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:

• ``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:

Books in progress:

Unwelcome Good News, a semi-popular exposition of the thesis that the heart of Biblical religion consists in blessing all of human life in this world as good. That has to be done in full view of its pains, and in affirmation of the blessings that come in those pains. In effect, this is about providence, the practical consequence of the doctrine of creation.

An as-yet untitled historical reflection on how Biblical religion came to its current perplexities, for a non-technical audience.

A book sorting through the confusions about evolution and Biblical religion.

References are available from the Graduate Theological Union Placement Office