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Philosophical Studies in
Science and Religion
Edited by
F. LeRon Shults, University of Agder
VOLUME 1
Philosophy, Science and
Divine Action
Edited by
F. LeRon Shults, Nancey Murphy and
Robert John Russell
LEIDEN BOSTON
2009
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Philosophy, science, and divine action / edited by F. LeRon Shults, Nancey Murphy,
and Robert John Russell.
p. cm. (Philosophical studies in science and religion, ISSN 1877-8542 ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17787-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Providence and government of GodChristianity. 2. Philosophy and religion.
3. ChristianityPhilosophy. 4. Philosophical theology. 5. Religion and science.
I. Shults, F. LeRon. II. Murphy, Nancey C. III. Russell, Robert J.
BT135.P45 2009
231.7dc22
2009026641
ISSN 1877-8542
ISBN 978 90 04 17787 1
F. LeRon Shults
treated philosophical issues. I think it is also fair to say that all of the
essays involve philosophical engagement at least implicitly, insofar
as they utilize philosophical categories and attempt to contribute to
our understanding of topics that have a long history of philosophical
disputation.
The chapters in the current volume were selected for inclusion first
and foremost because they demonstrate the value of explicitly attending
to the philosophical issues that shape the dialogue between science and
Christian theology about the idea of divine action in the world. Below
I will provide a brief preview of each of these chapters. First, however,
I want to back up and briefly outline three of the classical themes in
philosophy (epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics) and three of the
shifts in philosophical categories in late modernity (relation, kinesis,
and difference), to which we can then make reference as we preview
the chapters.
Many of the particular issues within the complex history of the develop-
ment of philosophy that are relevant for understanding the role of the
idea of divine action in the contemporary dialogue between scientists
and Christian theologians are outlined and analyzed in the context of
the ten essays that comprise this book. For the purposes of this Introduc-
tion, therefore, it suffices to note three of the general areas into which
philosophical discourse is often divided: metaphysics, epistemology and
ethics. While treatments of these themes are clearly interconnected, for
the sake of analysis we can distinguish between the kinds of questions
that typically exercise philosophers: What is real? What is true? What
is good? Broadly speaking, we are dealing here with the conditions for
the human experience of being, knowing and acting in the world. Scien-
tists and theologians operate, more or less self-consciously, within and
across these spheres of discourse. One of the main goals of this book
is highlighting the way in which philosophical themes and categories
function within the dialogue among the disciplines.
Like just about everything in philosophy, the meaning of the term
metaphysics is highly contested. In general it has to do with discourse
about being, about the nature and structure of reality. Presuppositions
about that which is inevitably impact both scientific and theologi-
cal argumentation. Ones assumptions about the order of the world
4 f. leron shults
1
Nancey Murphy, Robert John Russell and William R. Stoeger, S.J., eds, Physics
and Cosmology: Scientific Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil, vol. I (Berkeley:
CTNS/VO, 2007).
6 f. leron shults
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
1970s and has grown consistently to the present: Ian Barbour, Arthur
Peacocke and John Polkinghorne. The fourth chapter is by William
8 f. leron shults
2
Barbour, Ways of Relating Science and Theology, in Russell, et al., eds., Physics,
Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding (Vatican Observatory,
1988), 2148. The four ways are conflict, independence, dialogue and integration. Cf.
Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science (New York: HarperOne, 1990).
a philosophical introduction to divine action 9
3
Peacockes engages these and other philosophical issues (including the epistemo-
logical implications of critical realism) in more detail in Theology for a Scientific Age:
Being and BecomingNatural, Divine and Human (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).
10 f. leron shults
4
For an overview of Polkinghornes approach to the dialogue, cf. his Belief in God
in an Age of Science (New Haven: Yale, 2003).
a philosophical introduction to divine action 11
5
In his contribution to the capstone volume, Wildman makes this argument more
extensively in the context of his classification of the projects participants. Cf. Wildman,
The Divine Action Project, Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 176.
12 f. leron shults
offering the best current option for tracing the lines between quantum
physics and theology.6
In his essay Creation, Providence and Quantum Chance, Thomas
Tracy also (like William Stoeger) utilizes the philosophical distinction
between primary and secondary causality. On the one hand, God pri-
marily and directly causes the (continual) existence of all finite things.
On the other hand, God can also act through secondary causes,
producing results indirectly through the operation of finite things.
Tracy suggests that quantum theory has led to a philosophical chal-
lenge to exceptionless causal determinism, long accepted by scientists
and theologians, which opens up a new way to think of Gods special
(and objective) action in the world. 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. For Tracy, such gaps are not created ad hoc
in the world by Gods special acts of intervention but are built into
structure of the world created by God ex nihilo. 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. In the paper included
here, Divine Action in the Natural Order, she outlines a theory
of causation that attempts to account for both scientific phenomena
and religious experience. Murphy stresses that the problem of divine
action is, at base, a metaphysical problem. Nothing short of a revision
of current metaphysical notions regarding the nature of matter and
causation is likely to solve the problem of divine action. Murphys
essay also demonstrates the importance of the first two late modern
philosophical trajectories outlined above. For example, in her treatment
of the metaphysical considerations that shape the dialogue, she traces
the role of concepts such as matter, substance, change, and motion in
6
In his chapter in the capstone volume, Toward a Theory of Divine Action that has
Traction, Clayton commends emergence theory as a valuable and viable metaphysic
for incorporating both scientific and theological concerns.
a philosophical introduction to divine action 13
7
Nancey Murphys chapter in the capstone volume explored Emergence, Downward
Causation and Divine Action, outlining several key philosophical issues and evaluating
a variety of approaches to these themes.
8
Cf. George Ellis and Nancey Murphy, On the Moral Nature of the Universe (Min-
neapolis: Fortress, 1996).
14 f. leron shults
in the fifth and final volume of the series, and it offers a summary of
the key issues in the field, outlines a constructive proposal and sug-
gests directions for future research. 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.9
Conclusion
9
For a more detailed treatment of these and related issues, cf. Russell, Cosmol-
ogyFrom Alpha to Omega (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008).
a philosophical introduction to divine action 15
Ian G. Barbour
Is evolutionary theory compatible with the idea that God acts in nature?
Through most of Western history it had been assumed that all creatures
were designed and created by God in their present forms, but Darwin
claimed that they are the product of a long process of natural selection.
His theory of evolution not only undermined the traditional version
of the argument from design; it also explained the history of nature by
scientific laws that seemed to offer no opportunity for Gods providen-
tial guidance. However several themes in the biological sciences offer
promising new ways of conceiving of divine action in evolutionary
history without intervention or violation of the laws of nature.
The first section of this essay traces the development of evolutionary
theory from Darwin himself to molecular biology and recent hypotheses
about complexity. The second explores four themes in recent writing
about biological processes: self-organization, indeterminacy, top-down
causality, and communication of information. Subsequent sections
examine theological models of Gods action in nature based on analo-
gies with each of these four characteristics of organic life. I will suggest
that a fifth model from process theology avoids some of the problems
arising in other models of Gods relation to nature.
1. Darwinism Evolving
1
Michael Ruse, Philosophy of Biology Today (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New
York Press, 1988), 6; idem, The Darwinian Paradigm (New York: Routledge, 1989).
2
David P. Depew and Bruce H. Weber, Darwinism Evolving (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1995), Part I.
five models of god and evolution 19
3
Ibid., Part II.
20 ian g. barbour
4
R.N. Brandon and R.M. Burian, eds., Genes, Organisms, Populations: Controversies
over the Units of Selection (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984); Niles Eldredge and Stanley
Salthe, Hierarchy and Evolution, in Oxford Surveys of Evolutionary Biology (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1985).
