Well, Bill, after at least four years of work, volume one of your systematic philosophical theology is being released in the UK, and due to be released in the U.S. in March of this year from Wiley Blackwell publishers.

We'll impact some terms like systematic and the importance of systematic philosophical theology

just a little bit later in this podcast.

But you must be pretty excited about this release.

I really am, Kevin. It's been a long wait,

and I am so excited to see the book finally appear. We want to take the next several

podcast and discuss the contents of Volume 1. But I know that people are interested in

the whole venture. So the genesis of the project, your writing process, finding a publisher and so on.

So let's start at the beginning.

When did you decide that it was time to start writing and publishing, this multi-volume work?

It was after I finished my work on divine aseity, and I thought at that time that this

was a project that I should tackle. Several people were instrumental in encouraging to undertake

this. The first time I heard or conceived of a systematic philosophical theology was in conversation with my doctoral mentor, John Hick, when I was working under him at the University of Birmingham.

And I asked Professor Hick what his next project was going to be, and he said that he was thinking about writing a systematic

philosophical theology. And I was so struck by that, Kevin. I had never heard of such a thing.

It seemed to me like an incredibly creative and helpful project.

Well, Hick never, in fact, undertook that project,

but that was tucked away in the back of my mind ever since that day.

And Jan really encouraged me to undertake this project and begin to do it. And J.P. Morland, my colleague out at Talbot, was

instrumental in helping to place the book at Wiley Blackwell. He had recently published his book,

The Substance of Consciousness with Wiley Blackwell and had contacts with the editorial staff.

And so he strongly encouraged them to take a look at my proposal.

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