ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the theological issues raised by current debates over 'Intelligent Design' in order to specify a philosophical position which affirms methodological naturalism while denying ontological naturalism. It argues that human creativity is itself the dimension within human consciousness wherein a supernatural dimension to the natural order is present in potentia. The chapter suggests that the categories of striving or emergence are insufficiently distinct to account for religion and the transcendent realities that form the object of theological reflection. It also suggests that naturalism is sufficient for an understanding of the universe, but not in terms of which the discovery and verification of scientific theories indicate a positive and realist account of transcendence. The scientific interest in a theory of knowledge usually centres around a cohesive, responsible form of critical realism, as opposed to naive realism or some form of instrumentalism. The imagination is the heuristic for this possibility of simultaneous knowledge of nature and self-knowledge.
