6 - Naturalism(s) and the Theological Turn

Summary

Part 1 of this project can be considered largely deflationary, insofar as it offers critiques of contemporary divine action theories and, in particular, those theories privileging the human mind as a uniquely spiritual nexus for divine action. My overall goal in Part 1 was to argue two broad points. First, noninterventionist divine action theories presuppose questionable metaphysical commitments and are both scientifically flawed and theologically inadequate. Second, while theologians overwhelmingly privilege the mind as ontologically unexplainable in scientific terms or as being uniquely spiritual, we have good reason to assume that a fully naturalistic explanation for consciousness is (in principle) available. In sum, I argued that standard divine action theories in general are insufficient, and particularly that this is the case insofar as one locates divine action in the supposedly nonphysical human mind.