PLAUSIBILITY OF PANENTHEISM, THE

In a similar way, John Polkinghorne has espoused views almost entirely consonant with Hartshorne's views, appreciative of the panentheistic analogy. He proposes that there is no longer talk of proving the existence of God, as theistic arguments are not logically coercive. Yet talk of God need not be naïvely anthropomorphic; analogy and metaphor are useful locutions in theology. Arguments from the law-like nature of the universe, as contrasted with specific events, contribute intelligibility, and theistic views can offer "an insightful account of what is going on." Theism does not rival scientific explanation but complements it "by setting it within a wider and more profound context of understanding."44 In this he appreciates the role metaphysics plays in the discussion. Physicalism informs metaphysics without excluding holistic insights. Self-organization in nonequilibrium physics, he writes, is no reason to treat agency as if it were physics. In proposing a "dual-aspect monism" Polkinghorne refers to the complementary influence of intentional and physical causation, even arguing that God has a temporal as well as an eternal pole.45 Like Peacocke, Polkinghorne sees the plausibility of dual-aspect monism in light of the evolution of consciousness and topdown causation. He writes,

Bearing in mind that all conscious knowledge, even of the physical world, is appropriated mentally, such an even handed treatment of mind and matter seems absolutely essential if we are to frame a credible account of our experience. That unconscious atoms have combined to give rise to conscious beings is the most striking example known to us of the hierarchical firuitfulness of our universe, in which there is a nesting and ascending order of being, corresponding to the transitions from physics to biology to psychology to anthropology and sociology.46

Also with Peacocke in respect for special relativity, Polkinghorne has asserted that there is "a single physical reality" while admitting with Penrose his perplexity about "how the cloudy quantum domain is related to the clear world of our everyday experience."47

Richard Swinburne

So for Clayton, Polkinghorne, and Peacocke the panentheistic analogy with human agency lends intelligibility to the notion of divine agency in the world; God acts in ways similar to the way human beings act upon their bodies. This is very much like Hartshorne, who argues that the organic-social analogy is the only informative analogy because we have no knowledge of what matter experiences and because we have experience on both sides of the social analogy: we know others and know we are known by others.48 This analogy has been informative also for Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne, who speaks of "basic actions," which are "something which an agent just does, does not do by doing anything else," such as "[b]ringing about the motion of our arms or legs, lips, or eyes, or eyebrows, etc."49 We all know what he is talking about; this is the value of the analogy. However, he is using the analogy in support of his commitment to traditional theism. He applies the analogy only in respect to some of the traditional attributes, and does not attempt to claim that God meets all of his own criteria of basic actions. In addition, he does not admit of any influence of the body on God. The divine omnipotence is such that the divine "simplicity" in the form of the divine perfect freedom as independence and power subverts the ontological basis of the analogy. Intelligibility is conferred by the rhetorical power of the body metaphor and its related panentheistic analogy, but its ontological basis in a specifiable actuality of God (the universe), and so its plausibility, is lacking.