Abstract
In this paper, I examine Mark Johnston’s panentheistic account of the metaphysics of the divine developed in his recent book, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry (2009). On Johnston’s account, God is the ‘Highest One’ and is identified with ‘the outpouring of Being by way of its exemplification in ordinary existents for the sake of the self-disclosure of Being’ (Johnston 2009, 158). Johnston eschews supernaturalism and takes his position to be consistent with what he calls ‘legitimate naturalism’ which he takes to be some version of ontological naturalism. But, as I will argue in what follows, Johnston’s legitimate naturalism is not clearly ontological naturalism. In what follows, given the other general features of his account, I argue that if we assume ontological naturalism, we should prefer a pantheistic conception of God over a panentheistic conception of God such as the one Johnston proffers. I take it that we can preserve everything Johnston wants in his account of divinity if we accept pantheism; but, if we wish to purge our conception of God of any supernaturalism, we should accept pantheism.
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Notes
By ‘theological realism’ I simply mean the conjunction of theological cognitivism and the commitment to at least some theological statements being true.
The most detailed and sympathetic critical review of Johnston’s book of which I am aware is Bishop 2012.
Aquinas discusses analogical predication in Summa Theologiae I, q. 13.
In the interest of full-disclosure, unlike Johnston, I take constitution to be identity (see Noonan 1993 for a defense of taking constitution to be identity).
Heil and Robb (2003) call this principle (P) and regard it as the source of many of the problems characteristic of recent work on the metaphysics of mind.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2013 meeting of the British Society for Philosophy of Religion at Oriel College, Oxford, UK. Thanks are due to the members of the audience on that occasion for their helpful comments. My work on this paper was generously supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (Yujin Nagasawa was my co-investigator) supporting research on “Alternative Concepts of God.” The views expressed in this paper do not reflect those of the John Templeton Foundation.
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Buckareff, A.A. Pantheism and Saving God . SOPHIA 55, 347–355 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-016-0517-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-016-0517-1