Exploring Classical Theism and Physicalism :: Religion

Exploring Classical Theism and philistinismABSTRACT Could a upright theistical be a physicalist? Although a negative answer to this question may seem obvious, it turns out that a case can be made for the consistency of a shape of classical theism and world-wide supervenience physicalism. Although intriguing, the case ultimately fails due to the weakness of global supervenience as an account of the dependence of mental on physical properties.physicalism is popular these days, and to a lesser extent so is classical theism. It should and then come as no surprise that a number of theists be bent on combining theism with physicalism. tho could a classical theist be a physicalist? Is this a coherent doctrinal combination? The classical theist affirms the metaphysically necessary existence of a concrete, purely spiritual, being upon which each other concrete being is ontologically dependent. The physicalist, however, is committed to the proposition that everything, or at least eve rything concrete, is either physical or pay offd by the physical. To be a bit more slender, physicalism is usefully viewed as the conjunction of an inventory thesis which specifies physicalistically admissible individuals and a determination thesis which specifies physicalistically admissible properties.(1) What the inventory thesis says, at a prototypical approximation, is that every concretum is either a physical point in time or composed of physical items. As for the determination thesis, what it says is that physical property-instantiations determine all other property-instantiations equivalently, every nonphysical property-instantiation supervenes on physical property-instantiations. These around characterizations suggest that theism and physicalism logically exclude one another. If graven image as classically conceived exists, then the inventory thesis is violated not every concrete entity is either physical or composed of physical items. And if God exists, it would also appear that the determination thesis is flouted Gods instantiation of his omni-attributes does not supervene on His instantiation of any physical properties He has none. So at first stare it seems almost crashingly obvious that the classical theist cannot be a physicalist.But this talk cannot end just yet. For when we get down to the details of formulating precise versions of both the inventory and determination theses, it turns out that there is a commission to attempt the reconciliation of theism and physicalism. It is the viability of this way that I aim to explore. But first some background.Towards Nonreductive PhysicalismI will take it for granted that a plausible version of physicalism cannot be either eliminativist or reductionist.