5
Stephen Jay Gould, Darwinism and the Expansion of Evolutionary Theory, Science
216 (1982), 38087; S.J. Gould and Niles Eldredge, Punctuated Equilibrium Comes
of Age, Nature 366 (1993), 22327.
6
S.J. Gould and Richard C. Lewontin, The Spandrels of San Marco and the Pan-
glossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptionist Programme, Proc. of Royal Society
of London B 205 (1979), 58198.
five models of god and evolution 21
7
G. Ledyard Stebbins and Francisco Ayala, Is a New Evolutionary Synthesis Neces-
sary? Science 213 (1981), 96771.
8
John Campbell, An Organizational Interpretation of Evolution, in Evolution at
the Crossroads, David P. Depew and Bruce H. Weber, eds. (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1985).
9
C.H. Waddington, The Strategy of the Genes (New York: Macmillan, 1957); Robert
J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), chap. 10.
22 ian g. barbour
10
Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1982); idem, How Biology Differs from the Physical Sciences, in Evolution at
the Crossroads, Depew and Weber, eds.
11
Ilya Prigogine and Irene Stengers, Order Out of Chaos (New York: Bantam Books,
1984).
12
Stuart Kauffman, The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolu-
tion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); idem, At Home in the Universe: The
Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995).
five models of god and evolution 23
13
Jeffrey Wicken, Evolution, Thermodynamics, and Information: Extending the
Darwinian Program (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
14
George Halder, Patrick Callaerts, and Walter Gehring, Induction of Ectopic
Eyes by Targeted Expression of the Eyeless Gene in Drosophila, Science 267 (1995),
178892.
24 ian g. barbour
15
Mae-Won Ho and Peter Saunders, eds., Beyond Neo-Darwinism (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984); Brian Goodwin and Peter Saunders, eds., Theo-
retical Biology: Epigenetic and Evolutionary Order from Complex Systems (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1989); see also Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).
five models of god and evolution 25
2.1. Self-organization
Evolutionary history does indeed show a directionality, a trend toward
greater complexity and consciousness. There has been an increase in
the genetic information in DNA, and a steady advance in the ability of
organisms to gather and process information about the environment and
respond to it. The emergence of life, consciousness, and human culture
are especially significant transitions within a gradual and continuous
process. But evolution does not display any straight-line progressive
development. For the majority of species, opportunistic adaptations
led to dead ends and extinction when conditions changed. The pattern
of evolution does not resemble a uniformly growing tree so much as a
sprawling bush whose tangled branches grow in many directions and
often die off. Nevertheless, there is an overall trend. Who can doubt
that a human being represents an astonishing advance over an amoeba
or a worm?
Some authors have argued that if the amino acids in primeval oceans
had assembled themselves by chance to form protein chains, the prob-
ability of being assembled in the right order to form a particular protein
would be fantastically small. It would be highly unlikely to occur even
in spans of time many times longer than the history of the universe.16
The argument is dubious because amino acids do not combine by
chance with equal probability, for there are built-in affinities and bond-
ing preferences and structural possibilities. Some combinations form
stable units which persist, and these units combine to form larger units.
Organic molecules have a capacity for self-organization and complexity
because of structural constraints and potentialities.
Other authors have used hierarchy theory to indicate how advances
to a higher level of organizational complexity are preserved. Imagine
a watchmaker whose work is disrupted occasionally. If he has to start
over again each time, he would never finish his task. But if he assembles
groups of parts into stable sub-assemblies, which are then combined,
he will finish the task more rapidly. Living organisms have many stable
sub-assemblies at differing levels which are often preserved intact and
only loosely coupled to each other. The higher level of stability often
arises from functions that are relatively independent of variations in the
microscopic details. Evolution exhibits both chance and directionality
16
Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: Dent,
1981).
26 ian g. barbour
because higher levels embody new types of order and stability that are
maintained and passed on.17
Let us examine Kauffmans thesis that evolution is a product of self-
organization as well as of random variation and natural selection. He
finds similar patterns in the behavior of complex systems that appear
very differentfor example, in molecules, cells, neural networks, eco-
systems, and technological and economic systems. In each case feed-
back mechanisms and nonlinear interactions make cooperative activity
possible in larger wholes. The systems show similar emergent systemic
properties not present in their components. Kauffman gives particular
attention to the behavior of networks. For example, an array of 100,000
light bulbs, each of which goes on or off as an adjustable function of
input from its four neighbors, will cycle through only 327 states from
among the astronomical number of possible states. Genes are also con-
nected in networks; in the simplest case, gene A represses gene B and
vice versa, so only one of them is turned on. Kauffman notes that there
are only 256 cell types in mammals, and suggests that this may be the
result of system principles and not merely an historical accident.18
Many of Kauffmans ideas are speculative and exploratory, but they
reflect a new way of looking at evolution. He finds that order emerges
spontaneously in complex systems, especially on the border between
order and chaos. Too much order makes change impossible; too much
chaos makes continuity impossible. We should see ourselves not as a
highly improbable historical accident, but as an expected fulfilment
of the natural order. In his book, At Home in the Universe, Kauffman
calls for awe and respect for a process in which such self-organization
occurs.
2.2. Indeterminacy
Many features of evolutionary history are the product of unpredictable
events. The particular pair of organisms that mate and the particular
combination of genes that are inherited by their offspring cannot be
predicted; genetic laws can only be expressed probabilistically for indi-
viduals in large populations. Many mutations and replication errors
17
Stanley Salthe, Evolving Hierarchical Systems (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1985).
18
Kauffman, At Home in the Universe, chap. 4.
five models of god and evolution 27
19
Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science (San Francisco: Harper Collins,
1990), 96104.
28 ian g. barbour
20
On the topic of quantum indeterminacy and its possible role in mutations, see
Ellis, Murphy, Tracy, and Russell in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on
Divine Action, Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke, eds.
(Rome: Vatican Observatory, and Berkeley, CA: Center for Theology and the Natural
Sciences, 1995).
21
James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1987);
John Holte, ed., Chaos: The New Science (Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
1993).
five models of god and evolution 29
22
Stephen Kellert, In the Wake of Chaos: Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
23
For analyses of reduction, see Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 32437 and Religion in an Age of Science,
16569; Francisco Ayala, Reduction in Biology in Evolution at the Crossroads, Depew
30 ian g. barbour
and Weber, eds.; Arthur Peacocke, God and the New Biology (London: J.M. Dent &
Sons, 1986), chaps. 1 and 2.
24
On top-down causation, see Donald Campbell, Downward Causation in Hierar-
chically Ordered Biological Systems in The Problems of Reduction, Francisco Ayala and
Theodosius Dobzhansky, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Michael
Polanyi, Lifes Irreducible Structures, Science 160 (1968), 130812; Elizabeth Vrba,
Patterns in the Fossil Record and Evolutionary Processes in Beyond Neo-Darwinism,
Ho and Saunders, eds.
five models of god and evolution 31
25
James Gleick, address at 1990 Nobel Conference, Gustavus Adolphus College,
quoted in Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory (New York, N.Y.: Pantheon
Book, 1992), 60.
26
C. Rosenberg and T. Sejnowski, Parallel Networks That Learn to Pronounce
English Text, Complex Systems 1 (1987), 14568.
32 ian g. barbour
27
Jeremy Campbell, Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, and Life
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982).
five models of god and evolution 33
28
Susan Oyama, The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
34 ian g. barbour
but also in speech, literature, art, music and other cultural forms. The
storage and communication of information is thus an important feature
of biological processes at many levels and it must always be understood
dynamically and relationally rather than in purely static and formal
terms. Even at low levels, reality consists not simply of matter and
energy, but of matter, energy, and information.
