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In Our Own Image

In Our Own Image

Anthropomorphism, Apophaticism,
and Ultimacy
Wesley J. Wildman
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mentors on the way
Preface
“God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of
ourselves.’ ”
(Genesis 1:26, New Jerusalem Bible)
The nineteenth-century Masters of Suspicion—Feuerbach, Marx,

Nietzsche, Freud—said it. The twenty-first century Four Horsemen of
New Atheism—Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens—said it. Every
village atheist who stood on a soap box in the town square said it: we make
God in our own image. We are instinctively anthropomorphic in our ways
of thinking about ultimate reality. It is humanly contoured stories that
cling to our memories, bringing comfort under pressure, and hope for
something better. It is the narratives of God as an aware and active being
that grab our attention, create potent social glue, and enhance our ability
to define our group over against outsiders. Anthropomorphism works for
our species. The sciences of cognition and culture have established this
beyond reasonable doubt.
The staggering host of stories about ultimate reality only confirms the
point: we make God (Gods and other invisible agents) in our own image.
Ours is an extravagant, even profligate anthropomorphism. Apparently
the world imposes few constraints on models of ultimate reality: like
unbelievably lucky chefs, we just grab whatever is ready to hand when
we cook up our stories about the final purpose of life and the ultimate
reality in which we live and move and have our being, and everything
just comes out tasting great.
As long as the humanly shaped stories work, we find ourselves spir-
itually oriented to the challenges of our existence, thanks to the special
magic that weaves existentially potent rainbows from the straw of con-
fidence in anthropomorphic ultimacy images. When those stories stop
working, the deities they conjured are abandoned to bury themselves in
the overpopulated graveyard of Gods. Most of those Gods are now
completely forgotten; only a few possess literary gravestones to assist
the archeological excavations of later theologians.
Preface
The pervasive reality of anthropomorphism in human religion

inspires in the inattentive amateur the specter of unbridled fantasy
mated with unconstrained relativism, their dark offspring inducing
despair within the sincere, and raucous laughter within the cynical.
What’s the point of trying to think our way through this morass?
Theological argument seems pointless, nothing more than gross satis-
faction of the instinctive needs of one or another story-telling assem-
blage of witless human beings.
Specialist philosophical theologians who invest in studying multiple
models of ultimate reality demur. There can be better and worse
in models of ultimate reality! Theological thinking need not be a mere
slave to the self-justifying needs of religious groups! When we slow
down and consider the matter carefully, we find that the universal
territorial claims of anthropomorphism can be, and indeed have been,
contested within philosophical theology. We discover that we philo-
sophical theologians can learn to identify and hold in check our own
anthropomorphic cognitive-emotional tendencies, which dramatically
changes the prospects for evaluating the relative plausibility of ultimacy
models. A properly prepared comparative approach to philosophical
theology can make sense of, and perhaps even tame, the relativistic
lunacy of anthropomorphic religious ideas, framing the best of them
as conceptual models of an ultimate reality that necessarily surpasses
the complete cognitive grasp of any possible being.
This is apophaticism: the acknowledgment that ultimate reality
necessarily surpasses the complete cognitive grasp of any possible
being, and therefore that cognitive breakdown will be the fate of every
endeavor to model ultimate reality. But the apophaticism at work in this
book does not lead merely to poetic gestures on the way to turning away
from language altogether. On the contrary, apophaticism, properly
understood, is radically permissive, promoting precision and play, and
inspiring vigorous conceptual wrangling until the very last and best of
our concepts fracture into shards at our clay feet.
This book mounts a reverent comparative competition among three
classes of models of ultimate reality. The entrants are: agential-being
models (e.g. classical theism, where a not-less-than-personal God is the
ultimate reality), subordinate-deity models (e.g. process theism, where a
somewhat personal God is a component within ultimate reality), and
ground-of-being models (e.g. religious naturalism, where ultimate real-
ity is conceived as the axiological depths and dynamics of nature itself,
and might be given theistic or non-theistic formulations). To render
this comparative competition optimally fruitful, I begin by defining
terms and laying out a systematic derivation of several classes of models
viii
Preface
of ultimate reality (Chapter 1). I also present an analysis of anthropo-

morphism as a multidimensional construct that plays a major role both
in the construction of models of ultimate reality and in the evaluation of
their relative plausibility, along with a description of the role of apopha-
ticism in modeling ultimate realities (Chapter 2).
Preliminaries in place, each of the next three chapters focuses on one
class of ultimacy models, describing and parsing the models within
the class so as to locate their most plausible representatives, and subse-
quently identify their strengths and weaknesses. Each of these chapters
begins by introducing a key consideration in the comparative competi-
tion that is most threatening to the relative plausibility of the class of
models discussed in that chapter: the Central Result of the scientific
study of religion (Chapter 3), the problem of the One and the Many
(Chapter 4), and the existential and social potency of ultimacy models
(Chapter 5). Each of these three chapters ends by relating what has been
discussed to the three dimensions of anthropomorphism. Chapter 6
adjudicates the competition and draws relevant conclusions. An After-
word offers a meditation on the processes by which philosophical
theologians come to find themselves committed to some criteria for
evaluating the relative plausibility of ultimacy models while equally
committed to minimizing other such criteria.
I take the natural and social sciences to be important factors in evalu-
ating the relative plausibility of competing models of ultimate reality.
These factors are taken up in a companion volume (see below for
details). By complementary contrast, the present book focuses on the
metaphysical, moral, existential, spiritual, and communal consider-
ations involved in assessing the relative plausibility of ultimacy models.
This book has a wider context that may be helpful to describe. This is
the second volume of my Religious Philosophy Series, and the fourth to
be completed. Here is the complete list.
• Volume 1: Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative

Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of Religion (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2010).
• Volume 2: In Our Own Image: Anthropomorphism, Apophaticism, and
Ultimacy (this volume).
• Volume 3: Science and Ultimate Reality (this is the companion
volume to In Our Own Image, completing a wide-ranging comparative
analysis of ultimacy models).
• Volume 4: Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative
Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).
ix
Preface
• Volume 5: Religious and Spiritual Experiences (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2011).
• Volume 6: Effing the Ineffable: Existential Mumblings at the Limits of
Language (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2018).
These volumes constitute my philosophical theology. The consistent

point of view depicted in them might be called ground-of-being theism,
religious naturalism, or apophatic mystical philosophy. I could live with
any of those names, so long as they are not construed in such a way as to
exclude the others. Volume 1 contains epistemological prolegomena,
including a post-foundationalist, pragmatic theory of inquiry informed
by the biological and social sciences. Volume 2 (this book) and volume 3
(its companion) consider ultimate reality through the device of a rever-
ent comparative competition. Volume 4 discusses the human condition
in its biological and social aspects, arguing that we are homo religiosus, in
a quite particular sense. Volume 5 discusses the wellspring of human
spirituality, religious and spiritual experiences, in biological, neuro-
logical, evolutionary, psychological, and social perspectives. Volume 6
is about religious language and tries to eff the ineffable, piece-wise,
through a series of meditative philosophical reflections on ultimacy
talk. All of the volumes arc across the world’s religious and philosophical
traditions and engage whatever academic disciplines are necessary to
make sense of their topics; this is the trans-religious scope of religious
philosophy, as I understand it. They also employ all styles of religious
philosophy at various points: phenomenological, comparative, histor-
ical, analytical, literary, theoretical, and evaluative.
The attentive reader will notice that the themes of these volumes
collectively cover the main loci of a systematic theology as that has
been understood in a variety of religious intellectual traditions. My
intention is to present systematically a naturalist philosophical the-
ology, not on behalf of any religious heritage or institution, but in a
way that befits, and could only ever arise within, the modern secular
academy. This kind of discourse belongs in the university because the
questions involved are intellectually fascinating and existentially
important—and because these questions perpetually arise within
human life. To avoid amateurish coverage, the university must employ
experts who specialize in such questions in the same way that university
experts specialize in every other aspect of human inquiry. These vol-
umes express the topical scope, the literary styles, the trans-religious
orientation, and the interdisciplinary reach of religious philosophy,
including philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. Here
x
Preface
again, I could live with any of these disciplinary names, so long as they
weren’t interpreted so as to rule out others.
Regardless of naming battles, three points have become quite clear to
me. First, religious philosophy as multidisciplinary, trans-religious
inquiry is not currently understood and will not be endorsed by con-
crete religious traditions or by the bulk of their theologian intellectuals.
The critical implications of religious philosophy inevitably tend to
dissolve the social-emotional fabric necessary for robust traditional
religious participation, which is directly contrary to the faith-seeking-
understanding orientation of traditional theologians. Second, the
institutional home of religious philosophy as multidisciplinary, trans-
religious inquiry can only be the secular academy, and the case needs to
be made within the university for the inclusion of religious philosophy
so understood. That is not an easy case to make because the very idea of
religious philosophy is tainted by historical association with intellectual
work on behalf and for the benefit of religious institutions operating
with fides-quaerens-intellectum moralities of inquiry from which the
modern secular university has struggled to free itself, with considerable
success. Third, religious philosophy as multidisciplinary, trans-religious
inquiry is capable of supporting lively spiritual quests. It does tend to
dissolve traditional religious authorities and patterns of participation
but it is also capable of supporting forms of spirituality that self-
consciously engage the world in all of its religious diversity, employing
multiple disciplinary lenses.
Correspondingly, three questions remain unclear. How will traditional
religious institutions respond to the emerging reality, the impressive
plausibility, and ultimately the cultural authority of religious philosophy
as multidisciplinary, trans-religious inquiry? How will universities
respond to the argument that religious philosophy as multidisciplinary,
trans-religious inquiry is properly located there? And what kinds of
sociality might emerge to complement spiritual quests inspired and
supported by religious philosophy as multidisciplinary, trans-religious
inquiry? I intend this book, and the entire series of which it is a part, to
help answer these questions.
xi
Acknowledgments
Some of the material in this book is adapted from existing publications.

I acknowledge the publishers of those prior publications, as follows.
“Incongruous Goodness, Perilous Beauty, Disconcerting Truth: Ultim-
ate Reality and Suffering in Nature,” in Nancey Murphy, Robert
J. Russell, and William R. Stoeger (eds), Physics and Cosmology: Scientific
Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil (Vatican City State: Vatican
Observatory; Berkeley, CA: Center for Theology and the Natural
Sciences, 2007): 267–94; “Reframing Transcendence: Conditions for
the Compatibility of Ground-of-Being Theism and Religious Natural-
ism,” in Niels Gregersen and Mikael Stenmark (eds), Naturalism and
Beyond: Theology and the Varieties of Naturalism (Leuven: Peeters, 2016):
124–50; and “Religious Naturalism: What It Can Be, and What It Need
Not Be,” Philosophy, Theology, and the Sciences 1/1 (2014): 36–58.
I wrote much of this book while a member at the Center of Theology
Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. I gratefully acknowledge the fellow-
ship that made possible my engagement with that extraordinary
collegium of scholars. My conversations with fellow members helped
me formulate a number of the arguments in these pages. The arguments
of this book have also benefitted from discussions with many col-
leagues, especially Robert Neville, Philip Clayton, and Steven Knapp,
and talented doctoral students, especially David Rohr and Andrew
Linscott. I am grateful to John Balch for editing assistance.
I have dedicated this book to a motley crew of mentors. These diverse
and wonderful people have in common their compassion for me, their
interest in my intellectual and spiritual journey, and their prodigious
wisdom—expressed in their words and embodied in their lives. I am
grateful to each one of you.
Contents
List of Figures xvii
1. Ultimacy 1
2. Anthropomorphism and Apophaticism 38
3. Agential-Being Models of Ultimate Reality 82
4. Subordinate-Deity Models of Ultimate Reality 151

