Volume 16, Issue 1, 2014
Joshua R. Farris
Pages 37-55
Discovering God and Soul
A Reappraisal of and Appreciation for Cartesian Natural Theology
As a contribution to ramified natural theology, I advance some thoughts in favor of a distinctively Cartesian variation of natural theology that lends itself to the Christian understanding of God as a mind and as personal. I propose that defenders of Cartesian natural theology, as commonly construed in much of the contemporary substance dualist literature, construe the soul as a “sign” or “pointer” to God such that we, as human persons, seem to have access to God’s nature and existence via the soul (mind) as a rationale for the world and for persons. On this basis, I respond to a common anti-Cartesian charge(s) from subjectivism. Finally, I suggest that this approach deserves further consideration concerning theological prolegomena.