Minding God: Theology and the Cognitive Sciences

by Gregory R. Peterson

Overview

Does it make sense to speak of the "mind of God"? Are humans unique? Do we have souls? Our growing explorations of the cognitive sciences pose significant challenges to and opportunities for theological reflection. Gregory Peterson introduces these sciences: neuroscience, artificial intelligence, animal cognition, linguistics, and psychologythat specifically contribute to the new picture and their philosophical underpinnings. He shows its implications for rethinking longstanding Western assumptions about the unity of the self, the nature of consciousness, free will, inherited sin, and religious experience. Such findings also illumine our understanding of God's own mind, the God-world relationship, new notions of divine design, and the implications of a universe of evolving minds. Peterson is gifted at explaining scientific concepts and drawing their implications for religious belief and theology. His work demonstrates how new work in cognitive sciences upends and reconfigures many popular assumptions about human uniqueness, mind-body relationship, and how we speak of divine and human intelligence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800634988
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	11/12/2002
Series:	Theology and the Sciences
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Gregory R. Peterson is Associate Professor of Religion at Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part One: God, mind, and cognitive science

What Does Silicon Valley Have to Do with Jerusalem?

How the Mind Works: A Cognitive Science Perspective

Fitting Square Pegs into Round Holes: The Problem of Consciousness

Part Two: The God of mind

Do Split Brains Listen to Prozac?

Mysterium Tremendum?

Alone in the Universe?

Whence Original Sin?

Part Three: The Mind of God

The Mind of God

The Nature and Destiny of Minds