Cosmopsychism and Original Sin: Corruption in a Conscious Universe
Cawdron's book explores the applications of cosmopsychism, the idea that the universe is conscious, to contemporary discussions of original sin in Christian analytic theology.
There are two issues in the scholarship of original sin that the book focuses on. The first is the transmission issue, which explains how original sin is transmitted between humans. The second is the apparent tension between original sin and moral responsibility. In doctrines that include original guilt, where later humans are considered guilty for the first sin, one has trouble with moral responsibility because later humans cannot have prevented something that happened before they were born. This problem also impacts doctrines that do not include original guilt, as one has to explain how people can be guilty for sinful acts if original sin makes the performance of these acts inevitable. Cawdron argues that cosmopsychism can help us resolve both of these issues, suggesting that the placing of consciousness at the fundamental level in cosmopsychism and the fact that the cosmic subject must individuate, or de-combine, to form other subjects, can provide us with a useful understanding of the transmission of original sin. Cawdron also uses cosmopsychism to develop two models of original sin – one including the doctrine of original guilt, and another that does not – to address tensions between the doctrine and moral responsibility.
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Cosmopsychism and Original Sin: Corruption in a Conscious Universe
Cawdron's book explores the applications of cosmopsychism, the idea that the universe is conscious, to contemporary discussions of original sin in Christian analytic theology.
There are two issues in the scholarship of original sin that the book focuses on. The first is the transmission issue, which explains how original sin is transmitted between humans. The second is the apparent tension between original sin and moral responsibility. In doctrines that include original guilt, where later humans are considered guilty for the first sin, one has trouble with moral responsibility because later humans cannot have prevented something that happened before they were born. This problem also impacts doctrines that do not include original guilt, as one has to explain how people can be guilty for sinful acts if original sin makes the performance of these acts inevitable. Cawdron argues that cosmopsychism can help us resolve both of these issues, suggesting that the placing of consciousness at the fundamental level in cosmopsychism and the fact that the cosmic subject must individuate, or de-combine, to form other subjects, can provide us with a useful understanding of the transmission of original sin. Cawdron also uses cosmopsychism to develop two models of original sin – one including the doctrine of original guilt, and another that does not – to address tensions between the doctrine and moral responsibility.
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Cosmopsychism and Original Sin: Corruption in a Conscious Universe

Cosmopsychism and Original Sin: Corruption in a Conscious Universe

by Harvey Cawdron
Cosmopsychism and Original Sin: Corruption in a Conscious Universe

Cosmopsychism and Original Sin: Corruption in a Conscious Universe

by Harvey Cawdron

eBook

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Overview

Cawdron's book explores the applications of cosmopsychism, the idea that the universe is conscious, to contemporary discussions of original sin in Christian analytic theology.
There are two issues in the scholarship of original sin that the book focuses on. The first is the transmission issue, which explains how original sin is transmitted between humans. The second is the apparent tension between original sin and moral responsibility. In doctrines that include original guilt, where later humans are considered guilty for the first sin, one has trouble with moral responsibility because later humans cannot have prevented something that happened before they were born. This problem also impacts doctrines that do not include original guilt, as one has to explain how people can be guilty for sinful acts if original sin makes the performance of these acts inevitable. Cawdron argues that cosmopsychism can help us resolve both of these issues, suggesting that the placing of consciousness at the fundamental level in cosmopsychism and the fact that the cosmic subject must individuate, or de-combine, to form other subjects, can provide us with a useful understanding of the transmission of original sin. Cawdron also uses cosmopsychism to develop two models of original sin – one including the doctrine of original guilt, and another that does not – to address tensions between the doctrine and moral responsibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781350532441
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 09/18/2025
Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy of Religion
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 765 KB

About the Author

Harvey Cawdron is a Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, and recently completed his PhD on Cosmopsychism and the Metaphysics of Original Sin there under the supervision of Professor Oliver Crisp and Dr Joanna Leidenhag. He has published in journals like Religious Studies, Sophia, Zygon, and the Journal of Disability&Religion. Cawdron has recently been awarded the 2024 Samuel Rutherford Prize for the most distinguished doctoral thesis in English Literature, Scottish History, Church History, or Theology at the University of St Andrews.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Philosophical Problems with the Doctrine of Original Sin


Chapter 2: Augustinian Realism and the Metaphysics of Persistence

Chapter 3: From Panpsychism to Cosmopsychism

Chapter 4: Cosmopsychism and Classical Christian Theism: Partners or Rivals?

Chapter 5: The Corruption-Only Option: Cosmic Idealism, Dissociation, and Mental Causation

Chapter 6: The Augustinian Realist Option: Stage Theory, Hylomorphism, and Emergent Cosmopsychist Fission

Conclusion

Bibliography
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