What models of Gods relation to nature are compatible with the central
affirmations of the Christian tradition and also with a world which is
characterized by self-organization, indeterminacy, top-down causality,
and communication of information? I will examine theological propos-
als that draw from each of these four characteristics.
All four models reject the idea of divine intervention that violates
the laws of nature. In none of them is God invoked to fill particular
gaps in the scientific account (the God of the gaps who is vulnerable
to the advance of science). Gods role is different from that of natural
causes. In each case, a feature of current scientific theory is taken as
a model (that is, a systematically developed analogy) of Gods action
in nature.29 Some authors in the first group below do propose a new
version of natural theology in which evidence from science is used as
an argument in support of theism, even if it does not offer a proof of
Gods existence. The other authors are proposing ways in which a God
who is accepted on other grounds (such as religious experience in a
historical interpretive community) might be reconceived as acting in
nature. I have called such an approach a theology of nature rather than
a natural theology.30
29
Barbour, Myths, Models, and Paradigms (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).
30
Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (San Francisco:
Harper Collins, 1997), chap. 4.
five models of god and evolution 35
31
Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Natures Creative Ability
to Order the Universe (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); idem, The Mind of God:
The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992); idem,
Teleology without Teleology (CTNS/VO, v. III).
36 ian g. barbour
32
Austin Farrer, Faith and Speculation (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1967),
chaps. 4 and 10; William R. Stoeger, Describing Gods Action in the World in the
Light of Scientific Knowledge of Reality, in Chaos and Complexity, Russell, Murphy,
and Peacocke, eds.
five models of god and evolution 37
33
William Pollard, Chance and Providence (New York: Charles Scribners Sons,
1958); Donald MacKay, Science, Chance, and Providence (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1978).
38 ian g. barbour
levels of mental activity, but does it in such a way that human freedom
is not violated.34
An alternative would be to say that most quantum events occur by
chance, but God influences some of them without violating the statisti-
cal laws of quantum physics. This view has been explained by Robert
Russell, George Ellis and Thomas Tracy, and it is consistent with the
scientific evidence.35 A possible objection to this model is that it assumes
bottom-up causality within nature once Gods action has occurred,
and thus seems to concede the reductionists claim that the behavior
of all entities is determined by their smallest parts (or lowest levels).
The action would be bottom-up even if one assumed that Gods inten-
tions were directed to the larger wholes (or higher levels) affected by
these quantum events. However most of these authors also allow for
Gods action at higher levels which then results in a top-down influence
on lower levels, in addition to quantum effects from the bottom up.
The model can thus be combined with one of the models discussed
below.
34
Nancey Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridans Ass and
Schrdingers Cat, in Chaos and Complexity, Russell, Murphy, and Peacocke, eds;
Nancey Murphy and George F.R. Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology,
Cosmology and Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).
35
Thomas F. Tracy, Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps, and George
F.R. Ellis, Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action: The Nexus of Interaction, in
Chaos and Complexity, Russell, Murphy, and Peacocke, eds.
36
Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural,
Human, and Divine, enlarged edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), chap. 3, and
his Gods Interaction with the World in Chaos and Complexity, Russell, Murphy,
and Peacocke, eds.; idem, in CTNS/VO, v. III.
five models of god and evolution 39
37
Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, 217.
38
Grace Jentzen, Gods World, Gods Body (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984);
Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1993).
40 ian g. barbour
But the analogy breaks down if it is pressed too far. The cosmos as a
whole lacks the intermediate levels of organization found in the body.
It does not have the biochemical or neurological channels of feedback
and communication through which the activities of organisms are
coordinated and integrated. To be sure, an omnipresent God would
not need the cosmic equivalent of a nervous system. God is presumably
not as dependent on particular bodily structures as we are. However,
we would be abandoning the analogy if we said that God is a disem-
bodied mind acting directly on the separate physical components of
the world. It appears that we need a more pluralistic analogy allowing
for interaction among a community of beings, rather than a monistic
analogy that pictures us all as parts of one being. The world and God
seem more like a community with a dominant member than like a
single organism.
39
Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979),
chap. 3, and Theology for a Scientific Age, chap. 9.
five models of god and evolution 41
40
Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, chap. 9.
41
John Polkinghorne, Reason and Reality (Philadelphia: Trinity International Press,
1991), Chap. 3; idem, The Metaphysics of Divine Action in Chaos and Complexity,
Russell, Murphy, and Peacocke, eds; idem, The Faith of a Physicist (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 7778.
42
John Puddefoot, Information Theory, Biology, and Christology, in Religion and
Science: History, Method, Dialogue, W. Mark Richardson and Wesley J. Wildman, eds.
(New York: Routledge, 1996).
42 ian g. barbour
Process theology shows similarities with each of the four models above,
but also differs because it adds a fifth idea, that of interiority. Christian
process theology combines biblical thought with process philosophy,
the attempt of Alfred North Whitehead and his followers to develop a
coherent set of philosophical categories general enough to be applicable
to all entities in the world. Process theology is advocated by Charles
Birch and John Haught.43
43
Charles Birch and John Haught, in CTNS/VO, v. III.
44
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan,
1925); Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan,1929). See Barbour, Religion in an
Age of Science, chap. 8, or Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues,
chap. 11.
five models of god and evolution 43
45
Charles Hartshorne, Reality as Social Process (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1953).
46
James Huchingson, Organization and Process: Systems Philosophy and White-
headian Metaphysics, Zygon 11.4 (1981): 22641.
44 ian g. barbour
4.2. Interiority
Interiority is the most controversial theme in process thought. Real-
ity is construed as a network of interconnected events which are also
moments of experience, each integrating in its own way the influences
from its past and from other entities. The evolution of interiority, like
the evolution of physical structures, is said to be characterized by both
continuity and change. The forms taken by interiority vary widely, from
rudimentary memory, sentience, responsiveness and anticipation in
simpler organisms, to consciousness and self-consciousness in more
complex ones. Human life is the only point at which we know reality
from within. If we start from the presence of both physical structures
and experience in human life, we can imagine simpler and simpler
structures in which experience is more and more rudimentary. But if
we start with simple physical structures totally devoid of interiority, it
is difficult to see how the complexification of external structures can
result in interiority.47
The approach and avoidance reactions of bacteria can be consid-
ered elementary forms of perception and response. An amoeba learns
to find sugar, indicating a rudimentary memory and intentionality.
Invertebrates seem to have some sentience and capacity for pain and
pleasure. Purposiveness and anticipation are clearly present among
lower vertebrates, and the presence of a nervous system greatly enhances
these capacities. The behavior of animals gives evidence that they suffer
intensely, and even invertebrates under stress release endorphins and
other pain-suppressant chemicals similar to those in human brains.
Some species exhibit considerable problem-solving and anticipatory
abilities and a range of awareness and feelings. Conceptualizing inte-
riority requires that we try to look on an organisms activities from its
own point of view, even though its experience must be very different
from our own.48
We noted earlier that evolutionary change can be initiated by the
activity of organisms in selecting their own environments (the Bald-
win effect). Their diverse responses and novel actions may create new
47
Charles Birch, A Purpose for Everything (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications,
1990); Birch and Cobb, The Liberation of Life: From the Cell to the Community (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
48
Donald Griffin, The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of
Mental Experience (Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, 1981); Charles Birch and John
B. Cobb, Jr., The Liberation of Life.
five models of god and evolution 45
49
C.H. Waddington in Mind in Nature, John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Griffin, eds.,
(Washington DC: University Press of America, 1977).