5. Ground-of-Being Models of Ultimate Reality 185
6. Conclusion 215
Afterword 220
Bibliography 229
Index 243
List of Figures
1.1. Classification procedure for the ultimacy models under

consideration. 16
1.2. Combinations of ultimacy models and philosophical cosmologies,

with representative ultimacy models located in each class (note:
these representative instances are not the names of the classes). 26
2.1. Three strategies for resisting anthropomorphic cognitive defaults

corresponding to the three dimensions of anthropomorphism.
These are mapped onto a grid depicting the various ways of
combining classes of ultimacy models (U1, U2, U3) with
philosophical cosmologies (C1, C2, C3). 69
Ultimacy
1.1 Introduction
§1. This study is a work of philosophical theology that adopts

the morality of inquiry prevalent within the modern research
university. This requires seeking knowledge without privileging
the special interests of religious or anti-religious individuals or
groups, doctrines, or traditions. The inquiry operates compara-
tively and evaluatively; it is post-foundationalist, coherentist,
and fallibilist in its approach to argumentation, evidence, belief,
and knowledge; and it is conducted within an apophatic frame of
reference that promotes precision and play. Philosophical the-
ology exhibits widely varied attitudes toward the prospects for
comparative inquiry. These attitudes include those of the compar-
ing inquirer, the mono-traditional investor, the multi-traditional
appreciator, the responsible worrier, and the analytical ascetic.
The present study is a natural activity only for the comparing
inquirer, for whom the plural, constructed, and approximate char-
acter of all models of ultimate reality is an intellectual puzzle to be
solved as well as a journey of intellectual (and possibly also spirit-
ual) engagement to be undertaken.
The purpose of this chapter is to prepare for the comparative analysis
pursued in this book by clarifying basic concepts and methods. Prepar-
ation is important for several reasons.
First, this study has the unfashionable identity of philosophical the-
ology in the secular academy, pursued according to the norms of inquiry
prevalent in that venue, and that calls for an explanation. Most
theologians—even philosophical theologians, and (despite the sugges-
tions of the name) many philosophers of religion as well—usually labor
on behalf of the interests, according to the norms of inquiry, and not
1
In Our Own Image
too far from the expectations, of particular religious institutions and

traditions, even when employed in secular academic venues. Many do
so with the utmost skill and critical awareness. Nevertheless, the morality
of inquiry governing this study may strike even the most critically
minded of such tradition-oriented theologians as peculiar. I have pursued
this kind of work in many publications and defended it at length in
Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry, so I will not
repeat here the case for that way of envisioning a future for the philoso-
phy of religion and philosophical theology. Where confusion is otherwise
likely, however, I will endeavor throughout this volume to explain
how my approach to inquiry differs from approaches that are more
widespread within philosophical theology and philosophy of religion at
the present time.
Second, this study is thoroughly post-foundationalist, coherentist,
and fallibilist in its approach to argumentation, evidence, belief, and
knowledge, and that requires explanation. Many philosophical theolo-
gians still argue as if proof and knock-down arguments were meaningful
aspirations in regard to ultimate matters of theological interest. What-
ever proof might mean in mathematics or formal logic—and it is not
straightforward even in those domains—it does not apply in any direct
way to the evaluation of competing systems of thought about ultimate
reality. Fortunately, philosophers of religion and philosophical theolo-
gians are increasingly embracing probabilistic argumentation, rooted in
the awareness that we are really talking about the relative plausibility of
entire systems of thought when assessing competing ideas of ultimate
reality. The existence of a probabilistic approach to argumentation in
other philosophical-theological literature will help the reader locate this
study in the wider field of epistemic possibilities.
Third, this study operates comparatively and evaluatively, and this
also needs explaining. This combination is more often seen in the
apologetic adventures of tradition-oriented philosophy of religion
than in religious-studies-aware forms of comparative philosophical the-
ology such as this one. Yet I am arguing for the possibility of deploying
the comparison of models of ultimate reality not only for the dialogical
goal of mutual understanding, but also for the purpose of evaluating
those models and deciding on their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Finally, whatever ultimate reality is, inquiring into it necessarily
involves stretching reason and language to the limits of their capacities.
Aporias are inevitable. Perspectival shattering may be unavoidable.
These failures of rational reach necessitate artistry in the statement of
theories of ultimate reality and support a variety of expressive strategies,
2
Ultimacy
from systematic exposition to artistic evocation, and from deconstruct-

ive refusal to poetic indirection. With these inevitabilities firmly in
mind, this act of inquiry explicitly takes shape within a broadly apo-
phatic approach to ultimate reality. It is inquiry at the edge of the sword
of futility, but in such a way as to produce not panic or despair but play
and precision. If we are going to play, we might as well play hard.
Some philosophical theologians are relatively optimistic about the
prospects for comparative inquiry into ultimate reality. These comparing
inquirers are likely to grant that all or many interpretations or models of
ultimate reality are more or less compelling—theoretically as well as in
practice within many hearts and minds. They will try to learn about
ultimate reality by comparing these models, seeking ways to manage the
fact of plural conflicting models, perhaps relying on concepts of
perspective-taking or inclusion, superiority or sublation to explain
how Truth Might Be One even though Models Are Many.
Other philosophical theologians reject inquiry into ultimate reality
as fatuous and futile. They argue that inquiry exchanges existentially
vibrant engagement with ultimate reality for an absurdly arrogant
evaluation process in which philosophers decide on matters that neces-
sarily lie beyond the powers of human reason. This group has two
subgroups. The mono-traditional investors urge us to pick a tradition
and invest in it and its internal intellectual debates. These are the
go-deep specialists who navigate the world from the perspective
afforded by their prodigious investment in one particular way of seeing
it. By contrast, the multi-traditional appreciators suggest that we build a
Museum of Models that, like an art gallery, permits the capacious soul
to appreciate each one as a unique testimony to the depth and wonder of
life. We might think of this Museum in more dynamic and embodied
terms as a troupe of gifted dancers, representing both living spiritual
insights and ideas preserved in philosophic traditions whose members
are devoted to commentary and debate, with all of these subtleties
registered in distinctive movements of wrist or finger, thigh or torso.
Investing in a single tradition and appreciating many traditions can
both be practical and honorable ways to manage the problem of plural
models. In either case, however, the comparing inquirer’s theoretical and
existential problem of reconciling conflicting models remains unresolved.
Still other philosophical theologians feel dismayed by the moral pri-
orities of the comparing inquirers, the mono-traditional investors,
and the multi-traditional appreciators. These responsible worriers see the
after-effects and side-effects of religious ideas as they are embodied in
institutions and activated in social contexts. They decry all impractical
3
In Our Own Image
philosophy, and impractical philosophical theology above all, as

wrongly putting the philosopher’s pleasurable pastime before the
world’s pain, as blindly supporting the vested interests of religious
institutions when trenchant critique would be more appropriate, or as
distracting people from pursuing the ultimate paths that lead to liber-
ation. And they particularly hate having their viewpoint labeled,
framed, and hung in the Museum of Models where steely prophetic
edge yields to the infinite nausea of perpetual legitimate contrasts.
Finally, some philosophical theologians take a maximally modest
road. They avoid inquiry and morality, and scrupulously confine them-
selves to analysis. These analytical ascetics try not to construct anything.
They nurture a powerful aversion to direct speech about ultimate reality
under any description, for fear of the stupid ugliness of such Babel-like
intellectual and spiritual ambitions. Such traditions prefer joking eva-
sion, as in many forms of Sufism. Or they police the constructions of
others, looking for signs of structural weakness, turning their discoveries
into indirect testimonies, as in many forms of post-structuralist philoso-
phy. Others make design refinements, operating as mono-traditional
investors engaged in intricate logical analysis and defense of their local
tradition’s beliefs—common activities in the mainstream of what is
misleadingly called “philosophy of religion” and more accurately called
“analytical theology.” Still others are comparativists moving around the
Museum of Models like art critics. However they operate, they remain
faithful to their modest creed and deny themselves the dangerous thrills
of imaginative construction and inquiry aimed at evaluation.
Most philosophical theologians can’t help themselves. Each just
tends to be a comparing inquirer, a mono-traditional investor, a multi-
traditional appreciator, a responsible worrier, or an analytical ascetic.
The best of them can see virtues in every way. But most have a way,
emerging from the exquisite tangle of nature and nurture that defines
preference in human beings, even philosophers. Such philosophic pref-
erences run deep and rarely change more than once in a lifetime, if at
all. For better or worse, I am drawn most strongly to the way of the
comparing inquirer. I recognize the viability of other ways, appreciate
their virtues, and even practice them. But I experience the plural, con-
structed, and approximate character of all models of ultimate reality
intellectually as a puzzle to be solved, and existentially as an invitation
to engage ultimate realty through thinking and feeling and acting
toward a solution.
Keeping these personal differences in mind can help to avoid wasteful
conflicts about ultimacy talk within philosophical theology that arise
due to stylistic variations. Openly acknowledging our preferences as
4
Ultimacy
such honors the wisdom of other ways and prompts us to take seriously
their criticisms of us. In my case, I need to deal with criticisms of
comparing inquiry as a futile and fatuous effort to control the uncon-
trollable, a tiresome and ugly attempt to comprehend the incompre-
hensible, and a morally confused evasion of philosophic responsibility.
Having dealt with these matters at length elsewhere, here I merely
acknowledge the plurality of approaches and associated criticisms and
proceed (see Wildman 2010b).
In what follows, I first define ultimate reality and identify the three
classes of conceptual models of ultimate reality that will concern us in
this inquiry. I then define philosophical cosmology and introduce three
contrasting philosophical cosmologies. Finally, I describe how combin-
ing ultimacy models with philosophical cosmologies yields intelligible
classes of ultimacy models ready for comparison.
1.2 Ultimacy and Ultimacy Models
§2. Ultimate reality is reality as it is most truly, most simply, most

comprehensively, most significantly; it is the final word on reality.
The present study involves articulating, comparing, and evaluating
conceptual models of ultimate reality, which are to be understood as
relatively coherent imaginative constructions aiming to make sense
of such insights into ultimate reality as are available. The Great
Models of ultimate reality are time-tested masterpieces with a pres-
ence in the human imagination across cultural boundaries and
religious traditions. To strike a balance between comprehensiveness
and practicability, this comparative inquiry engages three classes of
models of ultimate reality: agential-being models, ground-of-being
models, and subordinate-deity models. Each class of ultimacy
models boasts a long heritage, impressive explanatory power, sig-
nificant cross-cultural visibility, and considerable internal diversity.
Collectively they cover a good part of the territory of models of
ultimate reality.
Ultimate reality is reality as it is most truly, most simply, most com-
prehensively, most significantly. To offer a theory of ultimate reality is
to mount an inquiry that yields the provisional last word about reality in
these terms. I will call such theories “models” in this work to drive home
the point that we construct them in order to interpret something about
which we sense we have some relevant information, even if our infor-
mation is incomplete.
5
In Our Own Image
It is vital to keep in mind the apophatic framework for the inquiry

undertaken here, because otherwise the attempt to speak a tentative
last word (on anything, let alone ultimate reality) provokes guffaws or
giggles instead of serious investment in the argument. Apophatic aware-
ness involves not only a pressure to silence but also a pressure to speak
what can be said as precisely and perspicaciously as possible—but with-
out vanity and pretention, as a form of playfulness in the face of
ultimate futility. Apophasis is less constraining than it is permissive,
liberating inquiry to proceed seriously without taking itself too seriously.
That attitude of reverent play underwrites the entire argument, even
though to avoid tedious repetition it only surfaces from time to time, as
it does here at the outset.
The value of the category “ultimate realities” for supporting compari-
son of religious ideas across cultures and religions derives indirectly
from the central conclusions of the Crosscultural Comparative Religious
Ideas Project (see the three volumes of results—The Human Condition
(vol. 1), Ultimate Realities (vol. 2), and Religious Truth (vol. 3)—in Neville
2001a, 2001b, 2001c). That project sought to identify, through a rigor-
ous process of comparison and analysis in a community of diverse
specialists, which categories work best to describe what is important
about the ideas of the philosophically suffused, old-literature religious
traditions, minimizing distortion and arbitrariness and exposing hypo-
thetical categories to corrective resources wherever possible. The project
conclusion to which I refer, though for practical reasons not reflected in
the title of the second volume, is that the term “ultimate realities,” while
far more adequate than the terms “God” or “ultimate reality,” never-
theless tends to distort religious traditions that focus on the discovery
and living out of ultimate ways or paths and on freeing people from
unhealthy obsessions (including with ultimate reality). A vaguer cat-
egory encompassing both “ultimate realities” and “ultimate paths” is
preferable—thus “ultimacy” is the preferred term. My interest here,
however, is not as comprehensive; in fact, I am focusing on the com-
parison of metaphysical models of ultimacy. This is why “ultimate
realities” is the appropriate term. My use of the singular “ultimate
reality” combines the possibilities of plural ultimate realities and the
ultimate incomprehensibility of ultimate reality. Thus, I use “ultimate
reality” as the name of the encompassing category for this inquiry, and
always as a specification of “ultimacy”—a specification that explicitly
registers ultimate ways or paths as important but beyond the scope of
the inquiry.
Ultimate reality is a vague placeholder term. Neither its metaphysical
nor its existential meaning is contained in its mere utterance, which
6
Ultimacy
makes it well suited to tolerate a wide variety of specifications. For this

