Why a Panpsychist Should Adopt Theism: God, Galileo, and Goff

This paper argues that there is a deep level of agreement between panpsychism and theism. Goff's Galileo's Error would have been even more compelling than it already is if Goff had portrayed a panpsychist cosmos as the world created by God, not as a spiritual alternative to theism. First, I critique Goff's assumption of incompatibilism, with regards the relationship between science and religion, and argue that panpsychism provides unique resources for articulating divine action. Second, I argue that most panpsychists endorse either the 'principle of sufficient reason' or a 'causal principle' in their rejection of emergence theory, and that if either of these principles are applied to the universe as a whole this would imply a further endorsement of the cosmological argument for the existence of God.