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BeginningTheisticScience.com

A website for the book by Ian J Thompson:

"Rational Scientific Theories from Theism"

 

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Table of Contents

 (for brief chapter summaries, go here).

  • Preface
  • Part I. Preliminaries
    • 1. Introduction
      • 1.1 Theistic postulates
      • 1.2 Theism and science
      • 1.3 Laying the foundations
    • 2. A Short History of Theistic Ideas
      • 2.1 Greek philosophical foundations
      • 2.2 Christian theism
      • 2.3 The scientific revolution
      • 2.4 Insights and critiques
      • 2.5 Creation and evolution
      • 2.6 Consciousness and process
      • 2.7 Quantum influences
    • 3. A Way Forward
      • 3.1 Conflict or integration?
      • 3.2 Changes to science
      • 3.3 Changes to theology
      • 3.4 Religious scriptures
      • 3.5 New frameworks
      • 3.6 Authority and evidence

  • Part II. Ontology
    • 4. Power and Substance
      • 4.1 Substance
      • 4.2 Dispositions
      • 4.3 Scientific analyses of powers or dispositions
      • 4.4 Dispositions in nature
      • 4.5 The proposed ontology
      • 4.6 Discussion
      • 4.7 Quantum physics
      • 4.8 Dispositions in psychology
      • 4.9 Intentionality of the mental
    • 5. Multiple Generative Levels
      • 5.1 Beyond simple dispositions
      • 5.2 Derivative dispositions
      • 5.3 Physical derivative dispositions
        • 5.3.1 Hamiltonians, wave functions and measurements
        • 5.3.2 Virtual and actual processes
        • 5.3.3 Pregeometry and the generation of spacetime
      • 5.4 Psychological derivative dispositions
      • 5.5 Analysis of generative sequences
        • 5.5.1 Principal, Instrumental and Occasional causes
        • 5.5.2 Causal sequences in physics
        • 5.5.3 Conditional Forward Causation
    • 6. A Dynamic Ontology
      • 6.1 Dispositions as units of understanding
        • 6.1.1 Generation + selection as a pattern
        • 6.1.2 Mentality as desire-thought-action
      • 6.2 History of substance
      • 6.3 Natural laws?
      • 6.4 Philosophy of levels
      • 6.5 Identity, change and essence

  • Part III. A Scientific Theism
    • 7. Plan of Approach
    • 8. The ‘I am’
      • 8.1 Being itself
      • 8.2 Assertions that ‘God is X itself’
      • 8.3 The Argument from Being
      • 8.4 Consequences
    • 9. God is Not Us
      • 9.1 Unselfish love
      • 9.2 Selflessness and personal unselfishness
      • 9.3 God is good
      • 9.4 The Argument from Love
      • 9.5 Combining the Arguments from Being and Love
      • 9.6 Analogical and literal language
    • 10. Images of God
    • 11. God is Love
      • 11.1 Love Itself
      • 11.2 Love and substance
      • 11.3 Love and thought
      • 11.4 Summary
    • 12. God is Life Itself
      • 12.1 Life
      • 12.2 Life of created beings
      • 12.3 But we do appear to live!
      • 12.4 Appropriating life
    • 13. God is both Simple and Complex
    • 14. God is Wisdom and Action
      • 14.1 Knowing causes and loves
      • 14.2 Abstract knowledge
      • 14.3 Divine Wisdom
      • 14.4 Relating Love and Wisdom
      • 14.5 God as the source of our own understanding
      • 14.6 God is Action
      • 14.7 A triad within God
    • 15. God is Transcendent and Immanent
      • 15.1 Transcendence
      • 15.2 Immanence
      • 15.3 Omnipotence
      • 15.4 Eternity
    • 16. We Act Sequentially
      • 16.1 Time
      • 16.2 Foreknowledge
      • 16.3 The future
      • 16.4 Freedom
    • 17. We are Composite, as Spiritual, Mental and Physical
      • 17.1 Retaining life
      • 17.2 Spiritual, mental and physical
      • 17.3 Realms
    • 18. We are Sustained by Influx From God, Directly and Indirectly
      • 18.1 Spiritual, mental and physical operations
      • 18.2 Is this occasionalism?
      • 18.3 Multiple spaces and discrete degrees
      • 18.4 Consequences of discreteness
      • 18.5 Direct and indirect life from God
      • 18.6 Influx
      • 18.7 Consciousness
    • 19. God is Equally Present in All Subparts
      • 19.1 Subparts as enneads
      • 19.2 Explorations
    • 20. The Theistic Universe
      • 20.1 Support for the dynamic ontology
      • 20.2 Life from God
      • 20.3 Mirrored functions as correspondences
      • 20.4 Persons and their identity
      • 20.5 Intentionality
      • 20.6 Law and divine intervention