reason, the correspondence of the term to something is not in
question—indeed, this is a trivial issue. The nature of this something
is, however, deeply controverted. Is it a coherent something? Is this
something one or many? Can this something be said to exist? Is it a
something that does anything? Is it finally nothing? Is it merely the
universe as a whole? Does this something change ceaselessly or fitfully
or not at all? Is it not less than personal? The point of inquiry into
ultimate reality is to answer such questions, so far as possible.
Ultimate reality, under a host of descriptions, seems to belong natur-
ally to the overlapping territories of religion and philosophy, where
questions about reality as such arise from different angles. The diversity
of theories or portraits of ultimate reality among the world’s religious
and philosophical traditions is extreme. Without a vague term such as
“ultimate reality” there would be no possibility of saying what these
many acts of philosophical or religious testimony are about. The vague-
ness of “ultimate reality” is extremely useful, as a result. So long as
the term remains properly underdetermined, its use allows us to refer
collectively and fairly—which is to say without arbitrariness or undue
distortion—to the many visions that purport to describe reality as it is
most truly, most simply, most comprehensively, most significantly.
Why not use more familiar terms? The best known alternatives to
“ultimate reality” interfere with achieving the virtue of fairness.
For example, the term “God” or any of its variants is a valuable but
potentially parochial name for ultimate reality, and thus ill-suited to
the task for which I press “ultimate reality” into service. Sometimes
God is treated merely as a component of ultimate reality, as in Alfred
North Whitehead’s thought, rather than synonymous with it. In most
traditions “God” bears specific enough meanings to rule out śūnyatā
(emptiness) or anomia (chaotic lawlessness) or full-blown Manichaean
or Zoroastrian theistic dualism (with two eternally equally powerful and
morally opposed deities), and thus prejudges the nature of ultimate
reality in a way that is decidedly unhelpful for our reverent comparative
competition.
As another example, consider an alternative definition that construes
ultimate reality as “the deepest dimension of being” (e.g. Haught
2007: 88). This definition of ultimate reality takes being for granted as
a context for speaking of ultimate reality—already narrowing the field of
legitimate ultimacy models—and further typically treats ultimate reality
as a Highest Being—narrowing the field still further. Whenever it makes
sense to ask about the logical conditions of something, the ontological
dependence of something, or the context for something, that something
7
In Our Own Image
cannot be ultimate reality in the sense of this book. Something with such
conditions cannot be reality as it is most truly, mostly simply, most
comprehensively, and most significantly; rather, ultimate reality must
be the unconditioned, that which is ontologically dependent only
on itself and on which every being ontologically depends, and that
which is the context for everything and not part of a more comprehen-
sive context. There is a long heritage of philosophical theology in
multiple traditions, theistic and non-theistic, that accepts this way of
thinking about ultimate reality (usually under other names, of course)
and this way of thinking guides the inquiry in this book because it is
the most hospitable to the wide diversity of views we need to consider
and compare.
If we were to adopt a narrow definition for ultimate reality (as the
deepest dimension of being, for example), then we would be unable to
register most models of ultimate reality because it rules them out by
definition—the sign of being a poor host for a meaningful and fair
comparative competition. Asserting that God understood as Highest
Being and That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived is
also ultimate reality, without a painstaking argument to relate this
claim to the long philosophical heritage of ontotheological debate,
amounts to mere language stretching that casually sets aside vast tradi-
tions of philosophical reflection on the logical conditions for the possi-
bility, the ontological conditions, and the context of any possible being.
As we shall see, the varieties of personal theism that are worthy of
participating in this competition as representatives of what I will call
the Great Models of ultimate reality take these ontotheological debates
with great seriousness and correctly worry about the coherence of
asserting that a Highest Being could also be ultimate reality in the
proper sense—thus the concept of divine aseity, which explicitly
addresses this worry. In the short-circuited definition I am questioning,
however, there are no conceptual problems to worry about, and little
need for any inquiry into ultimate reality at all, because the very defin-
ition settles the issue from the outset by delegitimizing most models.
If ultimate reality does turn out to be a Highest Being, or the deepest
dimension of being, then we must discern this as the conclusion of a
careful process of inquiry, not by rigging the inquiry from the outset
using a definition that eliminates the competition. Such alternate def-
initions are not useful—specifically, too narrow and too distorting—for
my purposes.
If an inquiry into the nature of ultimate reality were to stipulate limits
such that a term semantically narrower than “ultimate reality” could
fairly encompass all of the views of interest in the inquiry, then such a
8
Ultimacy
term could potentially be used fairly. The obvious conditions are that
the limits operative in such inquiries are fully understood and the
conclusions of inquiry are interpreted consistently with these self-
imposed limits. Such limited forms of inquiry are amply evident within
particular religious traditions, where ultimate reality is assumed to be
something specific (for example, emptiness or a supernatural agent), to
the exclusion of alternatives. Unfortunately, awareness of the associated
limits and their significance for calling the results of inquiry into ques-
tion are rarely recognized clearly.
There is no surprise here: group-based inquiries are pursued and
supported in large part to satisfy the interests of the group. Moreover,
all inquiries are group-based, in the sense that they take their rise within
tapestries of socialization, elaborating and contesting existing themes
and introducing new threads and textures. The present inquiry is
no exception. Its social location is the modern secular academy, and it
conforms to the morality of inquiry prevalent in the secular academy
rather than to any morality of inquiry that centralizes the interests of a
particular religious tradition or community. This involves refusing
to give privileged epistemic status to purportedly supernaturally author-
ized sources of information (one of the meanings of “revelation”) and
seeking correction from as many disciplines as might be relevant
in order to produce interpretations that survive scrutiny within the
widest possible reflective equilibrium. This present inquiry is, in short,
an instance of religious philosophy as multidisciplinary comparative
inquiry, on behalf of which I have argued at length elsewhere (see
Wildman 2010b). I shall refer to the type of work I am doing here as
“philosophical theology”, but it is philosophical theology as a type of
religious philosophy that I have in mind.
The fact that this inquiry involves articulating, comparing, and evalu-
ating theories or models of ultimate reality (“ultimacy models” for
short) is important. Talk about theorizing and modeling rightly suggests
the plural, constructed, and approximate character of all thinking about
ultimate realities. That such thinking produces manifold theories and
portrayals of ultimate reality is the first fact of comparative religious
ideas and a central problem for philosophical theology. The people who
make these models are curious and creative, gripped by fascinating
instincts and motivations, and typically immersed in great traditions of
philosophical theology. And they have produced extremely diverse results.
These imaginative constructions are also conditioned by the prodi-
giously diverse contexts in which they are first created and then received
and transformed. Their social embodiment leaves models of ultimate
reality vulnerable to exploitation for the sake of the social control for
9
In Our Own Image
which religion is justly famous. Consider the likelihood that, if a (regret-

tably anthropomorphic) model of God as a black person had been
widespread in the early American colonies, enslavement of Africans in
America would have been impossible to rationalize the way it was by
some sincere Christian theologians. Yet the embodiment of religious
ideas also allows models to illuminate and liberate questing souls in
generation after generation. Witness the frequency with which artists
portray liberative figures such as Jesus and the Buddha with the facial
features of local cultures.
Because of social embedding, models of ultimate reality are subject to
correction in a disorganized process of practical and conceptual testing
against the ultimate reality that is actually engaged and registered in
human life (such as it is). Some models fail under the stress of what
amounts to a process of natural selection of ideas. For example, the
shadowy yet potent idea of God as a white man significantly dispersed
in the light of experience in nineteenth- and twentieth-century North
America as the realities of gender and racial oppression increasingly
became evident to large numbers of people. That is slightly encouraging
for empirically minded philosophers who prize referential adequacy in
their models. But perhaps there is no overall progress in the correction of
models of ultimate reality, and all changes are merely of local social
significance, helping people handle cognitive dissonance in relation
to their immediate circumstances. This is surely the case in relation to
practical inquiries that operate without the benefit of historical depth
perception and the stabilizing influence of traditions of theological debate.
In fact, some models survive the tests of time and experience, of
contextual relevance and intricate debate. Some are religiously popular,
such as ultimate reality as one agential being, aware, attentive, and
active—this model has been widely embraced without being universally
accepted ever since the Axial Age dawned some 2,500 years ago, giving
birth to thinking about ultimate reality. Others are not popular—
witness mystical theologies of ultimate reality as blinding darkness,
God beyond God, and reality beyond comprehension; or despairing
models of ultimate reality as meaningless chaos. But all such long-
term survivor models are imaginatively stimulating, conceptually
robust, flexible, plausible, and practical to a superior degree. They can
be theoretically elaborated into comprehensive and consistent systems of
thought. They are repeatedly rediscovered within a single tradition, and
their core instincts almost always appear, reconfigured and reweighted,
in every tradition of philosophical theology.
These are the Great Models, the ultimacy models with which every
student of philosophical theology who lifts his or her eyes above a single
10
Ultimacy
sub-tradition must come to terms. The resulting challenge is how to

manage the plural and constructed character of the Great Models.
A full-blown competition among theories of ultimate reality is
impractical. Preserving some awareness of the pluralism of Great Models
is vital, however, if only to offer some resistance to the parochialism that
plagues so much philosophical theology. With this in mind, the plan here
is to strike a compromise between comprehensiveness and practicability.
Naturally, my own interests affect the way I design this compromise.
We will have to interpret the results of the inquiry relative to this
design limitation. For instance, if the inquiry deals with models A and
B but not models C and D, then we may be able to conclude that A is
superior to B in certain respects and that B is superior to A in certain other
respects, but we may say nothing about how A or B relates to C and
D. Acknowledging such limitations of scope helps to overcome all-too-
often ideologically interested parochialism in philosophical theology.
I shall construct a reverent competition among three important
classes of Great Models, keeping in mind that this excludes some other
Great Models, at least for now. These three classes of Great Models—for
the sake of simplicity, I shall refer to them simply as Great Models when
it is safe to neglect the pluralism within each class—collectively boast a
number of virtues that make comparative inquiry promising. First, each
is richly present in a variety of related forms within the world’s religious
and philosophical traditions. Thus, they benefit from a history of thor-
ough exploration and debate, which yields appealingly sophisticated
and theoretically robust renderings. Second, plausibility of the three
models is impacted by experiential and empirical considerations in
significantly different ways, which is particularly useful for the purposes
of this inquiry. Third, one of the three classes contains the views of
ultimate reality that I have come to find the most convincing, for a host
of reasons including those presented in this book. Explaining and justi-
fying one important but lately somewhat neglected theological view-
point helps satisfy my interests and obligations as a constructive
philosophical theologian.
Note here already the presence of the tentative probabilism and falli-
bilism characteristic of this study. Knock-down arguments are not pos-
sible at this level but we can expect intelligible differences in the
plausibility profiles of the Great Models, and those differences may be
rich enough to underwrite provisional rational assent to one or another
of the Great Models.
These three classes of views are discussed in detail in later chapters.
Here I offer a brief introduction along with an explanation of the names
I will employ for them. I then present the rationale for selecting these
11
In Our Own Image
three views and conceiving them the way I do. I preface these introduc-
tions with the affirmation that I personally find each view endlessly
fascinating and breathtakingly majestic. I also believe there are tempera-
mental factors that cause philosophers and theologians to prefer one
over others, though I shall not pursue the analysis of such factors here.
Despite such personal entanglements, the intellectual and emotional
discipline cultivated within philosophical theology makes it possible to
argue both with and against the current of one’s own temperament,
following the evidence where it leads, so the possibility of some measure
of objective appraisal of evidence persists even in the presence of power-
ful personal preferences.
The first of the three Great Models in our reverent competition is the
class of agential-being theories of ultimate reality. These theories sup-
pose that, whatever else it may be, ultimate reality is an agential being,
aware of reality, responsive to events, and active within the world—and
certainly thus deserving the designation of personal deity even with the
language stretching involved in applying the analogy “personal” from
the human domain. Most versions of this view also assume that this
deity is benevolent and definitive of the good, in a way that is recogniz-
able by and relevant to human beings. The great appeal of this view
is that it automatically vests reality as a whole with personality and
intelligibility, meaning and purpose, goodness and beauty. It does this
in the simplest way possible for human beings because it allows their
self-awareness and relations with other people to function as cues for
conceiving ultimate reality. Every aspect of reality is thus rendered
precisely as coherent as is the narrative of a focally aware and purpose-
fully active personal life. If something doesn’t seem to fit into the
narrative right now, we can trust that it will make sense eventually in
the context of the divine personality; after all, sometimes it takes us a
while to figure out the way another human being thinks and acts.
No homier view of reality is possible—nor is any more threatening
view possible if one were to feel that such an agential deity were one’s
enemy. No theory of ultimate reality is better fitted to the human
cognitive tendencies to attribute intentionality to both patterned
and random events, and to consolidate in-group identity by appeal
to a supernatural power. The close fit between the agential being
theory of ultimate reality and human cognitive biases strikes some
thinkers as highly suspicious, while others interpret it as serendipitous
and evidence of divinely established harmony between God and God’s
creatures. All the views in that class necessarily affirm God’s omnipotence,
in whatever sense it is meaningful for ultimate reality to be powerful.
12
Ultimacy
The second of the three Great Models under evaluation is the class of
subordinate-deity theories of ultimate reality. These views assert that
there is a (or at least one) God, that this God is a being with determin-
ate characteristics, and that this divine being is a component of ultim-
ate reality, a subordinate being playing a role within wider reality.
These views reject the thesis of agential-being theories that ultimate
reality is as integrated and intelligible and morally accessible as a
personal agent, so the deity is always a subordinate component of
the whole.
In ancient Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism, ultimate reality is
defined as the union of the world with the two Gods that govern it—
two Gods equal in power but opposite in moral valence, locked in
eternal battle (at least in the classic forms of these ancient spiritual
worldviews). This is the morally most lucid view of ultimate reality in
the history of religions, since the human obligation is simply to pick a
side and remain loyal to it—a choice that effectively entrains tribal
instincts in a way that comes naturally to human beings. In process
theism, only one subordinate deity is posited but it plays a special luring
and integrating role within a wider cosmic process. This, too, has enor-
mous moral appeal, since we can assert that such a God is omnibenevo-
lent without fear of obvious contradiction from experience. Bad things
happen—that is a part of reality—but the subordinate-being deity is
always trying the divine hardest to make the best of whatever unfolds.
All views in this class necessarily limit divine power in order to allow
God to operate in a subordinate position relative to ultimate reality as a
whole, however that is conceived. But God is still in some sense the
highest being.
The third of the three Great Models in the competitive mix is the class
of ground-of-being theories of ultimate reality. Like subordinate-deity
theories, ground-of-being views deny that ultimate reality is intelligible
in the coherent and focused way required to assert that it is an agential
being. And like agential-being theories, ground-of-being views deny
that the world is self-explanatory and affirm that ultimate reality
must make sense of the fact that reality is axiologically determinate
and ontologically contingent—determinate and contingent in some
sense, that is, but not in the sense required to support attributions of
focal awareness and personal agency to ultimate reality. Ground-of-
being theories of ultimate reality take with great seriousness the post-
structuralist metaphysical and moral critiques of ontotheology, and
accept these critiques insofar as they target the idea of ultimate reality
as a determinate agential being. But there are still determinate patterns
13
In Our Own Image
in the axiological structures and flows of natural reality that demand an

