The Coherence of Naturalistic Personal Pantheism

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (1):75 (2020)
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Abstract

This paper examines the coherence of naturalistic personal pantheism in an attempt to reconcile pantheism, naturalism, and a personal concept of God. NPP proposes that i) God is identical with the universe, ii) the universe is entirely natural, and iii) God is personal. Several critics of accounts of a God such as this have voiced concerns about a natural — as opposed to a supernatural — God, since a natural God cannot be worship-worthy. In response, I propose a controversial premise — physical primacy — to justify the worship-worthiness of a natural God. Physical primacy maintains that physical existence is a great-making property, therefore a God that exists naturally is greater than a God that exists supernaturally. I maintain that NPP is an attractive alternative to other theisms because it bypasses the pairing problem, presents a worship-worthy concept of God, and boasts ontological simplicity.

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Asha Lancaster-Thomas
University of Birmingham

Citations of this work

Pantheism.Michael Levine - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Pantheism.William Mander - 2016 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Moses Mendelssohn, Spinozism, and the Limits of Divine Knowledge.Kay Malte Bischof - 2024 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 41 (3):227-250.

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References found in this work

Philosophical Naturalism.David Papineau - 1994 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (4):1070-1077.
Theology and falsification.Antony Flew & Basil Mitchell - 2000 - In Steven M. Cahn, Exploring Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 28-29.
Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity.Michael P. Levine - 1994 - Religious Studies 32 (2):285-286.
The Awe-some Argument for Pantheism.T. Ryan Byerly - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (2):1-21.

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