ABSTRACT
Pragmatic naturalism is a version of religious naturalism when qualified by the pragmatic demands of public theology. The result is a pragmatic theology. The pragmatic demands of public theology involve understanding, transmitting, and constructing theological categories that sustain the political community in practices oriented toward the fulfillment of our spiritual and moral endeavors, responsibilities, and obligation. Public theology is recognized by its interpretative contributions to public discourse, the moral agreements it shares with various public discourses, the claims it makes on public life, and its claims for the symbolic integration of public life with the enlargement of human and planetary flourishing. Pragmatic theology seeks to speak meaningfully to these conditions of life on Earth. It attunes to the precarious, tragic conditions of both planetary and human life. Pragmatic theology is a cognizant of the limits of human actions in a world framed by finitude and emergent shapes of freedom.
