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Agential-being models of ultimate reality affirm that ultimate reality is an aware, agential being. The Central Result of the scientific study of religion—that human beings will spontaneously create anthropomorphic supernatural agents to believe in, and to make religious use of, whether or not those agents actually exist—erodes the plausibility of any belief in supernatural agents, without proving such beliefs false, so it imposes a heavy burden on proponents of agential-being theism to show that the agential-being God hypothesis is plausible in light of all relevant information, and convincingly superior to competitor views. Agential-being ultimacy models resist the Rational Practicality and Narrative Comprehensibility dimensions of anthropomorphism to some degree but continue to employ the Intentionality Attribution dimension of anthropomorphism, resulting in a strategy of judicious anthropomorphism. Variations, strengths, and weaknesses of the agential-being class of ultimacy models are discussed.

The argument of this chapter is that the foundational problem of evil is the existential problem of maintaining hopeful commitment to virtuous living in the face of all that may undermine human fulfilment. Dealing with this problem at the cognitive level involves commitment to a view of reality as favourable to practical commitment to ethical ideals. An intellectual problem of evil then arises to the extent that it seems that the fact of evil is evidence against the truth of the salvific worldview we are inclined to adopt for dealing with it. In relation to theism’s ‘revelatory’ worldview, this intellectual problem is expressible as an Argument from Evil. A ‘normatively relativized’ version of the Argument from Evil is proposed that seeks to exclude rational belief in the ‘personal omniGod’. As a viable alternative conception of God is possible, however, the Argument fails to justify outright atheism.

This chapter introduces the study as a work of philosophical theology that adopts the morality of inquiry prevalent within the modern research university. This requires seeking knowledge without privileging the special interests of religious or anti-religious individuals or groups, doctrines, or traditions. The inquiry operates comparatively and evaluatively; it is post-foundationalist, coherentist, and fallibilist in its approach to argumentation, evidence, belief, and knowledge; and it is conducted within an apophatic frame of reference that promotes precision and play. A key term is defined: Ultimate reality is reality as it is most truly, most simply, most comprehensively, most significantly; it is the final word on reality. The chapter introduces three “Great Models” of ultimate reality and three cosmological frameworks that help to connect those models to empirical and experiential considerations. The result is six viable combinations, of which three form the focus of the reverent comparative competition presented in the book.

This study described the three classes of ultimacy models under discussion, noting internal variations within each class, eliminating inferior members, and retaining the most compelling representatives. It identified strengths and weaknesses, focusing on the most salient respects of comparison. No knock-down arguments for or against any of the three classes of models were detected, which is expected for Great Models of ultimate reality. But a couple of dozen comparative criteria were identified, which collectively constitute the basis upon which the relative plausibility of the competing ultimacy models is determined. When results are tallied, ground-of-being ultimacy models have a slight advantage over agential-being and subordinate-deity models. This process of comparative analysis directs subsequent debate to the relative importance of comparative criteria, which is always the most salient consideration in any well-formed comparison.

The Afterword offers a personal confessio to underline what the book argues, namely, that rational considerations alone, in isolation from the intensities of personal experience, do not take us as far as we might like in philosophical-theological inquiry. Comparative debates in philosophical theology—like aesthetic appraisal, and also like judgments of relative plausibility more generally, including the courtroom rulings of skilled judges—often trade in unspoken and even unconscious preferences. We can all too easily rationalize such preferences but rational discipline requires something other than mere rationalistic evasion: we must analyze them in order to gain control over their influence in our intellectual reasoning.