50
Owen Flanagan, Consciousness Reconsidered (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992).
51
Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press,
1986); Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
46 ian g. barbour
52
John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introduction (Phila-
delphia: Westminster Press, 1976).
five models of god and evolution 47
for God always works along with other causes. In process thought
Gods activity occurs at higher levels of organization in addition to
the quantum level. This avoids a reliance on quantum events alone
which would perpetuate the reductionists assumption that only
bottom-up causality operates within natural systems.
c. Like those who postulate God as top-down cause, process thinkers
stress Gods immanence and participation in an interdependent
many-leveled world. But process thought has no difficulty concep-
tualizing the interaction between the highest level (God) and the
lowest (inanimate matter) in the absence of intermediate levels,
because God is present in the unfolding of integrated events at all
levels. Hartshorne has indeed used the analogy of the world as Gods
body, though we must remember that in the process scheme the body
is itself a community of integrated entities at various levels. Most
process theologians, however, insist on a greater divine transcendence
and greater human freedom than the analogy of a cosmic body sug-
gests. Using a social rather than organic analogy they imagine us,
not as cells in Gods body, but as members of a cosmic community
of which God is the preeminent member.
d. The idea that God communicates information to the world is consis-
tent with process thought. Gods ordering and valuation of potenti-
alities is a form of information within a larger context of meaning.
God also receives information from the world, and God is changed
by such feedback. The communication of information occurs within
the momentary experience of integrated events at any level, rather
than by bottom-up causality through quantum phenomena alone, or
through the trigger points of chaos theory, or by top-down causality
acting on the whole cosmos. God, past events, and the events pres-
ent response join in the formation of every event. Process thought
uses a single conceptual representation for divine action at all levels,
whereas some of the authors mentioned earlier assume very different
modes of divine action at various levels in the world. At the same
time, process thought tries to allow for differences in the character
of events that occur at diverse levels.
that, like a wise teacher or the parent of a growing child, God respects
the integrity of the created world and the freedom of human beings,
but does not abandon them. They balance the classical emphasis on
transcendence, eternity, and impassibility with a greater emphasis on
Gods immanence, temporality, and vulnerability.53 Feminist authors
have urged that patriarchal images of power as coercive control be
replaced by the images of empowerment, nurture, and cooperation
that are associated with women in our culture. They propose the image
of God as Mother to balance the traditional image of God as Father.54
Many feminists are sympathetic to the idea of kenosis, but with the
caveat that divine vulnerability and suffering love must not be cited
to support the submission and self-abnegation of women. Power as
control is a zero-sum game: the more one party has, the less the other
can have. Power as empowerment is a positive-sum situation and does
not imply weakness in either party. Empowerment and the nurturing
of growth and interdependence also seem to be appropriate features
of a model of God in an evolutionary world.
Proponents of self-limitation hold that God is in principle omnipo-
tent but voluntarily accepts a limitation of power in order to create
a community of love and free response. The goal is relationship and
transformation, not kenosis in itself. Moreover, the use of personal
images of the relation between God and the world suggests that God
might influence events in the world without controlling them, so we do
not end up with a powerless or deistic God. Gods dialogic relation to
human beings serves as a model of divine activity throughout nature.
Process thought agrees with many of these assertions. However, it holds
that the limitations of Gods power are not voluntary and temporary
but metaphysical and necessarythough they are integral to Gods
essential nature and not antecedent or external to it.
The role of God in process thought has much in common with the
biblical understanding of the Holy Spirit. Like the process God, the
Spirit works from within. In various biblical passages, the Spirit is said
to indwell, renew, empower, inspire, guide, and reconcile. According to
53
W.H. Vanstone, Loves Endeavor, Loves Expense (London: Dartmon, Longman,
and Todd, 1977); Jrgen Moltmann, God in Creation (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
1985), 8693; Paul Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1988); Murphy and Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe.
54
Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Phila-
delphia: Fortress Press, 1987); Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God
in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroads, 1992).
five models of god and evolution 49
Psalm 104, the Spirit creates in the present: Thou dost cause the grass
to grow for the cattle and plants for man to cultivate. . . . When thou
sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of
the ground. The Spirit represents Gods presence and activity in the
world. This is an emphasis on immanence which, like that in process
theology, does not rule out transcendence. Moreover, the Spirit is God
at work in nature, in human experience, and in Christ, so creation and
redemption are aspects of a single activity.55 Process thought similarly
applies a single set of concepts to Gods role in human and nonhuman
life, and it is not incompatible with the idea of particular divine action
and human response in the life of Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to us
from without to evoke our response from within. It is symbolized by
the dove, the gentlest of birds. Other symbols of the Spirit are wind
and fire, which can be more overpowering, but they usually represent
inspiration rather than sheer power. I have elsewhere tried to show
that the process view of God is consistent with other aspects of the
biblical message.56
55
G.W.H. Lampe, God as Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); Alisdair Heron,
The Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983).
56
Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, 23538.
50 ian g. barbour
Perhaps, after all, we should return to the biblical concept of the Holy
Spirit. This will help us to avoid the separation of creation and redemp-
tion that occurred in much of classical Christianity. It is free of the
male imagery so prominent elsewhere in Christian history. It will help
us recover a sense of the sacred in nature that can motivate a strong
concern for the environment today. The Spirit is God working from
within, both in human life and the natural world, which is consistent
with process thought. The theme of the 1991 assembly of the World
Council of Churches in Canberra, Australia, was a prayer in which we
can join: Come, Holy Spirit, renew thy whole creation.
CHAPTER TWO
Arthur Peacocke1
[Elijah] got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that
food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that
place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, What are you doing
here, Elijah? He answered, I have been very zealous for the Lord, the
God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down
your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and
they are seeking my life, to take it away.
He said, Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the
Lord is about to pass by. Now there was a great wind, so strong that it
was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord,
but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but
the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but
the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out
and stood at the entrance of the cave.
I Kings 19: 813 (NRSV)
1
This essay amplifies and extends a train of thought concerning the significance of
whole-part constraint in relation to divine action which has engaged me since 1987;
cf. fn. 1, p. 263, of my Gods Interaction with the World, in Chaos and Complexity:
Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, Robert J. Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur
Peacocke, eds. (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory; Berkeley, Calif.: Center for
Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1995), henceforth CAC. I have used the term whole-
part constraint to avoid any possible Humean implications of downward/top-down
causation previously employed in this context. Perhaps this was unnecessarily cautious
(cf. my guarded language in fn. 22, p. 272, in CAC!), since I continued to envisage a
causative influence of the whole on the parts in complex systems (i.e., of the system
on its constituents), as my essay in CAC, 27276, 28287, shows. Here I take the
opportunity to emphasize this and to take account of other concepts that have been
used to describe the whole-part and the mind-brain-body relation so that the inclusive
notion of whole-part influence (as I here denote it) can be applied as an analogy for
divine action, especially in relation to Gods communication with humanity, that is,
with possible divine effects on human consciousness (an approach which I developed
earlier in my Theology for a Scientific Age, 2nd enlarged edition, [London: SCM Press;
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], esp. in chap. 11henceforth TSA).
54 arthur peacocke
1. Introduction
When Elijah in extremis and in flight from the wrath of Jezebel sought
a message from God and stood expectantly on the mount of God,
Horeb, what brought him to the mouth of his sheltering cave was not
the great wind, the earthquake, or the fire, butwe are tolda sound
of sheer silence, from the depths of which Elijah is addressed by God.2
The story encapsulates the directness and immediacy of such experi-
ences and at the same time exemplifies their baffling character. For it
is not only these archetypal figures and events in the tradition which
have this character, but also the widespread religious experiences of
humanityboth those inside and those outside of religious tradition.3
The content of such experiences will be the concern of the last sec-
tion of this essay, but their very existence raises questions about the
general nature of Gods interaction with the world and with humanity,
especially when both are viewed in the contemporary perspectives of
the natural and human sciences. The track of inquiries into scientific
perspectives on divine action in the CTNS-Vatican Observatory series
of research conferences has inevitably led to the question of how God
possibly can communicate with a humanity that is part of the natural
world and evolved in and from it.
