This project is led by Yujin Nagasawa and Andrei Buckareff (Marist College, USA) and is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
The project builds upon a pilot project, also funded by the John Templeton Foundation, that ran between 2011 and 2013, titled 'Alternative Concepts of God', which explored and evaluated alternative views to the classical concept of God. While this new project is larger, its scope is more narrow, focusing on pantheism and panentheism, two alternatives which many philosophers and scientists consider the most attractive. The project will address three of the most pressing challenges for these two views: the problem of personhood, the problem of unity, and the problem of evil.
Such concepts are often overlooked in contemporary debates among analytic philosophers on the nature and existence of God. Therefore, the research will widen the scope of analytic philosophy of religion and deepen understanding of the nature of the divine and its relationship to the universe.