answer to the question of why reality is this rather than that, and why it
is something rather than nothing, and ultimate reality is the venue for
that answer.
Ground-of-being explanations for the determinateness of being
require no “supernature” in the way agential-being theories do. So-
called perennial philosophy is a ground-of-being ultimacy model that
permits a supernatural realm as included within and subordinate to
ultimate reality (see Smith 1992). But many ground-of-being ultimacy
models take advantage of this lack of requirement for a supernature
and repudiate supernaturalism in every form. The lack of a supernature
entails that the way we encounter nature directly reflects the character
of ultimate reality. Agential-being theories and subordinate-deity the-
ories maintain an interpretative barrier between nature and ultimate
reality, which prevents simply reading off the character of one from
the other. Anti-supernaturalist ground-of-being theories do not do this
because they cannot; no supernature means no hermeneutical buffer-
ing. This fundamental contrast produces a corresponding difference in
the way these theories of ultimate reality respond to empirical discov-
eries about reality within the natural and social sciences or to experi-
ence of reality in human life. This point is of the utmost importance
for any comparative evaluation of ultimacy models in light of the
natural sciences.
Now, why select among and parse the wealth of Great Models of
ultimate reality in this particular way? This is a vexed question given
that there exists an extended tradition of philosophical theology in
which ultimate reality is conceived simultaneously as the ground of
being and as a personal, providential, purposeful being.
The definition of these three classes of Great Models registers a large
proportion of the entire complex family of Great Models. The under-
lying classification is designed to yield broadly inclusive classes at the
same time as to give each class determinate characteristics in such a way
as to facilitate comparison. The key to the classification is the following
set of propositions, which is intelligible as a set in this context only if the
propositions are considered in sequence (that is, they could be meaningfully
deployed in other orderings but the present argument requires this
particular ordering).
[URAGENT] Ultimate reality is an aware, agential being.
[URHOLY] Ultimate reality is valuable and intelligible in the manner
required to be properly regarded as Holy or Sacred.
[URINCLHOLY] Ultimate reality includes an aware, agential being
properly regarded as Holy or Sacred.
14
Ultimacy
These propositions involve a combination of ontological and attribu-

tional features, and these complexities will be discussed in a moment.
For now, working through the sequence helps to explain it, keeping in
mind that the propositions are to be understood in a literal ontological
sense, not in any indirect or symbolic way. The fact that awareness and
agency can be understood in concrete, counterfactual terms makes this
interpretative approach feasible—after all, if ultimate reality is an agent
who acts in the world, then the world must be different than it other-
wise would be, which in turn renders the conception of action in
[URAGENT] conceptually clear—but more about that later in the book.
If [URAGENT] is taken to be true, then the result is the large and
diverse class of agential-being theism. If [URAGENT] is taken to be false,
we pass to the next proposition. If [URHOLY] is affirmed, we have the
ground-of-being class of ultimacy models, which is also internally diverse.
If [URHOLY] is rejected, we pass to the next proposition. If [URINCL-
HOLY] is taken to be true, then we have the class of subordinate-deity
views of ultimate reality—once again, a diverse group. If [URINCLHOLY]
is rejected, then we have the class of no-value ultimacy models in which
no special meaning is attached to ultimate reality. Figure 1.1 portrays
the way the sequence of propositions yields the various classes of
ultimacy models.
It is logically possible to apply propositions out of the stipulated
sequence. For example, [URINCLHOLY] could be considered after
affirming either [URHOLY] or [URAGENT]. But logical completeness is
not relevant here. What matters is clearly discriminating classes that
have a high degree of historic importance and cross-cultural promin-
ence, in such a way as to register a reasonably large proportion of the
territory of ultimacy models and to indicate how the three classes of
models being compared here relate to one another. The set of three
propositions, considered in sequence and under the limitations indi-
cated in Figure 1.1, identifies three capacious and intelligible classes of
models of ultimate reality, as well as a fourth class that attaches no value
to the concept of ultimate reality.
In order to capture important aspects of ultimacy models, it is neces-
sary that some of the discriminating propositions include not only
ontological but also attributional features. After all, classes of ultimacy
models possess historic and cross-cultural significance partly because
of their presence within religious traditions, past and present. What
people are prepared to regard as religiously important—this is the
attribution process—determines what can count as historically import-
ant within the landscape of models of ultimate reality. For example, the
subordinate-deity models treat the philosophically and religiously
15
In Our Own Image
[URAGENT]
Ultimate reality is Agential-Being
an aware, agential YES
Models
being
NO
[URHOLY]
Ultimate reality is Ground-of-Being
properly regarded as YES Models
Holy or Sacred
NO
[URINCLHOLY]
Ultimate reality
Subordinate-Deity
includes a being YES Models
properly regarded as
Holy or Sacred
NO
No-Value
Models
Figure 1.1. Classification procedure for the ultimacy models under consideration.
16
Ultimacy
interesting object not as ultimate reality but as a subordinate entity

within ultimate reality. The ground-of-being models regard the philo-
sophically and religiously interesting object as ultimate reality, disre-
garding as relatively religiously unimportant any purported subordinate
entity. Put differently, since it is possible for some ground-of-being
models to be ontologically consistent with some subordinate-entity
models, it can’t be only ontology that distinguishes the classes; attribu-
tional considerations bearing on the focus of religious and philosophical
concern—what people are willing to call holy or sacred—are also crucial.
With these considerations in mind, it should be clear that it is a mistake
to regard this way of rationalizing the three classes of ultimacy models
as purely ontologically driven.
All that said, it is equally important to note that [URAGENT] is purely
ontological in character, with no attributional features. One of the most
important arguments of this book is that [URAGENT] is a conceptually
clear proposition that properly divides models of ultimate reality into
the agential-being class and all the rest. That is, regardless of religious
interests, the class of agential-being models of ultimate reality is onto-
logically well defined. This functions as a premise of the comparative
evaluation to be pursued later so an argument for this premise is of great
importance.
If a theologian were to assert that God is both ground-of-being and an
agential being, there appears to be a contradiction. This apparent
contradiction explains the tension in Western philosophical theology
surrounding the famous Jerusalem–Athens synthesis, according to
which the agential deity so prominent in the Bible is asserted also to
be the very “being itself” of Greek philosophy. The same apparent
contradiction powers the fierce debates between Śaṅ kara’s non-dualist
view of ultimate reality and Rāmānuja’s more personalist model of
ultimate reality within the Vedanta tradition of South Asian philosoph-
ical theology. Both traditions boast streams committed to the compati-
bility of ground-of-being and agential-being models of ultimate reality,
and this would appear to threaten the derivation of classes of ultimacy
models employed here. But appearances are deceiving in this case.
There are four main ways to demonstrate the compatibility of ground-
of-being and agential-being models of ultimate reality. Two of these
involve arguing that one side of the synthesis is to be regarded
as ontologically descriptive while the truth of the other side requires
symbolic mediation. The first says that God is ontologically the ground-
of-being and we can also speak symbolically (but not literally, ontolo-
gically) of God as an intentional agent; that’s German-American
philosopher-theologian Paul Tillich’s approach, most of the time.
17
In Our Own Image
The second affirms that God is ontologically an intentional agent but we

can speak poetically of God in non-personal terms as ground-of-being to
express aspects of God’s personal character that are not much like
human persons, such as omnipotence and omnipresence; this type of
usage is common among personal theists. The third way is to treat both
sides of the synthesis as symbolic and to eschew the attempt to talk
literally about ontology altogether; I take this to be a defeatist position
when pre-emptively invoked, yet one to which we may ultimately be
forced by the persistent failure of attempts to speak ontologically of
ultimate reality.
The fourth way of justifying the Jerusalem–Athens synthesis is to
assert both that God is ontologically ground-of-being and that God is
ontologically an agential being. I consider the coherence of this view
philosophically fragile, despite its presence in several important tradi-
tions of philosophical theology. I will make the case for the incoherence
of this fourth way of understanding the synthesis later, and also defend
the first two ways of maintaining this synthesis (either ground-of-being
ontologically, or agential-being ontologically, but not both). For now, it
is important to understand how the Jerusalem–Athens synthesis is
parsed in the classificatory procedure laid out above. Here’s the rule:
any view that treats God ontologically as an agential being, regardless of
the way phrases such as “ground of being” might also be deployed in
such a view, belongs to the agential-being class of models of ultimate
reality. This is the ontological basis for the sharp distinction between
agential-being and ground-of-being ultimacy models in this study: one
class accepts, and the other rejects, the ontological proposition [URA-
GENT]. Symbolic overlap between the two classes is large, common,
conceptually unproblematic, and largely irrelevant to this inquiry.
1.3 Three Philosophical Cosmologies
§3. The three classes of ultimacy models to be compared require

further specification by being teamed with a philosophical cosmol-
ogy, understood as a vast conceptual hypothesis about reality that
mediates inferential contact between ultimacy models and human
experience of reality. To that end, agential-being models are speci-
fied by teaming them with a supernatural philosophical cosmology,
which permits disembodied forms of focal awareness and agency.
Ground-of-being models are specified by teaming them with a nat-
uralist cosmology, which is defined here as rejecting the possibility
of disembodied awareness and agency. Subordinate-deity models
18
Ultimacy
are specified by teaming them with a process cosmology, which

