The 'Competition'
So where is the competition? Why are people missing the boat of theistic idealism (immaterialism), or 'rational theism'?
More than a few Christian theologians, both liberal and conservative, are taken up with the Darwinian problem. Those of a creationist persuasion are directly attacking the adequacy of natural selection as a blanket explanatory device. They focus on those particular biological systems that appear to stretch the Darwinian model beyond its limits. 'Intelligent Design', q.v., is their most commonly used banner. The more liberal theologians are looking at the broader perspective of non-reductionism and teleology, that we have discussed above.
In both cases there is an explicit concern with the rationale of ends and means, but by focusing so narrowly on the Darwinian issue, both factions are unavoidably becoming more deeply entangled in the larger materialist cosmology of modern science. Strategically, in becoming too closely engaged with the 'enemy' in the skirmish over Darwinism, they have been unable to keep their options open for the larger and inevitable battle over metaphysics and cosmology. They are letting the materialists choose the battlefield, and set the terms of the engagement.
Meanwhile, the theists are implicitly letting the pantheists continue their hegemony over immaterialism. The possibilities of theistic idealism, i.e. rational theism, are being lost in the shuffle. Theistic idealism remains consigned to the dustbin of history, a curiosity to be occasionally contemplated by the Hegelian scholars.
6/8/02