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Roy Clouser
A Blueprint for a Non-Reductionist Theory of Reality


Abstract

Basic to all forms of metaphysical reduction is the claim that one or another kind of reality found in the cosmos is either all there is or is the producer-of-all-else. This paper examines the nature of religious beliefs, and then the relation between them and reduction claims. It finds that reduction claims either contain or presuppose the belief that whatever all else reduces to is divine, and are therefore examples of religious faith rather than theories.

An argument is then given to show that: 1) no such reduction claim is justifiable, and that 2) all such reduction claims are utterly devoid of explanatory power.



Biography
Roy Clouser is professor of philosophy and religion (Emeritus) at the College of New Jersey.  He holds a BA from Gordon College, a BD from Reformed Episcopal Seminary, and an MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.  Along the way to the PhD, he studied with Paul Tillich at Harvard Graduate School and with Herman Dooyeweerd at the Free University of Amsterdam.  In 1997, he won one of the Templeton Awards for his course in science and religion.  He is the author of The Myth of Religious Neutrality (University of Notre Dame Press, revised 2005), Knowing with the Heart (IVP, 1999), and numerous articles.

 

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