So God has intellect, senses, and will, but these are correlated with the whole universe the way that our intellect, senses, and will are correlated with our brain processes, which act as ways of representing the world around us. Although anthropomorphic, God differs from us not merely in the vastly greater extent of divine knowledge and power, but also in that God is aware of the Universe whereas we are not (usually) aware of the brain as such. Rather the way the brain appears from the inside is, by evolution and divine purpose, a remarkably faithful representation of part of the Universe.

On this conception, God does not create the Universe ex nihilo. For that would be self-creation, which is incoherent. Rather God starts as a maximally indeterminate Universe, like the pre-Socratic apeiron, and the divine acts are ones of increasing determinacy. First I shall assume, for simplicity of exposition, that idealism is false. That is, I assume that physical does not depend for its existence on the awareness of it. More important, I assume, without here arguing, that Naturalism is false.

That is, there are features of the Universe that cannot be understood scientifically. These include rather general features of human beings (and some other animals) to do with consciousness and with reasons for action. These features are not mere mysteries but provide potential explanations of the scientific description.

 

Rather the way the brain appears from the inside is, by evolution and divine purpose, a remarkably faithful representation of part of the Universe.