Finitism in the philosophy of religion in conversation with discrete-spacetime research programs in fundamental physics.
- Submitted to Sophia (Springer)
- Accepted for publication in Sophia (Springer)
- Published online in Sophia (Springer)
Research
Academic papers at the interface of Reformed theology and contemporary physics — on the methodological conditions for honest theological engagement with speculative science, and the doctrine of creation in conversation with emergent-spacetime research.
iD ORCID 0009-0008-2426-9713Published
Under review
How Many Things Did God Make? Cantor, Puryear and the Neutrality of Theology
Cantor argued from God’s infinity to an infinite creation, and the kalām debate argues from the continuum of physics to infinitely many parts of time; both make the same mistake, and once it is corrected the doctrine of God fixes no number for creation and the success of continuum physics favours neither side.
- Submitted to the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (Springer)
Creation Without a Singularity
Creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua in conversation with cosmological models that begin without a singularity.
- Submitted to Sophia (Springer)
Logoi and the Individuation of Field Excitations
Quantum field theory supplies no principle of individuality for its excitations; Maximus the Confessor’s doctrine of the logoi offers one that is teleological, adds nothing to the physics, and keeps the Creator–creature distinction intact.
- Submitted to the Journal of Analytic Theology
Emergent spacetime as a single medium
A paper in the philosophy of physics on what emergent-spacetime research programs are committed to describing.
- Submitted to Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Elsevier)
Conditional Consonance: An Operational Method for Theological Engagement with Speculative Physics
Theological engagement with physics increasingly concerns speculative research programs rather than established science, yet the methodological literature of the science-and-religion field offers postures rather than procedures, and guards against none of the failure modes that engagement invites. This article proposes an operational method, conditional consonance, comprising five components: explicit conditionalization of all consonance claims on named research programs; a three-register linguistic discipline; five demarcation firewalls adapted from recent philosophy of pseudoscience; a source discipline distinguishing common-grace insight from authoritative testimony; and a mandatory dissonance ledger. A worked case demonstrates the method discriminating between pedagogical value and evidential standing in a popular but unrefereed source. The method renders frontier engagement honest rather than forbidden.
- Submitted to Theology and Science (Taylor & Francis)
- Withdrawn from Theology and Science after no referee could be found; submitted to Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences (Mohr Siebeck)
These papers form a single research program: each defends one load-bearing claim of a larger project on science and faith, under an explicit methodological protocol that the method paper in the series supplies. A book-length synthesis, Reasonable Wonder, is written and seeking a publisher.
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