A Conversation on Theodicy
The author engages himself in a conversation on the conundrum of how it can be that (a) Evil exists, and yet (b) God is beneficent, and (c) God is omnipotent.
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Emergence Theism’ as a Pantheistic Thread Within the Traditional Theism: Seeking for a God-World Unity
Transdisciplinarity as wisdom? The notion of transdisciplinarity contains both diversity and unification. It implies the diversity of different scientific disciplines. On the other hand, it postulates the existence of a certain meta-level which makes possible the connection of different outcomes resulting from different disciplines. In knowing the different scientific methodologies we can indeed enter into…
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Reciprocating Gifts: Truth, Politics and Participation in Process
In imagining the 2007 AAR session on Radical Orthodoxy and Process Theology in advance, I have to admit that an exchange of gifts was not the first thing that came to mind! (Perhaps I should call it “Reciprocating Misgivings.”) For as Radical Orthodoxy puts it quite rightly, no gift can be given without active receptivity,…
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The Quest for Wholeness
Sometimes at Metanexus we say that we’re after “the whole story of the whole cosmos for the whole person.” We say we’re after it because we do not possess anything like the whole story. We say it, though, because the whole story is more like our motivating hope, our “regulative idea,” so to speak, that…
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Critiquing the Creation of Knowledge in the Liberal Arts: An Interdisciplinary Course on Death
For nearly a decade, I regularly start the semester by asking students in my upper-level interdisciplinary general studies seminar what distinguishes the sciences, social sciences, and humanities from one another. Though they are intelligent soon-to-be-graduates of a fairly selective mid-sized private institution, Elon University in North Carolina, few can offer more than vague ideas of…
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Experiences of Spiritual Transformations in America
With support from the Spiritual Transformation Program of the Metanexus Institute, the National Spiritual Transformation Study (NSTS) was carried out as part of the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS). The 2004 GSS was an in-person, full-probability survey of adults living in households in the United States. An initial analysis of the NSTS is presented in…
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Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Philosophical, Religious, and Ethical Considerations
Introduction1 What is Transhumanism? The term ‘transhumanism’ denotes a relatively young and still changing ideology that posits a new vision of humanity as a result of the confluence of advancements in the life sciences, neurosciences, genomics, robotics, informatics, and nanotechnology. These developments include new kinds of cognitive tools that combine artificial intelligence with interface technology,…
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The Varieties ofReligious Experience (excerpt)
From Lecture XVIII, “Philosophy” What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. The Continental schools of philosophy have too often overlooked the fact that man’s thinking is organically connected with his conduct. It seems to me to be the chief glory of English and Scottish thinkers to have kept the organic connection in…
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Defusing the Neuron Bomb
“…Jesus said to him: Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead. And when he entered into the boat, his disciples followed him: And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: Lord,…
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Whatever Happened to Wisdom?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? –T. S. Eliot “The Rock” 1934 Always be ready to give an answer when someone asks you about your hope. –1 Peter 3:151 “Perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that ethics requires us to risk ourselves…