The natural and human sciences clearly provide a context entirely
different from the cultural milieu of the legends concerning Elijahand
indeed from that of even a hundred years ago. The dominance of the
essentially Greek, and unbiblical, notion in the Christian world that
human beings consist of two distinct kinds of entity (or substance)a
mortal, physical body and an immortal spirit (or soul)provided
a deceptively obvious basis for envisaging how God and humanity
might communicate. The divine Spirit was thought then to be in
some way closely related to, and capable of communication with, the
human spiritboth were capable of being, as it were, on the same
wavelength for inter-communication. This ontology of spirit was not
physicalist insofar as it was understood that spirit was not part of the
2
I Kings 19: 12 (NRSV). The implicit paradox is well illustrated by the alternative
translations: a low murmuring sound (NEB); a faint murmuring sound (REB);
a sound of gentle stillness (RV, footnote); and, of course, the familiar a still small
voice of AV and RV.
3
See also sec. 4.1 below, Revelation and Religious Experience, and fn. 80.
the sound of sheer silence 55
causal nexus of the physical and biological world which the natural
sciences continue to explicate.
The basis for such an ontology has been undermined by the general
pressure of the relevant sciences towards a monistic nondualist view
of humanity. In what follows we shall examine (2.1) the perspectives
of science on the world4 and advocate an emergentist monism as the
epistemology and ontology most appropriate to these perspectives. The
relation of wholes to parts in the systems of the world, which bears upon
how effects and influences are transmitted in the world, is discussed
(2.2) and the idea of whole-part influence is again utilized (2.2.1).
Other terms used in this context are also surveyed and related to this
notion (2.2.2). The idea of a flow of information between, and even
in, systems proves to be illuminating (2.3), especially when the world is
viewed (2.4) as a System-of-systems. The mind-brain-body relation is
considered (2.5) in the light of the foregoing and it transpires that the
details of the relation between cerebral neurological activity and con-
sciousness (the concern of many of the essays in this volume [Ed: v. IV
of CTNS/VO Series, Neuroscience and the Person]) cannot in principle
detract from or particularly illuminate the causal efficacy of the content
of the latter on the former. In other words, folk psychology and the
holistic language of personhood are held to be justified and vindicated.
The nature of communication between persons is then analyzed (2.6)
and found to be mediated entirely through patterns within the physi-
cal constituents of the world, consistently with the monist feature of
this approach and without eliminating the place for consciousness and
intention in interpersonal communication.
With this as background, the inquiry can then move on to consider-
ing Gods interaction with the world (3) and to distinguishing between
various modes of this relation (3.1). In section 3.2, reasons for eschewing
any attribution of intervention by God will be given, while recog-
nizing that the key problem of the ontological gap(s) at the causal
joint of divine interaction may, in principle, never be solublethough
its location can usefully be discussed and affirmed to be holistic and
everywhere. How God may be best conceived as bringing about events,
or patterns of events, in the world will be addressed in section 3.3, and
an earlier hypothesis of the authorof divine holistic action on the
4
Here, and elsewhere, the world = all-that-is, including humanitythat is,
everything other than God.
56 arthur peacocke
5
Oliver C. Quick, The Christian Sacraments (London: Nisbet, 1927; repr. 1955),
chap. 1.
the sound of sheer silence 57
are, and not something else, because of Gods intention and purposes
to communicate to humanity. Quicks analysis points to the need to
clarify the instrumental mode of Gods interaction with the world in
order to underpin the possibility of Gods symbolic, communicating
action on human-brains-in-human-bodies, that is, in our thinking. So
what are the features of the world unveiled by the sciences that are
relevant to such an inquiry?
2. The World
6
Conventionally, the series is said to run from the lower less complex systems
to the higher more complex systemsfrom parts to wholesso that these wholes
themselves constitute parts of more complex entities, rather like a series of Russian
dolls. In the complex systems I have in mind here, the parts retain their identity and
properties as isolated individual entities. So the systems referred to are those which,
loosely speaking, were the concern of the first phase of general systems theory. In those
systems the parts (elements) of the complex wholes are physical entities (e.g., atoms,
58 arthur peacocke
molecules, cells) which are either individually stable or which undergo processes of
change (as, e.g., in chemical reactions), themselves analyzable as being the interchange
of stable parts (atoms in that case). The internal relations of such elements are not
regarded as affected by their incorporation into the system.
7
See, e.g., TSA, 3643, 21418, and figure 3, based on a scheme of W. Bechtel
and A. Abrahamson in their Connectionism and the Mind (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991),
figure 8.1; for a bold extension of the schema developed there, see Nancey Murphy
and George F.R. Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology and
Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), chaps. 2, 4.
8
See the Appendix to this essay and my God and the New Biology (London: Dent,
1986, repr. Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith, 1994), chaps. 1, 2, henceforth GNB. Whether
or not this statement about theory- and process-autonomy applies to the relations
between distinctive systems is a matter which will be examined further in sec. 2.4 and
the Appendix. [Editors Note: the appendix to this essay is not included in the current
volume].
the sound of sheer silence 59
9
Samuel Alexander, as quoted by Jaegwon Kim, Non-reductivism and Mental
Causation, in Mental Causation, John Heil and Alfred Mele, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1993), 204.
10
William C. Wimsatt has elaborated criteria of robustness for such attributions
of reality for emergent properties at the higher levels. These involve noting what is
invariant under a variety of independent procedures; this is summarized in GNB, 2728,
from Wimsatts paper Robustness, Reliability and Multiple-Determination in Science,
in Knowing and Validating in the Social Sciences: A Tribute to Donald T. Campbell,
Marilynn Brewer and Barry Collins, eds. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981).
60 arthur peacocke
11
My view of emergent monism is in harmony with that of Philip Clayton, to
whom I am much indebted for his shrewd and useful comments on this essay. Note
that the term monism is emphatically not intended (as is apparent from the nonre-
ductive approach adopted here) in the sense in which it is taken to mean that physics
will eventually explain everything. Note also that this position is distinct from that
of dual-aspect monism or two-aspect monism, which could appear to be purely
epistemological, being about how an entity is viewed from two different perspectives.
Even when the two and dual refer to distinct properties of a single entity, there
is not in these terms any implication of a causal relation between the aspects (any
more than between the wave and particle aspects of the single entity of the electron).
Talk of two aspects is not strong enough to include an affirmation that the higher
level is real and has causal efficacy.
the sound of sheer silence 61
12
Donald T. Campbell, Downward Causation in Hierarchically Organized Sys-
tems, in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems, Francisco
J. Ayala and Theodosius Dobzhansky, eds. (London: Macmillan, 1974), 17986. A
valuable and perspicacious account (with which I entirely agree) of emergent order,
top-down causation (fully illustrated by its operation in the hierarchical organization
of the modern digital computer), and the physical mediation of top-down effects has
been given in Murphy and Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe, 2232. For brev-
ity here, I refer the reader to that recent excellent exposition. For earlier expositions of
the hierarchies of complexity, of the relation of scientific concepts applicable to wholes
to those applicable to the constituent parts, and of top-down/downward causation and
whole-part influence (as discussed below), see GNB, chaps. 1, 2; TSA, 3941, 5055,
21318 (esp. figure 3); and CAC, 27276.