some argue is a specific variety of naturalistic philosophical cosmol-
ogy. Teaming ultimacy models with philosophical cosmologies is
necessary to construct a comparative inquiry that can benefit from
traction with all forms of human knowledge; this teaming also
specifies each class of ultimacy models by narrowing its internal
diversity. In fact, these three ultimacy models and three philosoph-
ical cosmologies permit six seriously plausible combinations, of
which three are set aside as less robust competitors upon entry to
the comparative competition of this study.
Fundamental physics and biology, mathematics, aesthetics, meta-
physics, and epistemology concern all of reality, in a variety of dif-
ferent aspects. Thus, their discoveries and theories and problems
possess significance for the parts of philosophy and theology that
ponder nature as a whole, and all of these components can be coord-
inated into larger interpretative frames. I shall follow Alfred North
Whitehead (1978) and call these larger interpretative frames “philo-
sophical cosmologies,” collecting philosophy of nature, ontology of
nature, theology of nature, and the cosmological parts of natural the-
ology into the semantic net.
The inferential interface between experience of the world in any and
every sense, on the one hand, and ultimacy models, on the other hand,
is typically “thick” with exquisite complexity. Contrary to the claims of
traditional natural theology, direct inference from facts about the world
to knowledge of ultimate reality is a vain ideal (see Wildman 2006b).
Rather, philosophical cosmology functions as a mediating discipline
between human experience and theories of ultimate reality. Other dis-
ciplines such as ethics can also function as mediating disciplines but the
focus here is on metaphysics and ontology rather than ethics, so this
study considers the way philosophical cosmology mediates inferences
that might run between experience and ultimacy models.
How does this mediation of inferential content by philosophical
cosmology work? Well-developed philosophical cosmologies are vast
conceptual hypotheses. On one side, we can evaluate the theoretical
coherence between philosophical cosmologies and theories of ultimate
reality. For example, a supernaturalist philosophical cosmology is a poor
fit for many ground-of-being theories of ultimate reality, and a naturalist
cosmology is not feasible for agential-being theories of ultimate reality.
On the other side, we can test philosophical cosmologies against current
understandings of the natural world because our experience of reality
can impact the plausibility of such philosophical hypotheses both
positively and negatively.
19
In Our Own Image
It is important to notice that any philosophical cosmology can hold

out against plausibility-reducing considerations if it possesses enough
other virtues. All that is needed is to weight criteria for plausibility in
such a way that the virtues of a desirable philosophical cosmology
count more than its deficits. In practice, these hypothetical philosoph-
ical cosmologies are so rich that they can sustain within their supporting
traditions their own plausibility structures. These plausibility structures
are consistent with but also to some degree independent of universal
rational considerations such as coherence, consistency, applicability,
and adequacy (to recall Whitehead’s famous four criteria of theoretical
excellence). Such philosophical cosmologies die only when their
plausibility structures perish along with the groups that bear them;
witness the fate of Manichaeism, and a host of other long-dead cosmo-
logical visions.
The flexibility of philosophical cosmologies gives them an impressive
buffering quality, which makes experience-rooted comparative evalu-
ation of competing theories of ultimate reality difficult to construct and
manage. But it also correctly recognizes precisely how complex is the
process of comparative evaluation of models of ultimate reality in rela-
tion to the full range of human experience. Fundamental physics and
biology may be able to put pressure on philosophical cosmologies—
some more than others—but we cannot reasonably expect the sciences
to rule out all but one decisive victor. The same goes for other aspects of
human experience. The relationship between experience and theories of
ultimate reality is therefore one of constraint without determination:
experience restricts what we can plausibly affirm about ultimate reality
but we can’t decisively infer a single model of ultimate reality from our
experience of and in the world. There is nothing new in this picture of
human rationality. We know that rational discourse is borne on tradi-
tions of debate, that people routinely disagree on the plausibility struc-
tures appropriate for evaluating competing theories, and that it is easier
to identify inconsistency within the nearly incorrigible sub-worlds of
philosophical cosmology than it is to show that one entire sub-world is
rationally superior to another. This is the philosophical correlate of the
theological problem of religious diversity.
The three Great Models introduced above have close affiliations with
three philosophical cosmologies. As with the theories of ultimate realities
themselves, each so-called philosophical cosmology is a class of views, and
there are intriguing disagreements internal to each class about the advan-
tages and disadvantages of competing formulations. They are significantly
different as classes of views, however, and views within each class react
similarly to empirical and experiential considerations, so it makes sense in
20
Ultimacy
this context to treat each class as one general view, with further details to
be considered when necessary or helpful.
One view is a supernatural cosmology, in which the world of nature is
open to influence and control by agential beings without bodies—
venues of focal intentionality and awareness that are not the emergent
properties of complex systems but are metaphysically basic, and thus
lie beyond the methodological scope and explanatory reach of the
natural sciences. On this view, typically there are agential divine beings
(or there is just one such agential being), and perhaps lesser discarnate
entities (angels, demons, bodhisattvas, devas, ancestors, jinns, ghosts),
with determinate features such as intentions and plans, feelings and
responses, and powers to act in the world. Some of these beings may
be temporal and others timeless; some may be spatially located while
others are omnipresent. This implies that the natural world may have
causal regularities that scientists can identify as laws of nature, but that
those rules are not metaphysically absolute. The normal flow of causal
connectedness can be interrupted at any time for reasons having noth-
ing to do with antecedent conditions in nature. The interruptions may
be miraculous, in the sense of abrogating natural laws, or they may be
somehow consistent with natural laws by working in causal gaps within
nature, if such gaps exist, but they express supernatural intentions
in either case.
Admitting discarnate intentionality and agency is a quite specific use
of “supernatural.” It is not dependent on the meaning of “nature” and
its only presupposition is that we can conceptually distinguish between
intentionality and agency as the emergent features of complex bodily
systems, on the one hand, and intentionality and agency that do not
require complex bodily systems as enabling substrates, on the other.
There are other uses of “supernatural,” including some that have no
relationship to the presence or absence of bodily substrates for inten-
tionality and agency. For example, Catholic theologian Karl Rahner
uses “supernatural” in a beautiful way to describe the graced potential
of every moment and every human life. My usage may have little
bearing on other usages so it is vital to be clear about the sense in
which “supernatural” is used in this study (for further discussion, see
Wildman 2009b, ch. 2).
The supernaturalistic cosmology is a diverse class. It includes the
theistic cosmology of intelligent design, the theistic cosmology of
theistic evolution, the theistic cosmology of Enlightenment deism, the
Trinitarian cosmology of Christian Neo-Platonism, the morally dualistic
cosmologies of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, the ontologically dual-
istic cosmology of Cartesian theism, and the polytheistic cosmologies of
21
In Our Own Image
the ancient world, which persist in quieter forms even today in what
many scholars are willing to call nature religions and tribal religions, what
I refer to as small-culture religions. Yet these diverse views display similar
patterns of logical response to fundamental physics and biology, to meta-
physical and epistemological considerations, and to experience more
generally, and they have in common a relativizing of worldly causal
processes in a wider network of causal agency.
Agential-being theism posits one omnipotent deity with determinate
features as the ultimate reality that creates everything and interacts with
the world according to divine purposes. Thus, any agential-being model
of ultimate reality inevitably invites a supernatural cosmology. The
ultimate-reality deity is responsible for the created world in some ultim-
ate sense. Yet the natural world may or may not reflect the deity’s
determinate character, just as the potter’s clay may be forged into shapes
that both express and fail to express the potter’s personality. This gives
supernatural theism considerable flexibility of interpretation in relation
to the metaphysical implications of empirical and experiential consid-
erations. The regularities of nature and fundamental features of the
physical and biological domains may be created, yet they may or may
not reflect the creator deity’s inmost character.
A second philosophical cosmology is the process worldview, in the
varied senses of Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and
others. This cosmology goes hand in hand with the subordinate-deity
model of ultimate reality discussed above. The process cosmology helps
to establish the ultimacy frame for subordinate-being theism. Process
cosmology is arguably a form of naturalism, in the sense that naturalistic
cosmologies explicitly deny the reality of supernatural entities and
accept that the causal web of the world is unbroken because there is
nothing to break it. The God of process cosmology is a natural entity
within the world that plays a special role in every causal interaction,
while optimizing the accumulating value of the worldly process. This
God is not omnipotent, is not internally simple, does not create the
universe from nothing, and is not the ultimate reality. Yet this God is
still the highest being in a very natural sense. The process God’s deter-
minate character is rooted partly in its primordial nature (which is an
envisagement of possibilities and values that is constantly presented to
the moments of reality), partly in its consequent nature (which is a
value-maximized version of the world’s actuality), and partly in the
dynamics of causal interaction (by which God and the world mutually
influence one another). Ultimate reality is the eternal symbiotic relationship
between this natural God and the rest of natural reality, in which the
two mutually influence and constitute one another.
22
Ultimacy
This implies that there must be a close connection between the dis-
coveries and theories of physical cosmology and the nature of the
process cosmology’s deity. The fundamental causal structure of nature
is not established by the subordinate deity, of course, but values and
abstract concepts may be rooted in this God’s nature, and from there
conveyed to the world, giving the entire cosmos regularity and
meaning. The fundamental physical constants of nature, its beauty and
mathematizability, and the value and meaning that it sustains, all par-
ticipate in and reflect the divine nature. In this way, within the process
framework, physical cosmology can expect to find out about God indir-
ectly as it ventures to form an understanding of nature as a whole.
A third philosophical cosmology is another naturalistic view. I do not
refer to the sensationalist, atheistic, materialist form of naturalistic
cosmology that David Ray Griffin and others have so comprehensively
criticized (see Griffin 1998, chs 1–3, 6, 8; and Griffin 2000, chs 1–3).
Rather, I refer to forms of religious naturalism that comport well with
the ground-of-being models of ultimate reality discussed above (see
Wildman 2014). In this religious naturalist cosmology, ultimate reality
is the creative ground of nature’s being, its axiological depth structures
and flows, the reason nature is intelligible, the structures of intelligibil-
ity themselves, or the condition for the possibility of everything in
this list of possibilities. The scientific exploration of nature as well
as human religious quests are kinds of spiritual or theological exped-
ition, on this view; similarly, the literature of nature mystics and the
poetry of nature lovers is essentially spiritual and theological. Religious-
naturalism cosmology frequently identifies the character of nature as
envisaged in its mathematical and causal and axiological depth struc-
tures with the divine nature, if it receives a theistic formulation. Indeed,
this cosmological framing of the God idea within a religiously potent
form of naturalism radically collapses traditional distinctions between
sacred and secular, general and special revelation, nature and grace,
suffering and bliss, Western theism and Eastern non-theism, theism
and atheism. Non-theistic Buddhists and Confucians find a way to be
at home within the religious-naturalism philosophical cosmology just
as God-Beyond-God-affirming mystics of theistic traditions do.
This religious-naturalist philosophical cosmology shares with process
cosmology the rejection of supernatural entities but it goes further to
reject the idea of God as an entity of any sort, even a subordinate natural
entity as in the process cosmology. From the supernaturalist point of
view this amounts to atheism, in respect of denying that there is an
existent divine being, or to pantheism, in respect of denying a sharp
ontological distinction between God and the world. But identifying
23
In Our Own Image
God with the axiological depth structures and dynamics of reality does
preserve the transcendence of God as ultimate reality while also affirm-
ing God’s immanence in the world process. Moreover, because this God
is ultimate reality, unlike the God of process cosmology, all of nature is
ultimately sacred in its depths—and this has potent implications for
spiritualizing the secular and contesting the human tendency to seques-
ter the sacred. It also has profound, potentially disturbing consequences
for moral reasoning since ultimate reality is at the root of all, not just
what I or my group or my species is willing to call the good.
I suspect that many scientists and philosophers who refuse to identify
with theism and religion do so because they think of theism and religion
in terms of the prevalent supernaturalist cosmology, which strikes
them as philosophically implausible and morally problematic. Daniel
C. Dennett presents an example of this in Breaking the Spell: Religion as a
Natural Phenomenon, where he refuses to allow that the ground-of-being
view (which he calls by other names) counts as a religious view at all.
Dennett recognizes the arbitrariness involved in this stipulation but
argues that he needs to confine the term “religion” to its (prevalent)
supernaturalist meaning in order to make his argument communicate
clearly (see Dennett 2006: 10)—and in this he is doubtless correct,
despite the mistreatment of ground-of-being views that results. Another
example is Richard Dawkins, both in The God Delusion (2006) and in The
Magic of Reality (2011), where his positive view is rightly called “religious
naturalist” according to one widespread usage, and yet he understand-
ably refuses to call his view “religious” because of the deeply misleading
supernaturalist connotations of the term. The dominance of supernat-
uralism in the popular religious imagination has made it impractical
for many scientists and philosophers who hold worldviews akin to the
religious-naturalism cosmology, and ultimacy models belonging to
the ground-of-being class, to describe their view as religious or theistic
(see the analyses of scientists’ worldviews in Richardson et al. 2002).
This study brackets the culturally transient semantic awkwardness of
the terms “religion” and “theism,” and sets aside the associated discom-
fort with using the words. Thus, I comfortably (and, I think, correctly)
attribute a religious-naturalist philosophical cosmology and a ground-
of-being model of ultimate reality to both Charles Sanders Peirce and
Richard Dawkins even though Dawkins understandably refuses to apply
the word “religious” to his own views and the two thinkers have oppos-
ite inclinations about how to use the word “God” (see Peirce 1995 for his
“A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God,” and Dawkins 2006 for
an account of his self-described atheism). This pattern of terminology is
a luxury made possible by technical discourse communities where the
24
Ultimacy
semantic scope of key terms is carefully managed, unlike in the general

public. Such terminological strategies are particularly useful for grouping
allied views into classes whose constituents possess similar philosophical
and theological characteristics and react in similar ways to encounters
with empirical and experiential considerations. Nevertheless, the com-
munication strategy I adopt remains a cultural luxury, the privilege of
specialized discourse communities, and is obviously vulnerable to misin-
terpretation in precisely the ways that Dawkins and Dennett indicate.
These three classes of philosophical cosmologies—I am calling them
supernatural cosmology, process cosmology, and religious-naturalism
cosmology—respond quite differently to the discoveries and theories
of physics and biology, as suggested above (I take that up in a companion
volume, Science and Ultimate Reality). Supernaturalist cosmology teamed
with agential-being models of ultimate reality has the most flexibility
because of the logical space between the character of the natural world
and the character of God as its creator, and thus can remain relatively
independent of empirical and experiential considerations. Religious-
naturalism cosmology teamed with a ground-of-being model of ultimate
reality has the least flexibility in its responses to empirical and experien-
tial considerations because ultimate reality typically just is the mathem-
atical, relational, causal, axiological structures and creative processes of
nature; we encounter ultimate reality in the depths of nature that empir-
ical and experiential considerations disclose. Process cosmology with its
subordinate-entity theism is somewhere in between: empirical and
experiential considerations can disclose value structures that reflect the
primordial nature of the subordinate deity, but the fundamental causal
structures of the universe, and the ultimate reason it is the way it is, are
questions that reach beyond the process deity.
To repeat: my aim here is not logical completeness. Rather, I distinguish
classes of ultimacy models that jointly register a fair portion of the territory
of options and facilitate comparative evaluation in light of fundamental
physics and biology. Nevertheless, there are other ways of combining
ultimacy models and philosophical cosmologies, and reflecting on this
point can help situate the three combinations adopted for this study in a
wider field of possibilities. To portray these options for combination, first
we slightly reorganize the classes of ultimacy models as follows:
U1: the agential-being class of models (unchanged);

