concepts of God came out of the project titled “Exploring Alternative Concepts of God” funded by the John Templeton Foundation. It is a work of philosophy of religion/philosophical theology that deserves careful attention because it brings together a group of prominent contributors who go well beyond various labels assigned to their positions and presents a sophisticated range of philosophical possibilities when discussing the concept of God.
One immediate question that this volume raises is: alternative to what? The answer given is that so‐called traditional Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic theism, in a way, limits our possibilities of philosophizing the concept of God. The book's contributors give alternatives based on what they consider to be departures from the concept of God according to traditional theist views (“classical theism,” omniGod theism,” “traditional theism,” “mainstream theism”). “Traditional theism” is primarily a philosophical term of relatively recent origin used by philosophers, primarily within the analytic tradition, and outside of those circles this term is rarely used. It can be found occasionally as a term among academic theologians, and it is used even less for self‐description among adherents of various religious traditions. The editors do note that the term “theism” is somewhat protean and that different authors do assume different meanings for that term often without defining it explicitly.
The editors propose the alternatives to traditional theism offered in this volume as a way of constructively engaging various religious traditions typically neglected by philosophical approaches (again, primarily among analytic philosophers). The editors present a case for alternative concepts of God as a way to avoid a supposed trend in current philosophy of religion that reduces it to a debate between theological apologetics and atheism.
The volume for the most part follows the established division of possible alternatives to traditional theism by maintaining philosophical labels used in order to classify possible ways of departing from what is perceived to be the orthodox stance. Options explored include pantheism, panentheism, idealism, and naturalism. Other options explored by different contributors include ultimism, fictionalism, and realism with a discussion of free will and related issues.
The first four essays deal with pantheism understood in several different ways that are interpreted as either alternatives or complementary contributions to classical theism. Peter Forrest argues for a type of “personal pantheism” that extends from classical theism and is not in opposition to it. Karl Pfeifer finds a philosophical opening in the way we use language to represent objects and distinguishes between God understood as a count noun and as a mass noun. Pfeifer also proposes a type of panpsychism which ascribes mentality to everything because of its dispositional properties. After reading this essay one wonders if all models of reality produced by humans who have intentions and mentality will also have intentions because they are conceived in such a way. If this is the case, then how can we ever produce a model devoid of any mentality, leading to the conclusion that intentions cannot be properly basic to reality because we assume mentality already inherent in everything we do?
The essay by John Leslie is a delight to read regardless of what the reader's own position might be. Leslie begins with the question of all questions—namely, why does the world exist? Eventually, he postulates an ethical necessity: that it is a good thing to exist. The world exists because it is a good thing that it exists. Leslie's concept of God is, it seems, an infinite set of infinite minds contemplating infinite universes worthy of contemplation. With that Leslie seems to build on the heritage of Platonism and Neoplatonism. Concluding the first set of four essays, Brian Leftow proposes a critique of a version of naturalistic pantheism by showing it inconsistent with the traditional theistic concept of God.
The next set of three essays deals with panentheism. Yujin Nagasawa proposes what he calls “modal panentheism,” in which God is understood as a totality of all possible worlds in which all possible worlds are as real as the actual world. John Bishop and Ken Perszyk address various conceptions of God in the context of the problem of evil and end up proposing a version of euteleological panentheism. Marilyn McCord Adams offers her critique of euteleological panentheism and finds no reliable alternative to traditional theism because every alternative has its own problems and some examples of suffering are simply beyond what can be explained away.
Charles Taliaferro proposes a version of theistic idealism and explains that the primacy of physical over non‐physical which is presupposed in naturalism is arbitrary at best and perhaps even untenable. Taliaferro chooses his opponents not among philosophers of religion but philosophers of biology and cognitive science, like Elliot Sober, Paul Churchland, and Daniel Dennett. Taliaferro ends up, somewhat predictably, defending already well‐known theories (of Alvin Plantinga, for example).
J. L. Schellenberg offers a concept of God as the ultimate proposition in at least three distinct senses: metaphysical ultimacy, axiological ultimacy, and soteriological ultimacy. Schellenberg's essay also gives a meaningful account of the evolutionary/historical development of human cognition combined with a call to a form of skepticism that is really refreshing in a volume like this.
Robin Le Poindevin's essay gives a perspective that takes into account fictionalism of religious claims. Instead of confusing religious statements with something that can be taken to be true independent of human belief, Le Poindevin proposes understanding religious claims, including the concept of God, as “the content of relevant fiction.” Theological discourse is about human ideals and not about the truth value of religious claims.
Willem Drees begins with ontological naturalism, which he proposes as an alternative because these days fewer and fewer people in the West identify with religious communities where traditional religious concepts still hold. Drees is asking whether there are any concepts (he calls them images) of the divine that can still be used meaningfully by people who do not identify with traditional religious communities and whose worldview is defined by modern science. Drees proposes three domains from which such concepts can be drawn: modern science, mathematics, and morality, and ends up proposing a form of transcendence from a purely naturalistic perspective informed and inspired by modern science. Drees realizes that the end point of his discussion is not necessarily shared by those who practice religion in its traditional forms but he explains that his reasoning can open up such religious concepts to those who are deeply committed to naturalism.
Andrei Buckareff argues that a version of pantheism or panentheism should be presupposed by traditional theists because the alternative is metaphysically unsound. Based on Buckareff's arguments about the metaphysics of divine action, it follows that if God is understood as being active in the world then God must be a part of the world and therefore some form of pantheism or panentheism is required in order to maintain traditional theism.
Hugh McCann discusses a possibility of free will in his chapter and offers a defense of a concept of God in order to maintain free decision and action. McCann discusses what forms of freedom are presupposed when considering our decisions and actions. McCann subscribes to a form of theological determinism in order to avoid naturalistic determinism, which he finds incompatible with our experience of free decisions and actions.
Emily Thomas discusses the emergentism of Samuel Alexander and contrasts it with several recent emergent concepts of God. Thomas finds Alexander compelling when compared to Philip Clayton and others. Thomas's critique of Clayton for basing his emergence on naturalism while also presupposing a non‐naturalist theology is particularly insightful. Thomas's presentation of issues related to space‐time in Alexander's concept of emergence make this essay very relevant.
Finally, Eric Steinhart offers a defense of religious naturalism which he sees as not only a philosophical/theological issue but also as something that is practiced in rituals and religious services.
Some epistemological and perhaps methodological questions remain regardless of the insights detailed in this volume. For example, what role do philosophical concepts of God have in religious behaviors as they evolved in the context of human symbolic behaviors? Are these just attempts to rationalize and justify commitments that precede them or are we supposed to think that they are the source of religious concepts? Another set of questions can be raised about how we can get from human cognition—and theoretical models of various experiences it engenders— to the possible source of such experiences. There is a sense of sheer arbitrariness in human logic if cognition is understood as something that is itself contingent on the underlying processes that produced it. Such questions might be difficult to answer with or without this volume, but after reading various contributions contained here the reader will perhaps come out one step closer to addressing such considerations.
This volume is definitely relevant for anyone interested in religion‐and‐science because of the role that philosophical inquiry has in that field and the role that the concept of God has in philosophy of religion.