13
For a survey with references, see Arthur Peacocke, The Physical Chemistry of
Biological Organization (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, 1989), henceforth PCBO.
62 arthur peacocke
14
Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos (London: Heinemann,
1984).
15
PCBO; Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos; Niels H. Gregersen, The Idea
of Creation and the Theory of Autopoietic Processes, Zygon 33 (1998): 33367.
16
Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos.
the sound of sheer silence 63
nature of the system, in some sense the same; so this causal relation
might, adding confusion, entice some to regard the higher level as pos-
sessing a somewhat metaphysical character.
17
Gregersen, The Idea of Creation.
18
Fred Dretske, Mental Events as Structuring Causes of Behavior, in Mental
Causation, 12136. Another example of his is as follows. A terrorist plants a bomb in
the generals car. The bomb stays there until the general gets into the car and turns
the ignition key and then is killed by the detonation of the bomb. The triggering
cause of his death is his turning on the engine, but the structuring cause is the
terrorists action.
19
Thomas F. Tracy, Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps, in CAC,
3067, fn. 39.
20
In the first 1990 edition of TSA and before my espousing the of whole-part con-
straint in the 1993 enlarged edition of TSA and, more especially, in CAC, 26387.
64 arthur peacocke
21
Tracy, Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps.
22
Ibid.
23
In CAC, 272, fn. 22.
24
Karl Popper, A World of Propensities (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1990), 12.
25
Ibid., 17.
26
Cf. my urging in TSA that there are propensities in biological evolution, favored by
natural selection, to complexity, self-organization, information-processing andstorage,
and so to consciousness.
the sound of sheer silence 65
27
For example, Michael Polanyi, Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry, Chem-
istry and Engineering News (August 21, 1967): 5466; and idem, Lifes Irreducible
Structure, Science 160 (1968): 130812. In his discussion, and mine in this essay, the
term boundary condition is not being used, as it often is, to refer either to the initial
(and in that sense boundary) conditions of, say, a partial differential equation as
applied in theoretical physics, or to the physical, geometrical boundary of a system.
28
Bernd-Olaf Kppers, Understanding Complexity, in CAC, 100.
66 arthur peacocke
as physical influences within the system or between the system and its
immediate environment. Boundaries are local phenomena, rather than
global states of the system-as-a-whole.29
But the system is what has a boundaryand only the system can have
it. It is because the system-as-a-whole is an entity, immersed in a con-
ditioning environment with which it has a boundary, that it undergoes
holistic reorganization of its constituent units. Indeed the Bnard
phenomenon is independent of the shape of the container provided its
dimensions are large with respect to convection cell size (the very con-
dition that makes physical boundary effects negligible). The theory that
has to give an intelligible account of all this has to deal with properties
of the system-as-a wholethe temperature dependence of the viscos-
ity and density of aggregates of molecules, their thermal conductivity
and the mutual interplay of all these factors together in the behavior
of the whole assembly. It is not enough, therefore, to pinpoint only the
environment-system interaction as uniquely determinative. For it is
only because of the nature of the entire system-as-a-whole that under
such boundary conditions the constituent molecules manifest their
unexpected, bizarre behavior. It is a case of whole-part influence in
the sense defined above.
There is a sense in which the system-as-a-whole, because of its distinc-
tive configuration, can constrain and influence the behavior of the parts
to be otherwise than if they were isolated from this particular system.
Yet the system-as-a-whole would not be describable by the concepts
and laws of that level and still have the properties it does have, if the
parts (in the Zhabotinsky case, the ceric and cerous ions) were not of
the particular kind they are. What is distinctive in the system-as-a-
whole is the new kind of interrelations and interactions, spatially and
temporally, of the parts.
d. Supervenience. Another, much debated term which has been used
in this connection, especially in describing the relation of mental events
to neurophysiological ones in the brain, is that of supervenience. The
term, which does not usually imply any whole-part causative relation,
goes back to Donald Davidsons employment of it in expounding his
view of the mind-brain-body relation as anomalous monism.30 The
29
Willem B. Drees, Religion, Science and Naturalism (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1996), 102.
30
Donald Davidson, Mental Events, in Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1980).
the sound of sheer silence 67
various meanings and scope of the term in this context had been for-
mulated and classified by Jaegwon Kim as involving: the covariance of
the supervenient properties with, the dependency of the supervenient
properties on, and the nonreducibility of the supervenient properties
to, their base properties.31 Another definition has been proposed else-
where by Nancey Murphy.32 In the wider context of hierarchical systems
(prescinding from the mind-brain-body problem, for the momentsee
section 2.5 below) the term supervenience may be taken to refer to the
relation between properties of the same system that pertain to different
levels of analysis . . . higher-level properties supervene on lower-level
properties if they are partially constituted by the lower-level properties
but are not directly reducible to them.33
One can ask the question:
[H]ow are the properties characteristic of entities at a given level related
to those that characterize entities of adjacent levels? Given that entities
at distinct levels are ordered by the part-whole relation, is it the case
that properties associated with different levels are also ordered by some
distinctive and significant relationship?34
The attribution of supervenience asserts primarily that there is a neces-
sary covariance between the properties of the higher level and those of
the lower level. When the term supervenience was first introduced its
attribution did not imply a causal influence of the supervenient level on
the subvenient one.35 Its appropriateness is questionable for analyzing
whole-part relations, which by their very nature relate, with respect to
complex systems, entities that are in some sense the same.
Yet, in the context of the physical and biological (and, it must also
be said, ecological and social) worlds, the mutual interrelations between
whole and parts in any internally hierarchically organized system often,
31
Jaegwon Kim, Epiphenomenal and Supervenient Causation, Midwest Studies in
Philosophy 9 (1984): 25770; repr. in Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical
Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
32
Nancey Murphy, Supervenience, and the Downward Efficacy of the Mental: A
Nonreductive Physicalist Account of Human Action, in CTNS/VO, v. IV.
33
Murphy and Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe, 23.
34
Kim, Non-reductivism and Mental Causation, in Mental Causation, 191.
35
However, utilizing her definition of supervenience, Nancey Murphy has sug-
gested (personal communication, July, 1998) that the supervenient level may involve
additional circumstances that cannot be described at the subvenient level, and these
additional circumstances can have a causal impact on the series of events. Thus, the
causal connections will show up (be intelligible) only at the supervenient level of
description.
68 arthur peacocke
we have seen, appear to involve causal effects of the whole on the parts.
We shall continue, therefore, to use the term whole-part influence,36
rather than the terms 14 above, to refer to the subtle interlocking
influences of the whole of any particular hierarchically organized system
on its constituent parts.
36
It must be stressed that the whole-part relation is not regarded here necessarily, or
frequently, as a spatial one. Whole-part is synonymous with system-constituent.
37
Cf. Jeffrey S. Wicken, Evolution, Information and Thermodynamics: Extending the
Darwinian Paradigm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
the sound of sheer silence 69
38
John C. Puddefoot, Information and Creation, in The Science and Theology of
Information, C. Wassermann, R. Kirby, and B. Rordoff, eds. (Geneva: Labor et Fides,
1992), 15 (my numbering). For further discussion, especially in relation to biological
complexity, see PCBO, 25963, and in relation to evolution, 26368.
39
The transition from 1 to 3 is also closely akin to that from semiotics to semantics
and coheres well with the emergentist-monist position.
40
See PCBO, 25963; Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (London: Macmil-
lan, 1995), 12427.
70 arthur peacocke
41
Michael J. Apter and L. Wolpert, Cybernetics and Development. I. Information
Theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology 8 (1965): 24457.