U2: the ground-of-being class of models (unchanged); and
U3: combine the subordinate-deity and no-value ultimacy models
into a single class with a “no coherent model is possible” stance
toward ultimate reality.
25
In Our Own Image
Next, we reorganize the philosophical cosmologies as follows:
C1: the supernaturalist cosmology (recall that this view allows

both a natural world and a supernatural world of disembodied
intentional agents such as angels, demons, ancestors, bodhisattvas,
gods, ghosts, and jinn);
C2: the naturalist cosmology, including the process cosmology as
a species of naturalism (recall that this is naturalism in the sense of a
closed causal network encompassing and identifying the physical
world and the axiological world of values, while eliminating disem-
bodied intentionality and agency); and
C3: eliminativism (in the sense of monist materialism that refuses
to treat non-material realities such as ideas and values as ontologic-
ally irreducible, or monist idealism that refuses to treat physical
processes as ontologically irreducible).
The three classes of ultimacy models can be crossed with three philo-
sophical cosmologies. Figure 1.2 presents the resulting classes and illus-
trates each with prominent exemplar views. The stipulated conditions
define a landscape of nine combinations, which reduce to six due to
conceptual compatibility constraints. All six combinations have been
historically important within both theistic and non-theistic religious
C1 e.g. personal e.g. perennial e.g. evolutionary

(supernaturalism) theism philosophy default
C2 e.g. religious e.g. subordinate

(naturalism) naturalism deity
C3 e.g. nothing to
(eliminativism) discuss
U3
U1 U2
(no coherent
(agential-being) (ground-of-being)
model)
Figure 1.2. Combinations of ultimacy models and philosophical cosmologies,

with representative ultimacy models located in each class (note: these represen-
tative instances are not the names of the classes).
26
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If the analysis of the relation of the individual to society is correct,
we are justified in claiming that any adequate statement of the aim of
education must point unmistakably to the idea of the common good.
Education aims so to adjust the individual to the group that the
welfare of society as a whole may be advanced. This adjustment can
be brought about only through participation in social activities, and
thus the aim is constantly realized in the process.
In our democratic society, which makes possible free education for
all of its members, there can be no question of the right of society to
demand that education aim to develop men and women who work
for the common good. It is necessary, then, to analyze this aim of
social efficiency in terms of our society. The equality of opportunity
which we profess to offer is to be thought of in terms of possible
service which may be rendered.
In any community the contribution to the general welfare which
may be made by any one of its members is conditioned by the
interests which the individual has in the general good. The unsocial
individual, the one who seldom responds to the needs of the group,
is out of sympathy with social problems, and contributes little to
social welfare.
But it is not enough that the individual be interested in the common
welfare. Interest may lead him to do that which is harmful rather than
helpful, or it may be that his interest may have no result except to
give him certain pleasurable emotions. There must be added to
sympathy, knowledge. Interest or sympathy in the welfare of society
may furnish the propelling force, but knowledge is necessary for
effective action. The world is full of men and women with the best
intentions who hinder rather than advance the common good.
Since each is responsible not only for his own conduct, but also for
the welfare of the whole group, it is necessary that our education
provide opportunity for growth in intelligence. Our schools have
always emphasized this element in education. We have often
defined the aim of education in terms of the development of
citizenship. Usually the chief qualification of the citizen has been
interpreted to be that knowledge which would enable him to exercise
the right of suffrage with intelligence. We do well, however, to
remember that intelligence must be exercised in all of the activities of
life. Our education must strive constantly to develop men and
women who will be rational at all times. But we may not forget that
our schools have been so much concerned with the intellectual side
of education that they have tended to neglect other elements which
are equally significant from the standpoint of social welfare.
There is still another element which must be added, the habit of
acting on behalf of the group. We all know people who know just
what is demanded in a given social situation; they profess to be
interested in the welfare of the group; but they never act. When their
own private interests are involved they are quick to seize the
opportunity for improving their condition; but in social matters they
are inactive. It is in this particular, rather than in any other, that our
schools fall short. We do much to arouse the sympathy of children in
the general welfare; we give them the knowledge by which their
action may be guided; but we give them little opportunity to form the
habit of social service. This is due to the fact that we so often think of
adult social activities as the only ones that are worth while, forgetting
that for the child the important thing is social activity now and in his
society, that the only way to prepare for adult social effectiveness is
to secure social efficiency on the part of the child.
These questions still remain: how can we, through education,
produce the individual who, because of social sympathy, knowledge,
and activity, will tend to advance the welfare of all; and what kinds of
education meet the demands of the aim which we have set up.
First of all, we must endeavor to produce the individual who is
sound physically. Modern education recognizes the fact that a man’s
usefulness is conditioned by his bodily condition, and is also coming
to find that physical activity is not without its effect on the mental
development and life of the individual. There is, therefore, one large
division of our work which we may call physical education.
On the side of mental development, education consists in
preserving and stimulating the child’s interest in the materials and
processes with which he may come in contact. Intellectual training
aims to develop the man or woman who is mentally alert, active in
investigation, and controlled by reason. It is to this intellectual
education that our schools have devoted the larger part of their time.
The school is the agency set aside by society for transmitting culture,
and the teacher must always concern herself largely with the
intellectual life of children.
Our modern view of education is leading us to stress, along with
physical and intellectual education, a kind of training which aims to
develop the individual whose moral standards are positive rather
than negative. Moral-social education should establish ideals of
social service as well as standards of individual righteousness.
Along with physical, moral-social, and intellectual-cultural
education, there is need for that type of training which will enable
each individual to do some particular work with a high degree of
efficiency. This type of education we commonly call vocational. It is
only recently that we have come to realize that it is not enough to
train an individual with respect to general intelligence and morality,
but that it is also just as fundamental that our education provide the
training necessary for success in the particular calling which each
individual is to enter. For the preparation of clergymen, doctors,
lawyers, teachers, and engineers, whose vocations require a
maximum of intellectual achievement, it is true that we have long had
our vocational schools. We are coming now to appreciate the fact
that equality of opportunity demands that special training be given to
those who are to enter the industries. Indeed, our vocational schools
must multiply until there is training offered for each and every calling
before we can claim to provide that training which is essential for
social efficiency.
Another problem is that of the training for leisure. In society as at
present constituted, it is possible for many individuals, and it should
ultimately be possible for all, to have a considerable amount of
leisure time. The contribution of each individual in his special line of
work, and his general interest in the whole community, will depend in
a considerable degree upon the proper use of leisure time. Our
education must, therefore, attempt to equip men with interests and
ideals which make for the nobler enjoyments.
Keeping in mind the sympathetic, wise, active social individual,
made so by the process of acquiring experience or making of
adjustments, both physical and mental, we have yet to reduce our
aim to the terms of schoolroom practice. What can a teacher hope to
do in this hour, with this group of children to work with?
First of all the teacher can work for the formation of habits which
are socially desirable and for the inhibition of those which are
undesirable. “Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of
which behavior consists.”[1] The school may be a very important
factor in the formation of habits in each of the fields of education
mentioned above. If the school is organized on a rational social
basis, it must continually present opportunities for actions which
should become habitual, and the future efficiency of the learner
depends upon gaining such control of much of the knowledge which
we teach that the response desired becomes habitual. The social
virtues of promptness, regularity, helpfulness, industry, fidelity,
honesty, truthfulness, cleanliness, both physical and mental,
patriotism, and the like, should be made habitual in connection with
the situations which demand their exercise. The physical habits
acquired in childhood are of the utmost significance throughout life.
Much of arithmetic, spelling, writing, geography, history, and even of
literature and art, will be significant in proportion as we have reduced
our knowledge to the automatic basis of habit. One cannot stop to
reason everything out; life is too short. We gain time and energy for
the higher activities of life in proportion as we reduce the responses
which occur frequently to the basis of habits. In vocational schools
one of the chief aims is the formation of habits of skill. Later we shall
want to discuss in detail the methodology of habit formation.
Every teacher recognizes that one of the ends which must be
achieved by the school is knowledge. We shall not here enter into
the discussion of the problem of what knowledge is of most worth,
since for the teacher this choice is usually made and prescribed in
the course of study. One cannot, however, refrain from suggesting
that much that is taught would be eliminated, if we kept constantly in
mind the end for which we strive. The following criteria, proposed by
Professor Frank M. McMurry, will be suggestive from the standpoint
of teaching, whether the teacher determines the curriculum or not.
“We hold to the following propositions in the rejection of subject
matter.[2]
“1. Whatever cannot be shown to have a plain relation to some
real need of life, whether æsthetic, ethical, or utilitarian in the
narrower sense, must be dropped.
“2. Whatever is not reasonably within the child’s comprehension.
“3. Whatever is unlikely to appeal to his interest; unless it is
positively demanded for the first very weighty reason.
“4. Whatever topics and details are so isolated or irrelevant that
they fail to be a part of any series or chain of ideas, and therefore fail
to be necessary for the appreciation of any large point. This
standard, however, not to apply to the three R’s and spelling.”
These criteria indicate clearly that knowledge can never be in itself
an end of teaching. It is not that the child may have knowledge
merely, but that he shall have knowledge which will function. This
knowledge which we seek to have the child master will concern his
physical life, his social relationships, his vocation; and in each field
the knowledge he possesses will limit his intellectual activity.
The school must keep alive, or, in some cases, awaken those
interests which are socially desirable. It is not enough that habits
have been formed and knowledge acquired. Much of the usefulness
of the individual after he leaves school will depend on his interests
which lead him to acquire new knowledge, or to attempt some new
activity. It has sometimes been asserted that the school, as at
present organized, tends to kill rather than to preserve those
interests which are common to little children. It is probable that the
passing interests in things due to curiosity must disappear,
regardless of the education which we give; but it is a poor sort of
education which leaves the child without abiding interests which will
help him not only in making a living, but also in enjoying his life.
Here, as elsewhere in education, we may be satisfied with the result
only when we get the corresponding action. That child has an
interest in good literature who reads good literature. We can be sure
that the boy is interested in natural phenomena when he is willing to
spend his leisure time finding out more about nature’s ways. The
only test that we have of an abiding interest in the welfare of others
is the fact that the child is now active on behalf of others. In like
manner are we to judge of our success in arousing and maintaining
those other interests which are desirable.
Judgments of fact are called for constantly in acquiring knowledge
and in our everyday activity; but no less important in the life of
individuals are judgments of worth. Education must concern itself
with the ideals, purposes, and standards which should be acquired
by children. There is no field in which greater skill is demanded in
teaching than in bringing children to appreciate those things which
are good, true, and beautiful. Ideals, or, for those who do not agree
with them, prejudices, will always be of tremendous importance.
They determine the course of action a man will take. Because of
their ideals men have been willing to labor incessantly for a cause
which they considered just, to give up personal good in the
pursuance of public duty, to lose all, if they might but retain their
honor, yes, even to lose their lives because they felt that this
extreme service was demanded of them. The awakening and
nurturing of ideals of work (or industry), of honor, of duty, of purity, of
service is the greatest contribution of the best teacher.
There is one other aim which the teacher should have constantly
in mind, included possibly in the above, but which needs to be stated
separately for the sake of emphasis, i.e. that children should be
taught how to work independently. The best teacher is the one who
is constantly striving to render her services unnecessary. There is
nothing that the school can do which will take the place of giving the
child knowledge of the most economical means to be employed in
achieving desirable ends. Is it a matter of knowledge, the child
should be made conscious of the methods whereby truth may be
established; is it the need of establishing a new habit, or the
breaking up of the old one, we should make available for the pupil
the principles of habit formation so that he may apply them to his
own case; in matters of right and wrong, the school should have
supplied standards of reference which will help in the difficult
situation. Possibly the great weakness of many teachers in imparting
this knowledge of methods of work is best illustrated by citing the
well-known fact that children of high school, or even college age, are
found very frequently who do not know how to read a book, or study
a lesson assigned. This problem will be treated in considerable detail
when we come to consider the study lesson.
Pupils at work forming habits of thought, feeling, and action;
acquiring knowledge of nature and of society; forming ideals which
make for social well-being; and learning in all of this work to act
independently, to function in the society of which they are a part: this
is education, and these are the goals which we should strive to
achieve every day and every hour that we teach.
For Collateral Reading

