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Loyal Rue's book Religion Is Not About God (2005) is a polemic for religious naturalism. In it Rue sets up a general model of religion based on principles of scientific materialism, tests his model against five historical religions, and speculates on the future of religion. He claims that in the West, modern science and pluralism threaten the moral authority of Christianity in facing the environmental crisis, which is fueled by a rival metareligion, consumerism. He concludes that an ecological Doomsday is likely, following which a new religion will arise: religious naturalism. I challenge Rue's account at three levels, from the standpoint of theological humanism. First, as a philosopher of religion, Rue cannot carry through his scientific materialist explanation of religion. The first‐person experience of consciousness escapes such an account. Second, as a myth maker, Rue unifies the evolutionary epic retrospectively, where the evidence is thin, and projects the future overconfidently. Third, as a theologian, Rue is wrong to equate God and Nature.

We present a model of a fundamental property of consciousness as the capacity of a system to opt among presented alternatives. Any system possessing this capacity is “conscious” in some degree, whether or not it has the higher capacity of reflecting on its opting. We argue that quantum systems, composed of microphysical particles, as studied by quantum mechanics, possess this quality in a protomental form. That is, such particles display the capacity to opt among alternatives, even though they lack the ability to experience or communicate their experiences. Human consciousness stands at the opposite end of the hierarchy of conscious life forms as the most sophisticated system of which we have direct acquaintance. We contend that it shares the common characteristic of a system capable of opting among alternatives. Because the fundamental property of consciousness is shared by human beings and the constituents of elementary matter in the universe, our model of consciousness can be considered as a modified form of panpsychism.

Michael Frayn's play, Copenhagen, dramatises as a ghost story the conversation concerning the moral implications of atomic fission among Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and his wife, Margrethe Bohr, in September 1941. This paper argues that the play generalises from the famous uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics to present the necessary appearance of uncertainty at the historical, moral, and theological levels of reflection. The paper traces the meaning of uncertainty back to the ‘being of the self’ as a cipher for divine transcendence, and it interprets the meaning of uncertainty for the theory and method of theological humanism.

Argues that we are in need of a new approach to religious traditions and to normative religious thinking so that we may respond with insight to our rapidly changing cultural and social situations. The articles in this volume of \"Literature & Theology\" make an initial attempt to do just that by considering or enacting the possibilities for a renewed theology of culture conceived as a theological humanism. The contributors are impelled by the urgency of confronting the fundamental challenges in our time to the possibilities of sustainable life on this planet and to human life worth living. The most chastening recognition in this enterprise is that we humans are the problem.

In order for theology to have a cognitive dimension, it is necessary to have procedures for testing and critically evaluating theological models. We make use of certain features of scientific models to show how science has been able to move beyond the poles of foundationalism, represented by logical positivism, and antifoundationalism or relativism, represented by the sociologists of knowledge. These ideas are generalized to show that constructing and testing theological models similarly offers a means by which theology can move beyond confessionalism and postmodernism. Our starting point is Paul Tillich's concept of God as the ground of being and the different levels of consciousness and thinking that accompany his understanding of theology. The ontological argument of Anselm is shown to play a key role, not as a proof for the existence of God but as a means for testing theological models. An example of a theological model, drawn from the domain of philosophy of science, is presented to show how theological models are constructed and tested.

We respond to concerns raised by Langdon Gilkey. The discussion addresses the nature of theological thinking today, the question of truth within the situation of pluralism, the identity and difference between theological models and scientific models, and the proposed methods for testing theological models.

Attempts to defend first principles of hermeneutics, especially insofar as they bear on doctrines of subjectivity and divinity, self and God; with particular reference to Schleiermacher

Michael Frayn's play, Copenhagen, dramatises as a ghost story the conversation concerning the moral implications of atomic fission among Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and his wife, Margrethe Bohr, in September 1941. This paper argues that the play generalises from the famous uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics to present the necessary appearance of uncertainty at the historical, moral, and theological levels of reflection. The paper traces the meaning of uncertainty back to the \"being of the self\" as a cipher for divine transcendence, and it interprets the meaning of uncertainty for the theory and method of theological humanism. (Original abstract)

In The Call to Radical Theology, Thomas J. J. Altizer meditates on the nature of radical theology and calls readers to undertake the vocation of radical theology as a way of living a fully examined life. In fourteen essays, he explores how the death of God in modernity and the dissolution of divine authority have freed theology to become a mode of ultimate reflection and creative inquiry no longer bound by church sanction or doctrinal strictures. Revealing a wealth of vital models for doing radical theological thinking, Altizer discusses the work of philosophers such as Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Marion, Derrida, and Levinas, among others. Resources are also found in the work of imaginative writers, especially Milton, Blake, and Joyce. In the spirit of Joyce's Here Comes Everybody, Altizer is convinced that theology is for everyone and that everyone has the authority to do theology authentically. An introduction by Lissa McCullough and foreword by David E. Klemm help orient the reader to Altizer's distinctive understanding of the role of theology after the death of God.