Creation, Evolution and Meaning

Description

Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I: Meaning and Creation; Chapter One: Meaning, Verification and Analogy; Section 1: Meaningful Communication, a Meaningful Life and Theories of Meaning; Section 2: The Verifcationist Challenge; Section 3: Some Implications of Verifcationism for Religious Language; Section 4: Ayer's Subsequent Stances; Section 5: Some Objections to Verificationism; Section 6: Creation and Analogy; Chapter Two: Realism, Anti-realism and Religion; Section 1: Realism and the Roots of Anti-realism;This book presents the case for belief in both creation and evolution at the same time as rejecting creationism. Issues of meaning supply the context of inquiry; the book defends the meaningfulness of language about God, and also relates belief in both creation and evolution to the meaning of life. Meaning, it claims, can be found in consciously adopting the role of stewards of the planetary biosphere, and thus of the fruits of creation. Distinctive features include a sustained case for a realist understanding of language about God; a contemporary defence of some of the arguments for belief in God and in creation; a sifting of different versions of Darwinism and their implications for religious belief; a Darwinian account of the relation of predation and other apparent evils to creation; a new presentation of the argument from the world's value to the purposiveness of evolution; and discussions of whether or not meaning itself evolves, and of religious and secular bases for belief in stewardship. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Meaning and Creation Chapter One: Meaning, Verification and Analogy Section 1: Meaningful Communication, a Meaningful Life and Theories of Meaning Section 2: The Verifcationist Challenge Section 3: Some Implications of Verifcationism for Religious Language Section 4: Ayer's Subsequent Stances Section 5: Some Objections to Verificationism Section 6: Creation and Analogy Chapter Two: Realism, Anti-realism and Religion Section 1: Realism and the Roots of Anti-realism Section 2: Dummett's Anti-realist ArgumentsSection 3: Further Arguments for and against Anti-realism Section 4: Rorty's Anti-realism Section 5: Cupitt's Anti-realist Faith Section 6: Phillips's Religious Projectionism Chapter Three: God and Falsification Section 1: Popper, Duhem and Quine Section 2: The Falsification Controversy Section 3: Creation and Falsification Section 4: Falsification, Religion and Explanations Section 5: Findings So Far about Creation Part II: Creation and Evolution Chapter Four: Creation Section 1: Some Alternative Conceptions Section 2: Transcendence Section 3: Creation, Necessity and ContingencySection 4: Creation and Time Section 5: Creation without Creationism? Section 6: Darwin on Creation Chapter Five: Arguments from World to God Section 1: From World to God Section 2: The Cosmological Argument Section 3: Varieties of Design Argument Section 4: Hume's Critique of the Design Argument Section 5: Fine Tuning, Universes and Probability Chapter Six: Darwinism, Disvalues and Design Section 1: Darwinism Section 2: Darwinism, Theism and Gould Section 3: Darwinism, Theism and Ruse Section 4: Disvalues in Nature Section 5: Nature and ImmoralityChapter Seven: God and Evil Section 1: Are Theism and Evil Compatible? Section 2: Atrocities Section 3: Natural Evil Section 4: Dawkins on Predation Section 5: Could Things be Otherwise? Chapter Eight: Purpose, Immanence and the Argument from Value Section 1: Ward's Value Argument Section 2: Intrinsic Value Section 3: The Argument from Intrinsic Value Revisited Section 4: The Argument from Value to Progressivism Reconsidered Section 5: Purpose, Immanence and Panentheism Part III: Evolution and Meaning Chapter Nine: Meaning, Evolution and StewardshipSection 1: Introduction Section 2: Meaning, Value and Meaningful Action Section 3: The Evolution of Design, Intelligence and Meaning -- Dennett's Tower Section 4: Some Criticisms of Dennett's Tower Section 5: Meaningful Action, Meaningful Work and a Meaningful Life Section 6: Darwinism and Meaningful Life Section 7: Stewardship Chapter Ten: The Ethics and Metaphysics of Stewardship Section 1: Introduction Section 2: Ethics: Scope, Method and Content Section 3: On the Metaphysics of Stewardship