A note on Morato on modality and explanation

This brief note critically assesses the central arguments in Morato’s (Erkenntnis 79:327–349, 2014) recent contribution to the growing literature on Blackburn’s dilemma about necessity. In particular, I demonstrate that (i) neither of Morato’s two novel reconstructions of the dilemma’s contingency horn succeed, since both turn on false premises; and, (ii) Morato fails to adequately motivate his own response to these reconstructions. The upshot is that Morato has set himself a pair of flawed problems, then offered a flawed solution

A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity

This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated

But consciousness isn't everything.

Comments on an article entitled `No Good News for DATA,' by Norman Lillegard in the Spring 1994 issue of `Cross Currents' magazine. Lillegard's stand that the android Commander Data in `Star Trek' fails to satisfy the biblical conception of persons; Lillegard's presentation of models that espouse functionalist theories of mind; Views of the essence of the human person

Behind, Between, and Beyond Anthropomorphic Models

The plurality of models of ultimate reality is a central problem for religious philosophy. This essay sketches what is involved in mounting comparative inquiries across the plurality of models. In order to illustrate what advance would look like in such a comparative inquiry, an argument is presented to show that highly anthropomorphic models of ultimate reality are inferior to a number of competitors. This paper was delivered as a keynote address during the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God

The State of Science-and-Religion Scholarship At The Turn of the Century

In this keynote address to the 2000 Science and Religion Colloquium, the author not only describes and assesses the state of religion-and-science scholarship at the turn of the century hut also proposes a new approach for guiding it into the new century. After surveying the multifaceted terrain of recent research and identifying significant areas of current activity, Dr. Wildman forwards three theses regarding the future of religion-and-science scholarship. Such scholarship should make itself intelligible to the general public by avoiding methodological debates, employ multi-disciplinary resources in approaching research questions, and adopt a problem-oriented framework in handling complex, contemporary problems

The Divine Action Project, 1988–2003

This article explores the state of the art in theories of special divine action by means of a study of the Divine Action Project (DAP) co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley. The basic aim is to introduce the DAP and to summarize its results, especially as these were compiled in the final “capstone” meeting of the DAP, and drawing on the published output of the project where possible. The subsidiary aim is to evaluate criticisms of theories of special divine action developed within the DAP.ye