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A Classification of Theories of Divine Action

We give a brief summary of each theory.Working from Tracy, T, ‘Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps’ in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. by R.J.Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur Peacocke...The best way to compare them in detail is to ask - what, for each theory, is ‘the causal joint’ at which God - as a <!g>transcendent, immaterial world cause - interacts particularly with causative factors in the material world?

i) sceptical naturalism - <!g>Willem B Drees has surveyed the field with characteristic insight,Drees, WB, Religion, Science and Naturalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp93-106but is reluctant to speak of particular divine action because this might seem to undermine the adequacy of naturalistic explanations, to which he is committed. For different reasons <!g>Bultmann and his school also insisted on the adequacy of the scientific description of events,See God, Humanity and the Cosmos pp54-56as do non-realist theologians such as Don Cupitt. Drees’ view of the causal-joint question would be that to search for an extra ingredient at a causal joint is to neglect the self-sufficiency of naturalistic accounts, one of the premises he sets out so clearly at the beginning of <!g>Religion, Science and Naturalism.Drees, 1996, 12-21

ii) general providential action without particular gaps in the causal order - espoused by Gordon Kaufman in his God the Problem (1972)Kaufman, G, God the Problem (Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 1972)and even more radically by Maurice Wiles in God’s Action in the World (1986).Wiles, M, God’s Action in the World (London: SCM Press, 1986)Kaufman and Wiles both reject descriptions of divine action as particular to individual situations. God’s relation is to the-world-as-a-whole, and history-as-a-whole, the relation of creating and sustaining the <!g>cosmos from moment to moment. There is no particular causal joint, only the overall creator-creature relation. As Tracy points out, this is essentially to subsume providence into creation, and pays a heavy theological price in so doing.Tracy, T, 1995, 301-04

iii) particular providential action without gaps in the causal order - in different ways this is proposed by

iv) particular providential action employing particular gaps in the causal order. Again there are three camps here

Email link | Feedback | Contributed by: <!g>Dr. Christopher Southgate
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos  (<!g>T&T Clark, 1999)

A Test Case - Divine Action

Index - God, Humanity and the Cosmos, 1999 T&T Clark

A Classification of Theories of Divine Action

Related Book Topics:

An Introduction to Divine Action: Isaac Newton’s God
God of the Gaps
Determinism, Indeterminism and Their Implications
Law, Chance and Divine Action
Different Understandings of Chance
How to Think About Providential Agency
Neo-Thomist Views of Divine Action
Body-of-God Theories of Divine Action
Peacocke’s View of Divine Action
Polkinghorne’s View of Divine Action
Quantum-Based Proposals on Divine Action
Criticisms of Quantum-Based Proposals on Divine Action
Process Models of Divine Action
Peacocke and Polkinghorne Compared
Peacocke and Polkinghorne: Comparison of Models of Divine Action
The Question of Miracle
The Resurrection of Jesus
The Virginal Conception of Jesus
Science and Divine Action

Source:

Dr. Christopher Southgate in God, Humanity and the Cosmos. Published by T&T Clark.

See also:

Isaac Newton
Charles Darwin
Theology
Does God Act?
Ward on Divine Action