  • Part IV. Theistic Science
    • 21. Methods
      • 21.1 Beginning theistic science
      • 21.2 Methodology of levels
    • 22. Discrete Degrees in the Mind
      • 22.1 Minds
      • 22.2 Microscopic mentality
      • 22.3 Whole-person mentality
      • 22.4 Order of production vs order of growth
      • 22.5 Substructures
      • 22.6 Stages of emotional development
    • 23. Spiritual Discrete Degrees
      • 23.1 What is the spiritual?
      • 23.2 Common misconceptions
      • 23.3 Sub-degrees of the spiritual
      • 23.4 Spirituality in life
      • 23.5 Heavenly states
    • 24. Discrete Degrees in Nature
      • 24.1 Physical sub-degrees
      • 24.2 Sub-sub-degrees of the physical
      • 24.3 Existing physics
      • 24.4 Selections: new physics?
      • 24.5 Pre-geometry: new physics?
    • 25. Mind-body Connections
      • 25.1 Relations between degrees
      • 25.2 Mind-body connections
      • 25.3 Correspondences
      • 25.4 Distinct minds and bodies
      • 25.5 Spiritual-natural relations
      • 25.6 The human (functional) form

  • Part V. Applications
    • 26. Evolution
      • 26.1 Causal explanations
      • 26.2 God needs evolution
      • 26.3 Descent by modification
      • 26.4 Why evolution is true
      • 26.5 Evidence
    • 27. Consciousness
      • 27.1 The hard problem
      • 27.2 Awareness
      • 27.3 What awareness is not
      • 27.4 Awareness in animals and plants
      • 27.5 Timing issues
      • 27.6 Parapsychology
    • 28. Spiritual Growth
      • 28.1 The need for spiritual growth
      • 28.2 Permanent development
      • 28.3 What spiritual growth is not
      • 28.4 Stages of spiritual growth
    • 29. Errors and Evils
      • 29.1 The problem of evil
      • 29.2 Mackie’s logical problem of evil
      • 29.3 Divine versus Absolute omnipotence
      • 29.4 Real questions

  • Part VI. Discussion
    • 30. Metaphysics
      • 30.1 Rational theology
      • 30.2 Firsts and lasts
      • 30.3 Rationality and love
      • 30.4 Divine immanence
      • 30.5 Mental dualism
    • 31. Formal Modeling
      • 31.1 Is modeling possible here?
      • 31.2 Physical models
      • 31.3 Causal sets
      • 31.4 Associative spaces
      • 31.5 Cognitive and connectionist nets
      • 31.6 Self-aware artifacts?
      • 31.7 The recursively nested hierarchy
    • 32. Possible Objections
      • 32.1 Logical formulation
      • 32.2 Philosophy
      • 32.3 Theology
      • 32.4 Psychology
      • 32.5 Biology
      • 32.6 Physics
    • 33. Conclusions
    • Appendix A. Theistic Postulates
    • Appendix B. Further Resources

  • Bibliography
  • Index

 


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