Contemporary debates on divine action tend to focus on finding a space in nature where there would be no natural causes, where nature offers indeterminacy, openness, and potentiality, to place God’s action. These places are found through the natural sciences, in particular quantum mechanics. God’s action is then located in those ontological ”causal-gaps’ offered by certain interpretations of quantum mechanics. In this view, God would determine what is left underdetermined in nature without disrupting the laws of nature. These contemporary proposals (...) evidence at least two unexamined assumptions, which frame the discussion in such a way that they portray God as acting as a secondary cause or a ”cause among causes’. God is somewhat required to act within these ”gaps’, binding God to the laws of nature, and placing God’s action at the level of secondary causes. I suggest that understanding God’s action, following Thomas Aquinas, in terms of primary and secondary causation could help dissolve this difficulty. Aquinas moves away from this objection by suggesting to speak of an analogical notion of cause, allowing for an analogical understanding of God’s causality in nature. With a radically different understanding of the interplay between secondary causes and God, Aquinas manages to avoid conceiving God as a cause among causes, keeping the distinctive transcendent character of God’s causality safe from objections. (shrink)

Today’s debates present ”occasionalism’ as the position that any satisfying account of divine action must avoid. In this paper I discuss how a leading Cartesian author of the end of the seventeenth century, Pierre-Sylvain Régis, attempted to avoid occasionalism. Régis’s case is illuminating because it stresses both the difficulties connected with the traditional alternatives to occasionalism and also those aspects embedded in the occasionalist position that should be taken into due account. The paper focuses on Régis’s own account of secondary (...) causation in order to show how the challenge of avoiding occasionalism can lead to the development of new accounts of divine action. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a shift in divine action debates. Turning from noninterventionist, incompatibilist causal joint models, representatives of a “theological turn” in divine action have questioned the metaphysical assumptions of approaches seeking indeterministic aspects of nature wherein God might act. Various versions of theistic naturalism offer specific theological frameworks that reimagine the basic God–world relationship. But do these explicitly theological approaches to divine action take scientific knowledge and methodology seriously enough? And do such approaches adequately address the problem of (...) how uncreated, immaterial realities could affect physical, material processes? This article examines various features of the theological turn in divine action—recognizing it as a welcome step in science and religion, while challenging its current adequacy. (shrink)

How does God govern the world? For many theists “laws of nature” play a vital role. But what are these laws, metaphysically speaking? I shall argue that laws of nature are not external to the objects they govern, but instead should be thought of as reducible to internal features of properties. Recent work in metaphysics and philosophy of science has revived a dispositionalist conception of nature, according to which nature is not passive, but active and dynamic. Disposition theorists see particulars (...) as being internally powerful rather than being governed by external laws of nature, making external laws in effect ontologically otiose. I will argue that theists should prefer a dispositionalist ontology, since it leads them toward the theory of concurrentism in divine conservation, rather than occasionalism, and revives the distinction between internal and external teleology. God on this view does not govern the world through external laws of nature, but rather through internal aspects of powerful properties. (shrink)

It is often assumed that there is a hard line between theistic evolution (TE) and intelligent design (ID). Many theistic evolutionists subscribe to the idea that God only acts through natural processes, as opposed to the ID assertion that God, at certain points in natural history, has acted in a direct manner; directly causing particular features of the world. In this article, I argue that theistic evolutionists subscribe to what might be called Natural Divine Causation (NDC). NDC does not merely (...) provide a nonsupernaturalist and noninterventionist model of divine action, it provides a line of demarcation between TE and ID. I make the critique that NDC is philosophically untenable and argue, consequently, that the line between TE and ID is blurred. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis and critique of Roger Penrose’s epistemological, methodological, and ontological positions. The analysis is relevant not only because Penrose is an influential scientist, but also because of the particular traits of his thought. These traits are directly connected with his background and approach to science: ontological and epistemological realism, mathematical Platonism, emphasis on the continuities of science, epistemological inclusiveness and essential openness of science, the role of common sense, emphasis on the connection between science, ethics, and (...) philosophy. The paper articulates Penrose’s position and criticizes some of its possible shortcomings. It contributes to the perception of science as an open activity, as illustrated in Penrose’s particular approach, and provides an interesting case-study that can contribute to understanding how epistemological and ontological positions are connected with particular scientific practices. (shrink)

یکی از نظریات بسیار مهم و چالش‌برانگیز خداباوری گشوده، دیدگاه خاص آن درباره صفت علم مطلق الهی است. خداباوری گشوده اذعان دارد که خدا عالم مطلق است، اما با این قید که علم خدا به افعال اختیاری که انسان در آینده انجام می‌دهد تعلق نمی‌گیرد. پذیرش اختیار مطلق برای انسان توسط خداباوران گشوده و پذیرش تعارض میان «افعال اختیاری انسان در آینده» با «علم پیشینی خداوند» سبب شده است که آنها علم پیشینی خدا به این افعال را انکار کنند. در (...) عین حال، از نظر آنان عدم علم پیشینی خداوند به این نوع افعال، خدشه‌ای به علم مطلق او وارد نمی‌کند. خداباوران گشوده با ذکر انواع دیدگاه‌ها درباره علم خدا و بیان اشکالاتی که در این نظریات وجود دارد، دیدگاه خاص خودشان را اثبات می‌کنند و این دیدگاه را هم به لحاظ منطقی-فلسفی سازوارتر و هم به لحاظ مبتنی بودن بر کتاب مقدس سازگارتر می‌دانند. آنها، در یک تقسیم رایج و کلی، سه دیدگاه را قسیم دیدگاه خودشان می‌دانند که عبارت‌اند از «علم بسیط یا صرف»، «علم میانی» و «دیدگاه آگوستینی-کالونی». مدافعان خداباوری گشوده بعد از بیان اشکالات وارد بر هر کدام از این نظریات، که غالباً بر محدود شدن اختیار انسان، یا تعارض با کتاب مقدس تکیه دارند، نظریه خاص خودشان را تثبیت می‌کنند. (shrink)

The results from contemporary science, especially the theory of evolution and quantum physics, seem to favor process theology. Moreover, the evil committed by free will leads some theologians to reduce divine action in order to prevent God from being responsible for evil. Thus, among those who defend a particular providence, Molinism finds many followers. This article first argues that contemporary science does not constrain us to deny particular providence. Second, it criticizes the implicitly deterministic character of Molinism. Thirdly, a Thomistic (...) solution is proposed as an alternative which, by means of a different metaphysical approach to cosmic contingency and freedom of will, defends particular providence without reducing divine activity except in personal sins. (shrink)

If I take a free decision, how does this express itself physically? If God acts in this world, how does he do so? The answers to those two questions may be different or the same. Here we sketch a typology of possible answers, including Transcendent Compatibility. It turns out that in an open universe, freedom is the timewise mirror image of causality.