Nicholas Murray Butler, The Meaning of Education, Chapter I.
W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process, Chapter III.
Exercises.
1. How would you hope to contribute to the realization of the aim of education in
the teaching of English, arithmetic, cooking, geography, or other school subjects?
2. How would you determine whether or not the children in your grade are
socially efficient?
3. What are the most important subjects, or parts of subjects, which you teach?
Why?
4. How would an application of the aim of education as discussed in this chapter
modify the work commonly done in arithmetic? In nature study?
5. It has been claimed that education should provide for the harmonious
development of all of the powers. Criticize this statement of aim.
6. Could you defend the statement that “the aim of education is to produce
socially efficient men and women,” and at the same time deny that the greatest
individual good comes from working for the general welfare?
7. Why should education be free in a democracy?
8. Is society justified in offering special education to the deficient and the
delinquent? To the especially capable? Why?
9. Is the excessive rivalry which we sometimes foster in our schools compatible
with the aim of social efficiency?
10. Of the several types of education, physical, intellectual, moral-social,
vocational, and education for leisure, which is most neglected?
11. How do you account for the fact that many children cease to inquire, to
investigate, or even to ask questions, although they are regularly taught in our
schools?
12. Why do you teach school? What do you hope to accomplish?
13. Can you name specific instances of changes brought about in children under
your instruction which justify you in believing that you have fulfilled the aim of
education in your teaching?
14. What justification is there for music, drawing, or literature in the curriculum?
15. State briefly the aim of education.
CHAPTER II
T H E FA C T O R S C O N D I T I O N I N G T H E T E A C H I N G P R O C E S S
If it is essential that the teacher approach her work with a clear

