Works by
David Ray Griffin
(Writer)
[1939 - ]

A Process Christology (1973)
The first full-scale Christology based upon process thought. Its thesis: Whitehead's process philosophy provides a basis for explicating the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is God's decisive self-revelation, in a manner that is consistent with both modern thought and Christian faith. "A Process Christology" brings together three dimensions of recent theology: the new quest for the historical Jesus, the new-orthodox emphasis on God's self-revealing activity in history, and the theology based primarily on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.

Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (1976) with John B. Cobb

Mind in Nature:  Essays on the Interface of Science and Philosophy by John B. Cobb with David Ray Griffin, ed.

Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions (1988), David Ray Griffin, ed.

The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals (1988)

Archetypal Process Self and Divine in Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman (1989)

God and Religion in the Postmodern World:  God and Religion in the Postmodern World (1989)

Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology (1989) by David Ray Griffin and Huston Smith

Varieties of Postmodern Theology (1989) by David Ray Griffin, Joe Holland, and William A. Beardslee

Sacred Interconnection: Postmodern Spirituality, Political Economy and Art (1990)

Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations (1991)

God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (1991)

Theology and the University: Essays in Honor of John B Cobb, Jr. (1991) by David Ray Griffin with Joseph C. Hough, ed.

Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy: Peirce, James, Bergson, Whitehead, and Hartshorne (1992) by  David Ray Griffin, John B. Cobb, Marcus P. Ford,and  Pete A. Y. Gunter

Parapsychology and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Perspective (1993)

Postmodern Politics for a Planet in Crisis: Policy, Process, and Presidential Vision (1993) by David Ray Griffin with Richard Falk, ed.

Jewish Theology and Process Thought (1996), David Ray Griffin and Sandra B. Lubarsky, eds.
This collection constitutes the first extended discussion of the relationship between Judaism and process thought. In the last half century the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne have become important sources for contemporary theological reflection. Recently, a number of Jewish thinkers have examined process thought as a potentially valuable resource for postmodern Jewish theology. This book brings together many Jewish thinkers who have pioneered this discussion.

Jewish thinkers who have found process thought to be a useful framework for contemporary Jewish thought discuss issues that are primarily theological, such as God's transcendence and immanence, the problem of evil, the idea of revelation. Also included is a dialogue between Jewish and Christian thinkers on the appropriateness of process thought for their religious traditions. Critical reflection on the continuities and discontinuities between Judaism and the process model is also covered.

Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration (1997)
In this book, David Ray Griffin, best known for his work on the problem of evil, turns his attention to the even more controversial topic of parapsychology. Griffin examines why scientists, philosophers, and theologians have held parapsychology in disdain and argues that neither a priori philosophical attacks nor wholesale rejection of the evidence can withstand scrutiny. After articulating a constructive postmodern philosophy that allows the parapsychological evidence to be taken seriously. Griffin examines this evidence extensively. He identifies four types of repeatable phenomena that suggest the reality of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Then, on the basis of a nondualistic distinction between mind and brain, which makes the idea of life after death conceivable, he examines five types of evidence for the reality of life after death: messages from mediums; apparitions; cases of the possession type; cases of the reincarnation type; and out-of-body experiences. His philosophical and empirical examinations of these phenomena suggest that they provide support for a postmodern spirituality that overcomes the thinness of modern religion without returning to supernaturalism.

Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem (1998)
The mind-body problem, which Schopenhauer called the "world-knot," has been a central problem for philosophy since the time of Descartes. Among realists--those who accept the reality of the physical world--the two dominant approaches have been dualism and materialism, but there is a growing consensus that, if we are ever to understand how mind and body are related, a radically new approach is required.

David Ray Griffin develops a third form of realism, one that resolves the basic problem (common to dualism and materialism) of the continued acceptance of the Cartesian view of matter. In dialogue with various philosophers, including Dennett, Kim, McGinn, Nagel, Seager, Searle, and Strawson, Griffin shows that materialist physicalism is even more problematic than dualism. He proposes instead a pan-experientialist physicalism grounded in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Answering those who have rejected "pan-psychism" as obviously absurd, Griffin argues compellingly that pan-experientialism, by taking experience and spontaneity as fully natural, can finally provide a naturalistic account of the emergence of consciousness--an account that also does justice to the freedom that we all presuppose in practice.

Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (2000)
Articulates a metaphysical position capable of rendering both science and religious experience simultaneously and mutually intelligible.

