Jacob Baker is a scholar of philosophy of religion and theology who completed his doctoral studies at Claremont Graduate University’s School of Religion. His dissertation explored the inherent unthinkability of the problem of evil in philosophy and theology, arguing that this unthinkability is central to its status as a problem.
Baker’s graduate work spans an impressive range of philosophical and theological traditions. He studied continental philosophy under Ingolf Dalferth, examining figures such as Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Tillich. His paper Heidegger and Wittgenstein: Worldliness and Surveyable Representation in the Architecture of the Ordinary argued that both philosophers share a fundamental orientation toward allowing phenomena to show themselves without philosophical interference. His work on Nietzsche explored how the philosopher’s critique of truth was ultimately in service of affirming and enhancing life itself.
In phenomenology, Baker engaged deeply with Jean-Luc Marion’s work, arguing that love is the privileged theme of phenomenology and that Marion’s phenomenology of givenness can reveal how love enables the other to give herself as herself in particularity and unsubstitutability. His paper on Badiou and Zizek’s readings of St. Paul explored how these atheist philosophers converge on understanding Pauline love as work, labor, and struggle—far removed from sentimental notions.
Baker has contributed significantly to Mormon intellectual discourse. His article The Grandest Principle of the Gospel: Christian Nihilism, Sanctified Activism, and Eternal Progression appeared in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Vol. 41, No. 3, 2008), examining how early twentieth-century Mormon intellectuals developed eternal progression as an existential response to what they perceived as the nihilistic stasis of traditional Christian heaven. In Element (Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2008), his essay The Shadow of the Cathedral argued that “open system” approaches to systematic theology can accommodate Mormon continuing revelation.
His work on Joseph Smith, written under Richard L. Bushman, explored the connection between Smith’s personal experiences with friendship and his developing theology of sealing, arguing that the “welding link” concept emerged from Smith’s vision of uniting all humanity across time through bonds of love. Baker also examined whether Mormon theology can be meaningfully articulated within panentheistic discourse, suggesting that “pansyntheism”—meaning “God with us” rather than “God in us”—better accommodates Mormon emphases on divine personhood and the distinct identities of God and humans.
In process theology and medieval theology, Baker examined how panentheism provides a framework capable of unifying disparate experiences—religious and secular, scientific and theological—into a coherent whole. His work on medieval atonement theory argued against contemporary calls to subordinate atonement to incarnation, demonstrating through Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, and Bonaventure that these doctrines are mutually interdependent.
During his presentation at the MTAConf 2016, he offered philosophical challenges to transhumanist thought through the lens of cosmic pessimism. His engagement with transhumanist literature reflects his broader interest in how philosophy and theology address questions of human potential, meaning, and transcendence.
