“Starting Science From God”

Table of Contents

(proposed!)

Preface

Synopsis: The status of theism, and current debates.

Part I: Background

Chapter 1: The possibility for theistic science.

Synopsis: General discussion about the possibility of theistic science today

Chapter 2: Historical background.

Historical background, from Aristotle, via many philosophers, to Whitehead and the New Age today. Then a discussion of recently published speculations based on some of the these writers (Plotinus, Spinoza, Whitehead)

Chapter 3: Ontological preliminaries

Ontological preliminaries: distinctions between form, substance and potentiality (like Aristotle), to make a realist ontology.

Part II: Theistic Consequences

Chapter 4: Synopsis of the arguments

How to build on selected premises of ‘mainline’ or ‘acceptable’ theism to make conclusions about the possible form of nature and minds that could exist within the world. These successive premises are here listed as provisional chapter titles.

Chapter 5: God is not us

Nor are we part of God. To be loved, we must be other from God.

Chapter 6: All the world is a kind of image of God

Minds in particular, but also natural objects.

Chapter 7: ‘God is love’

Chapter 8: God is life itself: source of all activity

Chapter 9: God is infinite and one.

God is a unity in which there is no limit to the infinity of what may be intellectually distinguished, but what is not in fact separated.

Chapter 10: God is wisdom as well as love, thereby power and action.

Chapter 11: God is both transcendent and immanent, omniscient and omnipotent, and eternal

Chapter 12: God’s Love, Wisdom and Power are imaged as spiritual, mental and physical

Chapter 13: God sustains the world by re-generation, not by fiat

Chapter 14: God is equally present in all parts and sub-parts

Chapter 15: A multilevel world of loves and propensities

Part III: Identifications

Chapter 16: Discrete degrees in the mind

Chapter 17: Spiritual discrete degrees

Chapter 18: Discrete degrees in nature

Chapter 19: Mind-body connection

Part IV: Applications and Discussion

Chapter 20: Metaphysical comparisons

Chapter 21: Evolution, consciousness, psychology

Chapter 22: Discussion of possible objections

Chapter 23: Future work

Chapter 24: Conclusion

Appendix A: Further resources and select bibliography

(version 1d, 4 April 2009)