He refers to the dynamic unity of primary matter and substantial form, showing how hylemorphism overcomes the problem of dualism. The second part of the first chapter is dedicated to four basic modes of causality: necessity, contingency, freedom, and chance in Aristotle and Aquinas. Subsequent parts of UDA are based on the metaphor of locking and unlocking. In the second chapter Dodds explains how the rich Aristotelian understanding of causality was locked by the empiricism of modern science which left no room for causes that cannot be observed and quantified.
Trying to delineate the major lines for unlocking causality in contemporary science Dodds refers respectively to the concepts of emergence and chaos theory, which recall the notion of formal and final cause; quantum mechanics with the multiple explanations and discussion about causality that it inspires; cosmological theories which bring the idea of teleology in the form of the anthropic principle; and the theory of evolution with its questions about the role of chance, finality, and design in nature.
In the third chapter, Dodds shows how the causal reductionism of modern science locked our understanding of divine action, transforming the idea of God into a univocal efficient cause alongside of creatures.
The fourth chapter concentrates on ways in which contemporary science is unlocking divine action. Russell, William Dembski, and others. In response to previously mentioned theories of divine action, in chapters five and six Dodds presents his own position, which is based on the theology of Aquinas.
God is immanently present in all things. Not in the sense of being combined with them as one of their parts, but as the transcendent source of their being. As a remedy to a univocal explanation of divine action, Dodds proposes the language of analogy.
He uses it to interpret the Aristotelian modes of causality rediscovered by contemporary science, showing God to be the final cause, the exemplar of all forms, and the source of all efficient agency in nature. He elaborates on the notion of primary and secondary causality and introduces the idea of the principal and the instrumental cause.
Special attention is paid to the problem of divine action in terms of chance and human freedom. The whole problem of explaining divine action is not a purely academic discussion but more fundamentally refers to the day-by-day practice of Christian life.
His answers to these questions are based on the categories defined in previous chapters. Overall, UDA is an important voice in the debate on divine action. As Dodds himself alludes in the preface, the time is ripe to place traditional notions of causality in dialogue with the theories of contemporary science ix.
His attempt to do so is certainly successful. The reader might feel a certain discomfort in finding the thoughts of Aristotle presented in a chapter dedicated to St. Our purpose here is not to recount the difficulties this caused for early modern theologians but to point out three specific categorical shifts in late modern philosophy that have shaped the conceptual space within the dialogue now occurs: the growing preference for relation, kinesis and difference over substance, stasis and sameness.
Whence and whither these philosophical trajectories? For the most part traditional Western philosophy as well as science and theology has followed Plato in starting with the category of being, which has to do with the essence or substance ousia of things, as distinct from their relations or accidental attributes. Plato also tended to value rest over change or motion and sameness over difference, tendencies that were hardened in Neo-platonism and registered a profound effect on 1 Nancey Murphy, Robert John Russell and William R.
Stoeger, S. For both of these philosophers the categories of being, rest and identity were dominant in their metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. In late modern philosophy, however, one can trace a growing dis- satisfaction with this dominance and a struggle to reverse or at least balance these tendencies through an emphasis on the philosophical significance of the categories of relationality, dynamism and difference. These trajectories have been motivated by scientific and theological as well as philosophical concerns.
Although they are not included in this volume, several theologians who participated in the SPDA project e. We can also see a late modern trajectory toward a metaphysical privileging of kinesis or motion over stasis or rest. This is connected to the question of the relation between being and becoming, classi- cally illustrated in the extremes of Parmenides and Heraclitus, whom Plato tried to balance.
In his theory of the two realms, however, the temporal movement of material things is not the Ideal; for Plato true knowledge is contemplation of the static Forms.
Here too Einstein is the easy comparison. According to Einstein contra Newton , mass, the inertial property of matter by which bodies resist change of motion, should be identified with the energy of that motion. Developments in the fields of quantum mechanics and chaos theory have also confirmed and intensified this philosophical valuation of the dynamic over the static.
Each of these think- ers and others has been influenced in various ways by Kierkegaard and Heidegger, both of whom privileged the category of difference in their philosophical speculations and psychological analyses of human relationships. However, the philosophical turn to alterity or difference has not yet played as significant a role in the science and theology dialogue.
A Philosophical Preview The essays included in this volume are exemplary in several ways. They are all examples of state-of-the-art contributions to the debate over divine action among scientists and Christian theologians. They also represent the work of some of the most active participants in the SPDA project, and the broader international theology and science dialogue.
Mostly importantly for the purposes of this book, they illustrate the care with which and depth to which the project attended to the role of philosophy in this dialogue. The following preview does not attempt to summarize the complex arguments of each essay; rather, it alerts the reader to some of the key philosophical concerns and concepts that are relevant for understanding and assessing the ongoing discussion. The first three chapters included here were written by the three scholars who are widely acknowledged to be the leading figures of the contemporary resurgent interest in international dialogue among scientists and Christian theologians, which picked up momentum in the s and has grown consistently to the present: Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne.
