God, Consciousness and Conjunctive Explanations

The existence of consciousness is so surprising on the naturalist's account of things that a version of the argument from consciousness for the existence of God, which places theistic and scientific explanations in competition, has received new support and attention. Consciousness, therefore, seems like an appropriate place to enquire into the need and character of conjunctive explanations between science and religion. The first section of this chapter evaluates the explanations for consciousness currently on offer from various positions in philosophy of mind. The second section of this chapter explores what kind of explanation panpsychism offers as an account of consciousness. The third section asks: What kind of conjunctive explanation is best when one is conjoining theism with a scientific explanation for consciousness? I argue that in the case of consciousness we should not employ special divine action as a cause in conjunction with scientific explanations, nor employ God as a unificationist explanation for consciousness. Instead, we should allow theistic and scientific explanations to fit together in a pragmatic conjunction by answering different interlocking questions. If I am right about this then theists should support theological panpsychism, rather than positing the origin of each creature's conscious mind as a miracle.