42
By the world-as-a-whole, I here mean all-that-is, or ever has been; all that is
created, i.e., all that is not God. (The outer dashed circle in figure 1 on p. 85 is meant
to denote this).
43
Recall also the notorious gravitational effect of the motion of an electron at the
edge of, say, our galaxy on the collisions of macroscopic billiard balls; Michael Berry,
Breaking the Paradigm of Classical Physics from Within, Cercy Symposium on
Logique et Thorie des Catastrophes, 1983.
the sound of sheer silence 71
all forms of life (including human), as well as their matter and energy
cycles, themselves related to atmospheric and geological ones, has in
recent years become increasingly apparent in all its baffling intricacies.
These interactions between individual systems over space and time are
as real in their mutual influencing as anything else described by the
natural sciences, and their existence cannot be ignored in our reflections
on the nature of the world and of Gods relation to it, simply because
we can never have one comprehensive theory of them.
This character of the world-as-a-whole suggests that it is metaphysi-
cally plausible to perceive it as a System-of-systems (using the word
system with the weight already attached to it in the light of complex-
ity theory of individual systems). Such an epistemological assertion
would have, as always, a putative ontological significance. In that case,
the world-as-a-whole is not simply a concept44 nor an abstract
description,45 but could at least provisionally be regarded as an holistic
reality at its own leveleven if the coupling between systems is much
looser and more diffuse, and therefore less classifiable, than it is within
a particular individual hierarchically stratified system clearly demarcated
from its environment. The apprehension of all-that-is in its holistic
unity as a System-of-systems is, of course, scarcely vouchsafed to the
limited horizons and capacities of humanity, though every advance
in the sciences serves to reveal further cross-connections between its
component systems. Such interconnectedness would be transparent to
the omniscient Creator, who continuously gives its constituents and its
processes existence and in Whom all-that-is exists, from a sacramental,
panentheistic perspective.
The relation between higher and lower levels within an individual
hierarchically stratified system I have been designating by the pan-
technicon term whole-part influence.46 This influence, I suggested,
can often be regarded as a flow of information. We now have to ask:
Can these notions be applied to the relations between systems in the
world-as-a-whole? In order to respond to this question, it turns out
44
Niels Henrik Gregersen, Providence in an Indeterministic World, CTNS Bul-
letin, 14.1 (Winter, 1994): 26.
45
Idem. Three Types of Indeterminacy, in The Concept of Nature in Science and
Theology, part I, vol. 3 of Studies in Science and Theology of the European Society for
the Study of Science and Theology (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995), 175.
46
See sec. 2.2 above.
72 arthur peacocke
47
For weak nonreducibility, see the Appendix. If the systems in question are
themselves part of an actual hierarchy of organization and are themselves stable, then
the analysis may well revert to that applicable to the internal relationships within a
larger hierarchical system of stable parts, each of which is then itself a system. For the
world-as-a-whole, it is the interaction between systems not so described that is chiefly
under consideration . . . the reality of the world as a whole is itself a result of the
interpenetrations between the type- and code-different systems observed . . . (Gregersen,
The Idea of Creation and the Theory of Autopoietic Processes, 337).
48
Ibid.
49
Gregersen (personal communication, 12 November, 1996), describing my own
view.
the sound of sheer silence 73
50
Gregersen (personal communication, March, 1998) has expressed this point to
me thus: [P]erhaps the most curious feature about our universe is that it starts out as
a unity and ends up in a plurality of systems . . . . forever based on the same uniform
matter, always interacting with one another in ever-new constellations of mutual influ-
ences (thus certainly interlocked) but nonetheless appearing in type-different forms,
thus also operating by virtue of type-different causalities (emphasis original).
51
As indicated in the legend to fig. 1 on p. 85, where the schema of Patricia S.
Churchland and T.J Sejnowski is depicted (Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience
Science 242 [1988]: 74145). The physical scales of these levels are, according to these
authors, as follows: molecules, 1010m; synapses, 106m; neurons, 104m; networks, 103m;
maps, 102m; systems, 101m; central nervous system, 1m, in human beings.
74 arthur peacocke
52
Terrence J. Sejnowski, C. Koch, and P. Churchland, Computational Neurosci-
ence, Science 241 (1988): 12991306, see p. 1300.
53
Churchland and Sejnowski, Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience, 744.
54
See, for example, the collection of papers in Mental Causation, Heil and Mele, eds.
55
Kim, Non-reductivism and Mental Causation, 193.
the sound of sheer silence 75
56
Broadly, this is the nonreductive physicalist view of the mental-physical relation,
which has been summarized (ibid., 198) as follows:
a. Physical Monism. All concrete particulars are physical.
b. Anti-reductionism. Mental properties are not reducible to physical properties.
c. The Physical Realization Thesis. All mental properties are physically realized; that
is, whenever an organism, or system, instantiates a mental property M, it has some
physical property P such that P realizes M in organisms of its kind.
d. Mental Realism. Mental properties are real properties of objects and events; they are
not merely useful aids in making predictions or fictitious manners of speech.
57
The idea of mental states being physically realized in neurons was expanded
as follows by John Searle, Minds, Brain and Science, (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1984), 26 (emphasis added):
Consciousness . . . is a real property of the brain that can cause things to happen.
My conscious attempt to perform an action such as raising my arm causes the
movement of the arm. At the higher level of description, the intention to raise my
arm causes the movement of the arm. At the lower level of description, a series
of neuron firings starts a chain of events that results in the contraction of the
muscles . . . [T]he same sequence of events has two levels of description. Both of
them are causally real, and the higher-level causal features are both caused by and
realized in the structure of the lower level elements. What follows in the main text
here shows that I am not satisfied with Searles parallelism between the causality
of the mental and physical; it is not enough. I argue later on in this essay for a
joint causality whereby the mental influences the physical level in the brain.
58
Kim, Non-reductivism and Mental Causation, 2025.
76 arthur peacocke
theory can in principle account for all phenomena (causal closure). Ste-
ven Cain has succinctly summarized these conclusions of Kim: . . . the
nonreductive physicalist cannot live without downward causation, and
the nonreductive physicalist cannot live with it.59
Crain argues (and I agree) that it is Kims assumption that a physical
microstructure in physically realizing a mental property is its sufficient
cause, which leads to the exclusion of any causative role for mental prop-
erties, for in the wider range of physical, biological, and other systems
discussed in section 2.2, the causative effects of the higher levels on the
lower ones were real but different in kind from the effects the parts had
on each other operating at the lower level. Thus, what happens in these
systems at the lower level is the result of the joint operation of both
higher- and lower-level influencesthe higher and lower levels could
be said to be jointly sufficient, type-different60 causes of the lower-level
events. When the higher-lower relation is that of mind/brain to body,
it seems to me that similar considerations should apply.
Up to this point, I have been taking the term mind, and its cog-
nate mental, to refer to that which is the emergent reality distinctive
especially of human beings. But in many wider contexts, not least that
of philosophical theology, a more appropriate term for this emergent
reality would be person, and its cognate personal, to represent the
total psychosomatic, holistic experience of the human being in all its
modalitiesconscious and unconscious, rational and emotional, active
and passive, individual and social, etc. The concept of personhood
recognizes that, as Philip Clayton puts it,
We have thoughts, wishes and desires that together constitute our char-
acter. We express these mental states through our bodies, which are
simultaneously our organs of perception and our means of affecting other
things and persons in the world . . . [The massive literature on theories
59
Steven D. Crain, in an unpublished paper, kindly made this available to me.
