God, Value, and Nature

Many philosophers believe that God has been put to rest. Naturalism is the default position, and the naturalist can explain what needs to be explained without recourse to God. This book agrees that we should be naturalists, but it rejects the more prevalent scientific naturalism in favor of an "expansive" naturalism inspired by David Wiggins and John McDowell. It is argued that expansive naturalism can accommodate the idea of God, and that the expansive naturalist has unwittingly paved the way towards a form of naturalism which poses a genuine challenge to the atheist. It follows that the traditional naturalism versus theism debate must be reconfigured: naturalism and theism are no longer logically incompatible; rather, they can both be true.

Fiona Ellis draws on a wide range of thinkers from theology and philosophy, and spans the gulf between analytic and continental philosophy. She tackles various philosophical problems including the limits of nature and the status of value; some theological problems surrounding the natural/supernatural relation, the Incarnation, and the concept of myth; and offers a model - inspired by the secular expansive naturalist's conception of philosophy - to comprehend the relation between philosophy and theology.

Fiona Ellis studied philosophy at London and Oxford. She was a lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College for several years before moving to Heythrop College, where she is currently a Senior Lecturer. Dr Ellis is the author of Concepts and Reality in the History of Philosophy: Tracing a philosophical error from Locke to Bradley (Routledge, 2005).