ABSTRACT
This chapter constructs a more consistent, non-anthropocentric version of Ward's arguments from intrinsic value to God and to purpose in evolution, and also to adduce them in support of Peacocke's and Moltmann's panentheist case. Keith Ward has subsequently developed his argument from value, relating it to a progressive interpretation of evolution. The reconstructed argument from intrinsic value to God runs along lines closely parallel to Ward's argument. The world of nature is strikingly full of intrinsically valuable states of affairs in the sense just explained, such as the flourishing of creatures, and could easily have been otherwise. A reconstructed argument to the purposiveness of evolution can open, therefore, with all the varieties of intrinsic value manifest in the actual world, and with their contingency, in the sense that there might easily have been fewer or none at all.