view of the ends which it is desirable for her to achieve, it is quite as
necessary that she be conscious of the factors which condition the
teaching process. The school, with its limitations and its advantages,
the community and home life of the child, and, above all else, the
child himself, his instincts, impulses, and abilities must be the subject
of most careful study. Much progress has been made in recent years
because of a better understanding and a more sympathetic attitude
toward children. Teachers are beginning to see that education has its
beginning in, and that it is always conditioned by, the life of the child
outside of the school building. The possibilities of the school as an
institution for the education of children are just beginning to be
realized.
While it is true that the school shares with the home, the church,
and the community at large the education of children, no one can fail
to recognize the fact that the responsibilities and the activities of the
school have been very greatly augmented during the past few
decades. Where other institutions have lost or have become less
effective, the school has gained, or has been forced to accept new
responsibilities. Changed industrial conditions and life in cities have
made it impossible for the home to continue to hold the important
place which it once occupied in preparing its members for efficient
participation in the productive activities. Whether we like it or not, we
are forced to admit that the church no longer exerts the power over
the lives and conduct of men that it once did. Along with the
specialization of function which is so characteristic of our modern
life, citizenship in our democracy has come to require less of that
type of participation in public affairs which was once a great
educative factor in our community life.
As these changes in the effectiveness of other institutions have
taken place, men have looked to the schools to make good the
deficiency. The schools have responded to the demand made upon
them. Our curriculum no longer consists of the three R’s. Cooking,
sewing, gardening, and many other kinds of manual work, music,
physical training, and fine art are already found in our courses of
study. We are coming to recognize the need for more systematic
training in morals and civics, and vocational training is being
introduced.
What is the significance of these changes for teachers? Is it not
true that they must teach whatever is demanded by the course of
study; and is not this the only difference in the teacher’s function
brought about by changed conditions? The answer is, most
emphatically, no. The situation which has already made necessary
the change in curriculum demands also changes in method quite as
revolutionary. It is more essential to-day than ever before that the
school present opportunities for coöperation and for group work, a
chance for pupils to work together for common ends, because there
is so much less demand of this sort made upon children outside of
school than was formerly the case. We ought to do more than we do
to develop the independence and the self-reliance which were so
characteristic of the boy and girl who lived in an environment which
constantly made heavy demands upon their strength, skill, and
ingenuity. The responsibility for taking the initiative, and of measuring
the success of one’s efforts by the results produced, is all too
uncommon in the lives of our children. The school must, if it is to
adequately meet its enlarged responsibility, develop those habits of
thought and action which enable one to get along with his fellows.
The school life of the child must, in so far as this is possible, present
such opportunities, make such demands, and judge results by
standards essentially social. The child must learn in school to serve,
to accept responsibility, and to produce results socially valuable. We
could do much to increase the efficiency of the school if we planned
more carefully to have schoolroom activities find their application in
the homes of children.
School education begins not with the ignorance of children, but
with their knowledge. Children come to us with a great wealth of
experience. Our work as teachers is to enlarge and to interpret this
experience, to give it greater meaning and significance. Can any one
question, then, the necessity for acquaintance with the life of the
child outside of school? And this study of the out-of-school
environment must continue as long as the child is in school, if the
teacher’s work is to be most effective. It makes a great deal of
difference when you wish to teach nature study that your children
have always lived in the city, at a considerable distance from a park.
The problem of teaching a great commercial center to children living
on farms presents some difficulty. But it is not alone these more
gross differences in the lives of children which demand our attention.
There are differences in ideals, differences in social custom, in short,
in ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, which one must know if one
would claim any adequate knowledge of the child to be taught.
Probably the best opportunity to gain this intimate knowledge of the
lives of children whom we teach is to be had in the work with parents
and older brothers and sisters which should be carried on in the
school building when the smaller children are not present. The
school which is a center of community life, a place for study, for
recreation, for physical development, and for social intercourse is the
school that is fulfilling its mission in the life of the people; and the
teacher who works in such a school will know her children.
There is one other responsibility which we as teachers must
acknowledge which again leads us beyond the schoolroom. We
should work for the welfare of our children during the time that they
are not with us. No other body of men and women knows the needs
of these children better than we do. Our work is conditioned by the
life of the child before he comes under our influence. Our work is
ofttime of no effect because of the adverse conditions outside of the
school. What does it matter that we try to develop morality in
children, when the forces of immorality in the streets more than
counteract our influence? what does it matter that we strive earnestly
to provide hygienic conditions for work during five hours of the day,
when filth and disease are doing their deadly work outside of the
school for nineteen hours a day? Who knows better than we that
children with starved bodies cannot do great things intellectually? If
we were only organized to improve these conditions, we could do
much for the welfare of the community. The time is coming when it
will be considered as legitimate for a body of teachers to discuss the
problems of impure food supply, of relief for the poor, of means for
the suppression of vice, and of better hygienic conditions for the
children of our cities, as it is to discuss the problems of method or
the organization of school work. What we need, if we are to be
effective in the work, is better organization, more craft
consciousness. We now possess potentially great power for social
betterment. We are exercising this power in the school, and, as
individuals, outside of the school. We will, let us hope, in time,
recognize the larger social demand and perform the larger social
service.
The children with whom we work come to us equipped with many
native reactions or tendencies to behave. In any situation the child
will react in accordance with some native tendency or habit which
has grown out of the original tendency. Success in teaching depends
upon a recognition of these instinctive tendencies, the development
of some, the grafting of new but similar reactions on others, and the
inhibition of the native reaction and substitution of another in still
other cases. The instincts which are of importance in education have
been variously named; among these those of greatest significance
for the work of the teacher are play, constructiveness, imitation,
emulation, pugnacity, curiosity, ownership, including the collecting
instinct, sympathy, wonder. We shall deal briefly with each of these in
relation to the work of the teacher.
Play: Possibly the lesson which teachers need most to learn is that
play has real educative value. Before the school age has been
reached, the child has learned chiefly by playing. In play the child
gets his first experience in those activities which are later to make
possible a happy, useful life in the community. The number of
possible reactions possessed by a child of six is largely determined
by the opportunity he has had to play. This is why we value so much
a life free from restraint, and in contact with nature, for little children.
Contact with the trees, the rocks, the birds, the flowers, and
association with other children mean possibilities of learning for the
child which no amount of instruction or exercise of authority can
equal. The child plays now with this object and again with that; and
in consequence comes to know not only the objects, but his own
power. In an imaginative way he experiences all of the adult activities
about him, sowing, reaping, building, cooking, cleaning, hauling,
fighting; and he is wiser and better prepared for the period of
struggle, which must come later, because of these activities.
Nor should this period of play end when the child enters school.
The skillful teacher makes a game of many of the exercises of the
school, which might be otherwise drudgery. The desire to win is
common to children six years of age, and many a hard task will
become play, if the element of competition is introduced and
sufficient variety in procedure is provided for. By playing, children
may learn to work. To achieve the ends desired in a game may
involve the overcoming of difficulties which require the most earnest
effort. There can be no better preparation for life than the playing of
games where team work, self-restraint, and fairness are demanded.
We need more careful study on the part of teachers of children’s
games, and more planning that all may secure the benefits which
come from this sort of activity. In the schoolroom, wherever it is
possible, the spirit of play should pervade the work. There will be
cases enough where results will depend upon the exercise of
authority. Let us never forget that the reaction of play may mean just
as valuable results as the reaction of necessity, and that the ideal life
is the one in which all work is play.
Constructiveness: Closely connected with the play instinct is the
instinct to make out of the material at one’s command that which will
represent some element in the play. In the beginning, gestures,
sounds, and whatever objects are present suffice in the make-
believe world of the child. But soon the materials are rearranged or
shaped into some new form in order to represent the object desired.
Materials become to the child just what he can make out of them.
And it is not simply in power to construct or to represent that the
child grows because of this activity. To make something, to work out
in materials one’s idea, means growth in definiteness and control of
ideas. The one adequate test of ideas must always be some sort of
expression; and, for the adult as well as for the child, construction is
one of the most important forms of expression. We would gain much
in all of our school work in clearness and definiteness, if we resorted
oftener to construction as a test. Of course, construction is not to be
limited to the making of things of three dimensions. The map, plan,
or artistic representation belongs to the same group, and is
developed from the same instinctive tendency.
Just one more word of caution needs to be given with regard to
work of this kind. In constructive work, whether with wood or clay, or
with pencil or brush, the point of departure should be the child’s idea,
not the model or pattern provided by an adult. After the child has
made his attempt, then let him see where he has failed by reference
to the object which he has tried to represent. And we can afford to be
satisfied in the beginning with a crude product, so long as it satisfies
the child. As for technique, there will come a time when the desire for
a better product will call for greater skill and will furnish the very best
possible motive for the necessary practice.
Imitation: In both play and constructive work a most important
element is the instinct to imitate. The child constantly imitates adult
activities in play, and in construction he represents the objects about
him. As has already been indicated, it is in this way that he clarifies
his ideas, that he gains experience. In imitation, which is truly
instructive, the child does not consciously plan to imitate; it is enough
that the model is present. This kind of imitation is sometimes called
spontaneous imitation, in contradistinction to the other type of
imitation, in which the individual persistently tries to reproduce the
activity of another. In the latter case he is conscious of the process;
and this type is sometimes called voluntary imitation. This distinction
is important for teachers in many phases of school work. There are
cases where the only satisfactory response is that which accords
with the model, the standard which society imposes. We do not want
a child to try to spell a word without being conscious of the form
commonly accepted. He will succeed in spelling because he has
studied this word, or is able to build it up from his knowledge of its
constituent parts. On the other hand, wherever creative work is to be
done, wherever originality is required, the educational value of the
exercise is inversely proportioned to the degree in which conscious
imitation of a model has entered to produce the result. In such
subjects as English composition, constructive work, science work
involving observation and experiment, what we want above all else is
the attempt on the part of the learner to express his own ideas; and it
is only after this expression that any adequate appreciation of model
or of criticism can be hoped for.
There is one other factor in connection with imitation which is of
great importance in teaching; namely, that children persistently
imitate what they admire. This has a double significance for the
teacher. Those things which can be made less attractive will tend to
be less imitated; and, conversely, that which is held up as worthy of
great respect will be much imitated. If we were only wise, we would
devote our attention to the leader of the group, trying to secure the
appropriate or desired reaction upon his or her part, rather than
devoting ourselves equally to the whole group. We can depend upon
it, the crowd will follow the leader whom they admire. Our appeals
often mean little to children, and the models which we set up have
little effect, because, however admirable these standards may seem
to us, they are beyond the power of children to comprehend or
admire. Instead of giving a boy a letter of Jefferson as a model,
better give him the one written by his classmate. Do not expect the
girl to imitate the noblest women in history, but make your appeal on
the basis of the virtue of the girl she likes.
Emulation: Much that has been said above under imitation might
quite as well have been written under the head of emulation. As
social beings, we tend to do what others do. Consciousness of kind
compels us to lay great store upon our ability to do as others do.
When in Rome the difficult thing is not to do “as Romans do,” but to
do otherwise. The desire to do not only as well as others, but to
accomplish more, is responsible for much that is achieved in the
world. If we did not have others with whom we are constantly
comparing ourselves, few of us would do as well as we now do.
Rivalry will always be one of the greatest means of bringing about
improvement or advancement in social conditions. In school, as well
as in the world at large, rivalry, if kept free from jealousy and envy,
will justify its existence by the results produced. The boy or girl who
is anxious to distance his fellows in school is apt to be the man of
ambition and of success in later life.
Pugnacity: More prominent in boys than in girls, but present in
some degree in every individual, is the instinct to fight, the desire not
to be overcome either by persons or conditions which surround us.
In so far as this instinct leads to physical encounter, for all except the
unusually strong physically, the correction comes by way of defeat.
For all, the substitution of games which involve physical prowess for
fighting, and the substitution of victories of intellect for the victories of
physical combat, point to the utilization of this instinct in education. It
is sometimes possible to appeal to this instinct when
discouragement and defeat in school tasks seem inevitable. No boy
likes to be told that he has been downed by the task in long division,
or that he has failed to make good in spelling or geography. The
whole world hates a quitter, and normal, healthy children are no
exception to the rule.
Curiosity: Children are proverbially curious about things. They
want to know more, to enlarge and make more definite their
experience. This desire shows itself in their actions in handling
materials, in making and unmaking, in questions asked, in
reasoning, in play, and in imitating others. The most striking
characteristic in the mental life of children is the breadth of their
interests, due to this instinct of curiosity. Most adults think along very
narrow and restricted lines; not so with children. While it is true that
they do little abstract thinking, there is scarcely an object or an action
which comes within the range of their senses that is not followed by
the desire to find out more.
Children have the spirit of inquiry, have many problems, in short,
are mentally active to a degree most uncommon among adults. The
problem of the teacher is how to keep alive this spirit of inquiry, how
to insure a continuance of this mental alertness. Much of our school
work has certainly tended in the opposite direction. Reciting what is
written in books, without thought or question, has too often been
characteristic of recitations. The appeal to authority, whether of the
teacher or of the book, instead of the appeal to experience, to
observation and experiment, or to other methods of establishing
truth, tends to kill rather than to strengthen the spirit of inquiry. We
should place greater value upon the intelligent question than upon
the parrot-like answer. Respect for the problems of children, even
when they seem of little account to us, rather than ridicule or
evasion, will tend to keep alive this most precious heritage. Of
course it is not wise to encourage the scatter-brained boy or girl who
never thinks about the same thing for two minutes in succession.
One great function of the teacher is to help children to concentrate
upon the main issue, to show a child that his question is irrelevant to
the problem under consideration, and to guide him on the path which
makes thinking pleasant and profitable.
It would be a good thing for every teacher to ask herself whether
while under her direction the children whom she teaches are usually
mentally alert, thinking, asking questions, or whether they concern
themselves only with repeating the thoughts of others. If there be
any doubt with regard to the children’s natural aptitude, let her
observe them when out of school and contrast the result. Mental
laziness is a habit acquired in spite of our initial advantage, in spite
of our desire for knowledge and the pleasure which comes from
thinking. The school and the teacher must always be judged by their
success in keeping children awake mentally; for it is power to learn
rather than knowledge which counts in later years, and learning is
most of all dependent upon the initial impulses toward inquiry.
Ownership: Very early in the life of the child the idea of personal
ownership develops. There can be no doubt concerning the
importance of this instinct in its effect upon the achievements of
men, but we are concerned chiefly, in dealing with children, with one
aspect of this tendency which is commonly known as the collecting
instinct. This desire to have the most complete collection of buttons,
postage stamps, pictures, birds’ eggs, shells, arrowheads, or
whatever else it may be, may often be utilized to great advantage.
Illustrative material for work in history, geography, nature study, and
to some degree for other subjects can be had in this way. Such a
collection will mean not only a much greater interest in the work, but
also a livelier appreciation of the subject, more images upon which to
base its generalizations. I have never seen a class that learned more
geography in a short time than was mastered by a class who
followed the American fleet around the world, collecting pictures,
products, and stamps for each of the countries visited, and writing a
full account of the country visited to accompany these illustrations.
Another class made most interesting collections in connection with
their study of colonial history. It is a mistake to suppose that ready-
made collections will answer the same purpose. They may illustrate
better, but the added interest and enthusiasm growing out of the
exercise of the collecting instinct will be wanting.
The collecting instinct may be utilized in work which deals with
ideas rather than things. Children may be just as keen in collecting
ideas about a subject in which they are much interested as in making
their collection of stones, or birds. The transition from the one type of
collecting to the other is apparent, in collections which are interesting
mainly for the ideas which they suggest.
The Social Instinct: The school has often overemphasized the
individualistic point of view. Competition is a legitimate motive; but if
all of school life centers around this motive, the child has lost much
in the non-exercise of that peculiarly human instinct which demands
coöperation and sympathy. At the foundation of our society is the
idea of working together for the common good. Boys and girls who
are to be most useful to their fellows, who are to do the most for
society, i.e. those who are truly educated, must have kept alive and
developed this spirit, more than altruistic, which sees in the good of
society the greatest individual gain. In a later chapter this topic will
be dealt with in considerable detail; suffice it to say here that many
opportunities should be found for group projects, for service on the
part of each member of the group of the sort that he is particularly
qualified to render.
Wonder: The instinct of wonder or awe, closely related to or
possibly identified with the religious instinct, is one that our modern
critically scientific attitude tends to discourage. No one who has had
the experience can doubt the value of this element in mental life. To
wonder at the glory of the heavens will doubtless make more
difference in the lives of most men and women than the smattering
of astronomy they may acquire. The man who wonders at the
manifestation of the power of the forces of nature may get more real
joy out of life than he who feels that he has solved all of her
mysteries. We are not as a people remarkable for our reverence. It
may be well urged that our schools have often been responsible for
the opposite attitude. This instinct of wonder will thrive only in a
sympathetic atmosphere. No teacher can directly inculcate or
develop it. Only that teacher who has preserved and nurtured the
instinct in her own life can hope to be effective in keeping alive the
same spirit in children.
In the first chapter it was claimed that teachers should work to
develop the socially sympathetic, intelligent, and active individual,
and that the ends to be expected from any exercises might be
classified as habits, knowledge, interests, ideals or appreciations,
and methods of work. In our discussion of the native reactions of
children, we have endeavored to show that the possibilities of such
accomplishment are the common possession of normal children. It is
for the teacher who would accomplish these ends most economically
to discover the instinctive basis for the habit to be formed, the
knowledge to be acquired, interest to be awakened, or appreciation
to be aroused. The instinctive interests of children will furnish the
most powerful motives, and will serve as a basis for the most lasting
results. Even when the native reaction is undesirable, the successful
process may depend not merely upon negation, but upon a grafting
upon the original tendency of one that is socially desirable; or, in
other cases, the substitution of another reaction based upon some
other instinctive tendency. We may not always follow where instinct
seems to lead, but we can never ignore these native tendencies.
Whether we blindly ignore or attempt to work against nature, or
wisely utilize the instincts, the fact remains that all of our work is
conditioned by the native equipment.
It has become more or less the fashion in recent years to decry
the theory of those who discuss the teaching process from the
standpoint of the child’s native tendencies, and with due regard to
his interests. The reactionary who continually harks back to the good
old times is still with us. The term of ridicule most commonly used in
lieu of argument is “soft pedagogy.” We are told that the only way to
develop men and women of strength is to begin by making sure that
we make our appeal on the basis of our superior authority, or even
brute strength, instead of finding the foundation for our work in the
instinctive curiosity and tendency to mental activity with which
children come to us. It is presumed by those who argue on the side
of the importance of authority that, unless children are compelled by
others to do hard tasks, they will never attempt anything that
involves effort. Again, they interpret interest to mean the blind
following of the child’s instinctive tendencies.
In our previous discussion we endeavored to show that education
concerns itself quite as much with the inhibition of undesirable
tendencies as with the encouragement of those which lead to
desirable activity. The process is not one of following where children
lead, but rather of availing ourselves of the native tendencies in
order that the ends we desire to achieve may be accomplished with
the least waste of time or energy. In reality, the choice between the
two positions is not whether we will have regard for childish instincts
and capacities, but rather whether we shall approach our task from
the standpoint of one who has faith in an appeal to the lower motive
of fear, or whether we believe that children are best prepared for
later activity who work out their own problems.
The best teaching can never consist in driving pupils to tasks
which they do not understand and which have little significance for
them. The standard of efficiency is found in ability to present to the
child a need, a purpose, or a problem which solicits his attention. It
may be that we shall be but imperfectly able to accomplish this
result, but, nevertheless, this must be our ideal. And it is not for
reasons of sentiment that we adopt it. The learning process is
explained in this way only. We make a new adjustment, reconstruct
our experience only in a situation which makes such a demand upon

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In Our Own Image: Anthropomorphism,

Apophaticism, and Ultimacy Wesley J.

In Our Own Image

In Our Own Image

The nineteenth-century Masters of Suspicion—Feuerbach, Marx,

The pervasive reality of anthropomorphism in human religion

of ultimate reality (Chapter 1). I also present an analysis of anthropo-

• Volume 1: Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative

• Volume 5: Religious and Spiritual Experiences (Cambridge: Cambridge

These volumes constitute my philosophical theology. The consistent

Some of the material in this book is adapted from existing publications.

List of Figures xvii

4. Subordinate-Deity Models of Ultimate Reality 151

1.1. Classiﬁcation procedure for the ultimacy models under

1.2. Combinations of ultimacy models and philosophical cosmologies,

2.1. Three strategies for resisting anthropomorphic cognitive defaults

§1. This study is a work of philosophical theology that adopts

In Our Own Image

too far from the expectations, of particular religious institutions and

from systematic exposition to artistic evocation, and from deconstruct-

In Our Own Image

philosophy, and impractical philosophical theology above all, as

1.2 Ultimacy and Ultimacy Models

§2. Ultimate reality is reality as it is most truly, most simply, most

In Our Own Image

It is vital to keep in mind the apophatic framework for the inquiry

makes it well suited to tolerate a wide variety of speciﬁcations. For this

In Our Own Image

In Our Own Image

which religion is justly famous. Consider the likelihood that, if a (regret-

sub-tradition must come to terms. The resulting challenge is how to

In Our Own Image

In Our Own Image

in the axiological structures and ﬂows of natural reality that demand an

These propositions involve a combination of ontological and attribu-

In Our Own Image

interesting object not as ultimate reality but as a subordinate entity

In Our Own Image

The second afﬁrms that God is ontologically an intentional agent but we

1.3 Three Philosophical Cosmologies

§3. The three classes of ultimacy models to be compared require

are speciﬁed by teaming them with a process cosmology, which

In Our Own Image

It is important to notice that any philosophical cosmology can hold

In Our Own Image

In Our Own Image

semantic scope of key terms is carefully managed, unlike in the general

U1: the agential-being class of models (unchanged);

In Our Own Image

Next, we reorganize the philosophical cosmologies as follows:

C1: the supernaturalist cosmology (recall that this view allows

C1 e.g. personal e.g. perennial e.g. evolutionary

C2 e.g. religious e.g. subordinate

Figure 1.2. Combinations of ultimacy models and philosophical cosmologies,

For Collateral Reading

If it is essential that the teacher approach her work with a clear

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