Andrew P. Porter

Courses Taught

• Philosophy of Religion
• World Religions
• Beginning Bible
• Systematic Theology
• Christology
• Mathematical Logic
• History of Philosophy
• Planetary Astronomy
• Evolution and Philosophy of Religion
• H. Richard Niebuhr

Employment:

• 1998-present: Adjunct Faculty in philosophy of religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Teaching has been occasional.
• 2007: Adjunct Faculty in philosophy, Dominican University, San Rafael, CA
• 2001: Adjunct Faculty in philosophy and religious studies, Dominican University, San Rafael, CA.
• 1996-1998: Instructor, philosophy and religious studies, Las Positas College, 3033 Collier Canyon Road, Livermore, CA 94550
• 1994-2006: Physicist, part-time, Physics and Space Sciences Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P. O. Box 800, Livermore CA 94550
• 1968-1994: Physicist, Special Studies Group, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• 1992 Spring: Instructor in Philosophy, Los Medanos College, Pittsburg, CA
• 1980-1987: Instructor in Theology, The School for Deacons of the Episcopal Church, Diocese of California, Castro Valley, CA
• 1983 Teaching Assistant, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, CA

Education:

• 1991 PhD, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley CA; thesis: "H. Richard Niebuhr's Doctrine of Providence in the Light of Martin Heidegger's Phenomenology"
• 1980 Master of Theological Studies, Church Divinity School, Berkeley; thesis: "Meeting God in History, Relativity, and Pluralism"
• 1976 PhD, University California, Davis, Department of Applied Science; thesis: "The Method of Independent Timesteps in the Numerical Solution of Initial Value Problems"
• 1968 MS, University California, Davis, Applied Science
• 1968 BA, Harvard College, Physics and Chemistry
• GTU Comprehensive Examinations:
  Immanuel Kant
  H. Richard Niebuhr
  The Doctrine of Creation and the Philosophy of Nature

Publications and Presentations:

• Living in Spin: Narrative as a Distributed Ontology of Human Action Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2011. Text at http://www.jedp.com/spin.
• ``Distributed Ontologies and Systems Ontologies,'' Pacific Coast Theological Society Journal, October 2010: http://www.pcts.org/journal/porter2010a/index.html .
• ``Are You Pro-Life When Life Hurts?'' In Life and Learning XV; Proceedings of the Fifteenth University Faculty for Life Conference at Ave Maria Law School, 2005, ed. Joseph W. Koterski, SJ. Published by University Faculty for Life, at Georgetown University.
• Where, Now, O Biologists, Is Your Theory? Intelligent Design as Naturalism By Other Means, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006.
• Porter, Andrew P., ``The Barbour-Smith-Gilkey Paradox: Historical Relativity in Natural Science and Historical Religion,'' Theology and Science Vol. 4 no. 1 (2006/04) 87-99.
• Unwelcome Good News: Providence in Human Life, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004.
• ``On Being an Inkblot: Disability Meets Euthanasia,'' Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 43 no. 4 (2004/Winter) 338.
• ``Material Differences Between History and Nature,'' International Philosophical Quarterly, 44 no. 2, issue 174 (2004/06) 185-200.
• ``Naturalism, Naturalism by Other Means, and Alternatives to Naturalism,'' Theology and Science, 1 no. 2 (2003/Oct) 221-237.
• ``Physik,'' Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th edition. 1998 ff.; ca. 2004. Tuebingen, Mohr-Siebeck.
• ``History, Relativity, and Pluralism''
  Budhi (Manila) VI, nos. 2 and 3 (2002) 223-234.
• Elementary Monotheism (I): Exposure, Limitation, and Need, and
  Elementary Monotheism (II): Action and Language in Historical Religion, Lanham, MD, University Press of America, 2001
• By the Waters of Naturalism: Theology Perplexed Among the Sciences, Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001.
  A pdf sample of a few pages of the book.
• With Edward C. Hobbs, The Trinity and the Indo-European Tripartite Worldview, Budhi III nos. 2-3 (1999) pp. 1-28.
• "Critical and Confessional Responsibility in Theology," Pacific Coast Theological Society, Fall Meeting, November 1996.
• "The Logic of Confessional Speech Acts", American Academy of Religion Western Regional Meeting, Spring 1996
• "Extending Merold Westphal's Typology of Basic Religious Options," Society of Christian Philosophers Meeting, Memphis, April 1995
• "The Fertility of Niebuhr's Idea of Monotheism", Pacific Coast Theological Society, Spring Meeting, April 1994.
• "When Failure is Success: Counter-Performative Speech Acts", American Academy of Religion Western Regional Meeting, March 1994; available by anonymous ftp from phil-preprints.L.chiba-u.ac.jp
• "Science, Religious Language, and Analogy," Faith and Philosophy 13#1 (1996/01) 113
• "Iterative Hermeneutics," American Academy of Religion, Western Regional Meeting, April, 1992.
• review of David Basinger and Randall Basinger, Philosophy and Miracle, in Bulletin of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Spring 1992.
• review of Dennis Overbye, Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, CTNS Bulletin Summer 1992
• "The Method of Independent Timesteps in the Numerical Solution of Initial Value Problems," PhD diss., University of California, Davis, CA, 1976.

Teaching and Research Interests:

Work in progress:

An inquiry into the philosophical preliminaries of biblical religion, world-affirming historical religion: what kind of basic life orientation is it?

References are available from the Graduate Theological Union Placement Office