Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God
Purported evidence for purposeful divine action in the cosmos may appear to warrant describing God as personal, as Swinburne proposes. In this paper, however, I argue that the primary understanding of what is meant by a person is formed by the experience of ‘I’ – ‘you’ or second-person relatedness,...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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European Journal for Philosophy of Religion
2013
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| _version_ | 1797111649088307200 |
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| author | Pinsent, A |
| author_facet | Pinsent, A |
| author_sort | Pinsent, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Purported evidence for purposeful divine action in the cosmos may appear to warrant describing God as personal, as Swinburne proposes. In this paper, however, I argue that the primary understanding of what is meant by a person is formed by the experience of ‘I’ – ‘you’ or second-person relatedness, a mode of relation with God that is not part of natural theology. moreover, even among human beings, the recognition of purposeful agency does not invariably lead to the attribution of personhood in the usual sense. ‘Person’ is therefore a misleading term to use of God on the evidence of cosmic purpose alone in the absence of suitable revelation. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:11:49Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:eb56b612-7ef9-4c56-8f8a-5369a97243b0 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:11:49Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | European Journal for Philosophy of Religion |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:eb56b612-7ef9-4c56-8f8a-5369a97243b02023-11-30T10:05:56ZCosmic purpose and the question of a personal GodJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:eb56b612-7ef9-4c56-8f8a-5369a97243b0EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion2013Pinsent, APurported evidence for purposeful divine action in the cosmos may appear to warrant describing God as personal, as Swinburne proposes. In this paper, however, I argue that the primary understanding of what is meant by a person is formed by the experience of ‘I’ – ‘you’ or second-person relatedness, a mode of relation with God that is not part of natural theology. moreover, even among human beings, the recognition of purposeful agency does not invariably lead to the attribution of personhood in the usual sense. ‘Person’ is therefore a misleading term to use of God on the evidence of cosmic purpose alone in the absence of suitable revelation. |
| spellingShingle | Pinsent, A Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God |
| title | Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God |
| title_full | Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God |
| title_fullStr | Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God |
| title_short | Cosmic purpose and the question of a personal God |
| title_sort | cosmic purpose and the question of a personal god |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT pinsenta cosmicpurposeandthequestionofapersonalgod |