The remaining five chapters all deal with the more specific question of special divine action in relation to quantum theory. In this context Barbour himself illustrates this in two ways. First, he explicitly demonstrates the way in which four par- ticular philosophical issues in contemporary biology self-organization, indeterminacy, top-down causality, and communication of information play a role in various models of divine action in an evolving world.
Second, Barbour attempts to show the illuminative power of process philosophy, especially the categories developed by Alfred North White- head and Charles Hartshorne. He argues that this philosophical system is able both to integrate the valuable insights of the other views and to move beyond them by better accounting for the human experience of interiority and novelty. This engagement with process philosophy, which explicitly challenges substance-accident dualism and begins with relational and dynamic categories, also illustrates the way in which the first two late modern trajectories outlined above have impacted the science and religion dialogue.
The four ways are conflict, independence, dialogue and integration. Peacocke wants to maintain this intuition, but to articulate it in such a way that makes sense in light of contemporary science. In the context of this particular essay, Polkinghorne focuses on ways in which metaphysical assumptions about the nature of time and epistemological assumptions about the knowability of the future shape our conceptions of divine action in and divine knowledge of the world.
The main point for our purposes here is that he too illustrates the importance of explicitly attending to the philosophical mediation of the dialogue between science and religion. In the essay included here, Stoeger argues that the distinction between primary and secondary causality, which was developed by Thomas Aquinas in his adaptation of Aristotelian metaphysics, provides us with a useful philosophical tool for clarifying the nature of divine action.
He also represents the inclusion within the project of a minority position among Christian theologians in the dialogue. In light of the problem of evil and other conceptual issues, Wildman is willing to give up the idea that God acts intention- ally, or in a way analogous to human agency in the world, and prefers to speak of God or ultimate reality as the ground of being.
However, he emphasizes the importance of balancing metaphysical courage with epistemic humility as we explore these possibilities. Clayton suggests that instead of thinking of physics and metaphysics in dichotomous terms, we should imagine them as falling at different points on a continuum of abstraction. Questions about divine action require us to move further along the continuum toward abstraction, but should nevertheless be connected to and in some sense constrained by questions about the concrete nature of the physical world.
On the other hand, Clayton also acknowledges the insight of post-positivist philosophy of science that metaphysical deci- sions are not simply determined by the data of physical theories. On the one hand, God pri- marily and directly causes the continual existence of all finite things.
The kind of divine action in history that is central for the faith of the Abrahamic religions, argues Tracy, requires that there be gaps of the right sort in the causal structures of nature. These gaps appear to him to be provided in the indetermi- nacy of quantum events. Like most of the other contributors who engage quantum theory, Tracy also explicitly makes the connection between metaphysical decisions about compatibilism and incompatibilism for example and issues that bear on ethics, such as the plausibility of the idea of human free will and responsibility.
Nancey Murphy was another one of the most active of the par- ticipants in the project, serving as co-editor for three of the volumes in the series as well as the capstone volume. Murphy stresses that the problem of divine action is, at base, a metaphysical problem. Sec- ond, Ellis provides a more detailed treatment of the role of the problem of evil in reflections on divine action.
He acknowledges that theories of extraordinary divine action are susceptible to the charge of capricious- ness. If God can, and occasionally does act, why does God not act to stop Hitler for example , or to alleviate contemporary experiences of pain and suffering? This proposal offers a clear example of the way in which moral concerns can play an important role in the treatment of metaphysical and epistemological issues within the science and theology dialogue.
Throughout the essay, Russell pays special attention to philosophical aspects of the dialogue, including the metaphysical and epistemological questions that shape the interpretation of quantum mechanics. His own proposal involves the appropriation of theologians like Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, for whom trinitarian reflection plays a central role in articulating the rela- tion between God and the world. Russell also explicitly addresses the two main ethical or moral questions that shape Christian discourse on divine action: the problem of human freedom and the challenge of theodicy.
Both individually and as a group these chapters illustrate the significant role of philosophy in the dialogue between science and Christian theol- ogy over the question of divine action. This is so amply demonstrated in the various essays that I have limited myself in this Introduction to alerting the reader to some of the major philosophical themes and shifts that shape the general context of the dialogue and the particular material and methodological argumentation of each contribution.
The project was not intended to offer a final anwer on the question of divine action but to press the dialogue between Christian theology and natural science further in light of the significant scientific and philosophical developments of the last century. Although they welcomed and 9 For a more detailed treatment of these and related issues, cf. As indicated above, a new series that explicitly treats the problem of natural evil has now been launched, demonstrating that its participants are well aware of the need for ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue about the various and complex questions that must be faced in discussions of divine action.
This will open up new opportunities for critically engaging the deeper philosophical presuppositions that shape the very idea of divine agency in Christian theology. To what extent might individualistic ethical assumptions about the powerful role of desire for future goods in finite agency constrain our imaginative articulation of the relation of God to time? Our explora- tion of these and other challenging questions will be enhanced as we increasingly engage the resources of the late modern philosophical turn to alterity and of other especially non-western religious traditions.
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