NATURE'S POWERS AND GOD'S ENERGIES

Abstract

AbstractThis is an exploration into the synthesis of Mumford and Anjum's pandispositionalist philosophy with Deacon's emergent dynamics, which when interpreted within the theological framework of Palamas’s essence–energies distinction, it all comes together into a new metaphysics that offers a more satisfactory account of the God–world relation. The argument proceeds in two stages. First, a philosophical framework for establishing a dual‐aspect monistic view of the world in terms of presence/absence (or manifested/unmanifested), acknowledging unmanifested powers as a genuine mode of actuality. Second, a theological consideration for a befitting conception of God within this scheme, according to which nature's powers are equated with God's energies, though God's essence is not exhausted by them. The resulting proposition promises a non‐Whiteheadian process view, a panentheistic (not pantheistic) articulation of divine presence, and an account of reality as the dramatization of God's manifestation in the world and our participation in that cosmic revealing.