In this book, David Ray Griffin argues that the perceived conflict between science and religion is based upon a double mistake-the assumption that religion requires supernaturalism and that scientific naturalism requires atheism and materialism.

Reenchantment Without Supernaturalis: A Process Philosophy of Religion (2000)

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9-11 (2004)
Taking to heart the classic idea that those who benefit from a crime ought to be investigated, here the eminent theologian David Ray Griffin sifts through the evidence about the attacks of 9/11--stories from the mainstream press, reports from abroad, the work of other researchers, and the contradictory words of members of the Bush administration themselves--and finds that, taken together, they cast serious doubt on the official story of that tragic day. He begins with simple questions: Once radio contact was lost with the flights, why weren't jets immediately sent up ("scrambled") from the nearest military airport, something that according to the FAA's own manual is routine procedure? Why did the administration's story about scrambling jets change in the days following the attacks? The disturbing questions don't stop there: they emerge from every part of the story, from every angle, until it is impossible not to suspect the architects of the official story of enormous deception. A teacher of ethics and theology, Griffin writes with compelling logic, urging readers to draw their own conclusions from the evidence. The New Pearl Harbor is a stirring call for a thorough investigation into what happened on 9/11. It rings with the conviction that it is still possible to search for the truth in American political life.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2004)
With US political leaders Democrat and Republican alike rushing to embrace the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and an eager media receiving the Commission's 567-page report as the whole story, the history we can stand upon forevermore, everyone who cares about the fate of American democracy will want to know something about what those pages actually say.

The Commission's account, by popular reckoning, has made an impression with its heft, its footnotes, its portrayal of the confusion of that sobering day, its detail, its narrative finesse. Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian and author of The New Pearl Harbor (a book that explores questions that reporters, eyewitnesses, and political observers have raised about the 9/11 attacks), the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest: Is it possible that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has given three different stories of what he was doing the morning of September 11, and that the Commission combines two of them and ignores eyewitness reports to the contrary? Is it possible that the man in charge of the military that day, Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers, saw the first tower hit on TV, and then went into a meeting, where he remained unaware of what was happening for the next 40 minutes? Is it possible, as the Commission reports, that the FAA did not inform military that the fourth airplane appeared to have been hijacked-contrary to both common sense and the word of FAA employees? Is it possible that the Report, upon which are based recommendations for overhauling the nation's intelligence, fails to mention even in a footnote the most serious allegations made public by Coleen Rowley, FBI whistleblower and Time person of the year?

Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith (2004)
Furthering his contribution to the science and religion debate, David Ray Griffin draws upon the cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead and proposes a radical synthesis between two worldviews sometimes thought wholly incompatible. He argues that the traditions designated by the names "scientific naturalism" and "Christian faith" both embody a great truth-a truth of universal validity and importance-but that both of these truths have been distorted, fueling the conflict between the visions of the scientific and Christian communities. Griffin contends, however, that there is no inherent conflict between science, or even the kind of naturalism that it properly presupposes, and the Christian faith, understood in terms of the primary doctrines of the Christian good news.

Deep Religious Pluralism (2005), David Ray Griffin, ed.
A groundbreaking work, "Deep Religious Pluralism" is based on the conviction that the philosophy articulated by Alfred North Whitehead encourages not only religious diversity but deep religious pluralism.

In Part I, David Ray Griffin explains how the Whitehead-based religious pluralism of John Cobb avoids the problems in John Hick’s type of pluralism, which have led many thinkers, such as Mark Heim, to reject pluralism as such. Griffin shows that Cobb has achieved precisely the ideal articulated in Heim’s own Salvations---a position that can see truth in the various traditions without neglecting their differences.

In Part II, Steve Odin and John Shunji Yokota extend Cobb’s Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

In Part III, Sandra Lubarsky, Jeffery Long, Mustafa Ruzgar, Christopher Ives, Michael Lodahl, Chung-ying Cheng, and Wang Shik Jang employ Whiteheadian philosophy to develop, respectively, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Evangelical Christian, Daoist-Confucian, and Asian Christian versions of deep religious pluralism.

In Part IV, John Cobb explains the main Whiteheadian assumptions on which his form of religious pluralism has been based.

Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action (2006)
Probing disturbing questions that beg for a response from the Christian community, distinguished scholar of religion and popular writer David Ray Griffin provides a hard-hitting analysis of the official accounts of the events of September 11, 2001. A tireless investigator, Griffin has sorted through enormous amounts of government and independent data and brought to the surface some very unsettling inconsistencies about what really happened. In this, his latest book, he analyzes the evidence about 9/11 and then explores a distinctively Christian perspective on these issues, taking seriously what we know about Jesus’ life, death, and teachings. Drawing a parallel between the Roman Empire of antiquity and the American Empire of today, he applies Jesus’ teachings to the current political administration, and he explores how Christian churches, as a community intending to be an incarnation of the divine, can and should respond.

The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God : A Political, Economic, Religious Statement (2006) with John B. Cobb, Richard A. Falk and Catherine Keller
Four distinguished scholars here level a powerful critique of the rapid expansion of the emerging American empire and its oppressive and destructive political, military, and economic policies. Arguing that a global Pax Americana is internationally disastrous, the authors demonstrate how America's imperialism inevitably leads to rampant irreversible ecological devastation, expanding military force for imperialistic purposes, and a grossly inequitable distribution of goods--all leading to the diminished well-being of human communities. These four prophetic voices--three Christians, one Jew--persuasively indict the American empire as being diametrically opposed to divine values and powerful enough to threaten the purposes of God.

9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Vol. 1 (2006), David Ray Griffin, ed. with Peter Dale Scott
Practically from the moment the dust settled in New York and Washington after the attacks of September 11, a movement has grown of survivors, witnesses, and skeptics who have never quite been able to accept the official story. When theologian David Ray Griffin turned his attention to this topic in his book The New Pearl Harbor (2003), he helped give voice to a disquieting rumble of critiques and questions from many Americans and people around the world about the events of that day. Were the military and the FAA really that incompetent? Were our intelligence-gathering agencies really in the dark about such a possibility? In short, how could so much go wrong at once, in the world's strongest and most technologically sophisticated country?

Both the government and the mainstream media have since tried to portray the 9/11 truth movement as led by people who can be dismissed as "conspiracy theorists" able to find an outlet for their ideas only on the internet. This volume, with essays by intellectuals from Europe and North America, shows this caricature to be untrue. Coming from different intellectual disciplines as well as from different parts of the world, these authors are united in the conviction that the official story about 9/11 is a huge deception manufactured to extend imperial control at home and abroad.

Contributors include Richard Falk, Daniele Ganser, David Ray Griffin, Steven E. Jones, Karin Kwiatkowski, John McMurtry, Peter Phillips, Morgan Reynolds, Kevin Ryan, Peter Dale Scott, Ola Tunander.

Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2007)
By virtue of his previous four books on the subject, David Ray Griffin is widely recognized as one of the leading spokespersons of the 9/11 truth movement, which rejects the official conspiracy theory about 9/11. Although this movement was long ignored by the US government and the mainstream media, recent polls have shown that (as Time magazine has acknowledged) the rejection of the official theory has become "a mainstream political phenomenon." It is not surprising, therefore, that the government and the corporately controlled media have shifted tactics. No longer ignoring the 9/11 truth movement, they have released a flurry of stories and reports aimed at debunking it.

In the present book, David Ray Griffin shows that these attempts can themselves be easily debunked. Besides demonstrating the pitiful failure of Debunking 9/11 Myths (published by Popular Mechanics and endorsed by Senator John McCain), Griffin riddles recent reports and stories put out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Time magazine as well as a new book by the chairmen of the 9/11 Commission. He also responds to criticisms of the 9/11 truth movement by left-leaning and Christian publications--which one might have expected to be supportive.

Throughout these critiques, Griffin shows that the charge that is regularly leveled against critics of the official theory-that they employ irrational and unscientific methods to defend conclusions based on faith-actually applies more fully to those who defend the official theory.

This book, by debunking the most prevalent attempts to refute the evidence cited by the 9/11 truth movement, shows that this movement's central claim-that 9/11 was an inside job-remains the only explanation that fits the facts.

Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance (2007)
Postmodern philosophy is often dismissed as unintelligible, self-contradictory, and as a passing fad with no contribution to make to the problems faced by philosophers in our time. While this characterization may be true of the type of philosophy labeled postmodern in the 1980s and 1990s, David Ray Griffin argues that Alfred North Whitehead had formulated a radically different type of postmodern philosophy to which these criticisms do not apply. Griffin shows the power of Whitehead's philosophy in dealing with a range of contemporary issues--the mind-body relation, ecological ethics, truth as correspondence, the relation of time in physics to the (irreversible) time of our lives, and the reality of moral norms. He also defends a distinctive dimension of Whitehead's postmodernism, his theism, against various criticisms, including the charge that it is incompatible with relativity theory.