60
See the illuminating discussion of type-different causalities by Gregersen in his
Three Types of Indeterminacy, 17374. He remarks: The Humean concept of cau-
sality that still prevails in the philosophical debate . . . . thinks of causality in terms of
general laws applicable on systems of events and processes . . . Non-Humean concepts of
causality normally think of causality in terms of influencing conditions and events that
in their totality make up the effect. . . . My suggestion is that there exist quite different
types of causality that can neither be subsumed under general laws nor be measured
through additions and subtractions (173). In line with this, he espouses an holistic
supervenience theory as against Kims physicalist one, as in his Divine Action in
a Universe of Minds, paper presented at the ESSSAT Conference, Durham, March
31April 4, 1998.
the sound of sheer silence 77
61
Philip Clayton, The Case for Christian Panentheism, Dialog 37.3 (Summer 1998):
2018 (quotation on 205); see also his Rethinking the Relation of God to the World:
Panentheism and the Contribution of Philosophy, chap. 4 in God and Contemporary
Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), in which the nuances of pan-
entheism are well developed. Broadly, they amount to a stronger form of immanence
in which God is seen as in, with, and under the very processes of the world almost in
a sacramental modality. See also TSA, passim.
62
See the articles in CTNS/VO, v. IV by Leslie Brothers and Marc Jeannerod.
78 arthur peacocke
63
The scare quotes around information are meant to indicate that I in no way
wish to pretend that the mind-brain-body relation will be eventually subsumed entirely
into information theory, useful as that is in delineating key aspects of the relation; see
sec. 2.3 above.
64
Presumably it is therefore at some point in brain development and function that
autism, in which interpersonal communication is impaired, is to be located, as was
suggested to me by John Marshall in the conference discussions.
the sound of sheer silence 79
65
For example, by Michael J. Langford, Providence (London: SCM Press, 1981), 6.
80 arthur peacocke
3.2. Intervention?
The successes of the sciences in unraveling the intricate, often complex,
yet rationally beautifully articulated, web of relationships among struc-
tures, processes, and entities in the world have made it increasingly
problematic to regard God as intervening in the world to bring about
events that are not in accordance with these divinely created patterns
and regularities that the sciences increasingly unravel. Indeed for most
scientifically educated Christians, their very belief in the existence and
nature of the Creator God depends on this character of the world. The
66
As discussed in TSA, chap. 9, where references are given.
67
For my understanding of panentheism, see TSA, 15859, 37072. Briefly, it is the
belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every
part of it exists in Him but (as against pantheism) that His Being is more than, and is
not exhausted by, the universe, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd rev.
edit., Frank L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1983), 1027. In contrast to classical philosophical theism with its reliance on the
concept of necessary substance, panentheism takes embodied personhood for its model
of Godcf. Clayton, The Case for Christian Panentheismand so has a much stronger
stress on the immanence of God in, with, and under the events of the world. This
was the thrust of my essay, Biological Evolutiona positive theological appraisal, in
Evolutionary and Molecular Biology (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory; Berkeley,
Calif.: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1998), namely, that God is the
Immanent Creator creating in and through the processes of the natural order, and that
the very processes of biological evolution, as revealed by the biological sciences, are
God-acting-as-Creator, God qua Creator. . . . The processes are not themselves God,
but the action of God-as-Creator. This, of course, is why I also do not wish to resort
to any micro-interventionist action of God to steer evolution.
68
See TSA, 34749.
the sound of sheer silence 81
69
Austin Farrer, Faith and Speculation (London: A. & C. Black, 1967).
70
For a fuller discussion see TSA, 14852.
82 arthur peacocke
71
For panentheism, see TSA, chap. 9 and fn. 67, above. The metaphor of natural
events as, in some sense, Gods actions should not, in my view, be stretched to include
a metaphor employed by some authors of the world as Gods body. The first has, like all
metaphors, an is/is-not aspectnamely, in this case, my emphasis on the ontological
distinction between God and the world. The second might tempt us unwarrantedly to
seek for a divine analogy for the human brains and nerves whereby human decisions
effect events in their bodies!
72
Cf. my remarks in CAC (p. 287, first para.) which apply here too: [T]he present
exercise could be regarded essentially as an attempt, as it were, to ascertain where
this ontological gap, across which God transmits information (i.e., communicates),
is most coherently located, consistently with Gods interaction with everything else
having particular effects and without abrogating those regular relationships to which
Gods own self continues to give an existence which the sciences increasingly discover.
This concurs with Gregersen in his article, Three Types of Indeterminacy (fn. 14,
p. 184), in which he says: We cannot expect to find the causal routes of divine action
and their subsequent joints with natural causes. The most we can do, is to suggest
meaningful localizations of possible divine actions.
73
TSA, passim, especially 15760; and CAC, 27276, 28287, where I proposed: If
God interacts with the world at a supervenient level of totality, then God, by affect-
ing the state of the world-as-a-whole, could, on the model of whole-part constraint
relationships in complex systems, be envisaged as able to exercise constraints upon
events in the myriad sub-levels of existence that constitute that world without abro-
gating the laws and regularities that specifically pertain to themand this without
intervening within the unpredictabilities we have noted [I had in mind here the in-
principle, inherent kinds, i.e., quantum events, though the remarks would also apply
to the practical unpredictabilities of chaotic systems]. Particular events might occur
in the world and be what they are because God intends them to be so, without at any
the sound of sheer silence 83
point any contravention of the laws of physics, biology, psychology, or whatever is the
pertinent science for the level of description in question (283).
Ernan McMullin has raised the question of how this proposal of mine relates to
quantum indeterminism in his, Cosmic Purpose and the Contingency of Human
Evolution, Theology Today 55 (1998): 407 and fn. 50. As he points out, in my view
God does not definitively know the future, but has a maximally conceivable capacity to
predict it based on total knowledge of present events and of the laws and regularities of
natural processes (TSA, 12833). In the case of quantum events, this would, to respond
to his query, have to refer to Gods prediction of the statistical outcome of multiple
quantum events and not individual onesif the standard Copenhagen interpretation
of quantum mechanics is assumed. In his article, McMullins other query about the
proposal concerns how the interaction between an ontologically distinct God and the
world might be conceived of without being the forbidden sort of intervention. This is
met by the suggestion of the interaction being analogous to a flow of information, as
described later in this section.
74
Note that the same may be said of human agency. Also, this proposal recognizes
explicitly that the laws and regularities which constitute the sciences usually apply only
to certain perceived, if ill-defined, levels within the complex hierarchies of nature.
84 arthur peacocke
75
TSA, 161,164; CAC, 27475, 285. John Polkinghorne has made a similar proposal
in terms of the divine input of active information in his Scientists as Theologians
(London: SPCK, 1996), 3637.
76
Morever, I would not wish to tie the proposed model too tightly to a flow of
information interpretation of the mind-brain-body problem (see also fn. 63 above).
77
This is an elaboration of fig. 1 of TSA to include a depiction of the multi-leveled
nature of human beings. While it hardly needs to be said, the infinity sign represents
not infinite space or time, but the infinitely more that Gods being encompasses in
comparison with that of everything else.
the sound of sheer silence 85
GOD
G G
O O
D D
GOD
Figure 1. Diagram representing spatially the ontological relation of, and the
interactions between, God and the world (including humanity).
86 arthur peacocke
78
Recall Augustines representation of the whole creation as if it were some
sponge, huge , but bounded floating in the boundless sea of God, environing and
penetrating it . . . everywhere and on every side (Confessions, VII.7).
the sound of sheer silence 87
framework and coherently with the worldview (cf. section 3.2, above)
which the sciences engender.79
When I was using nonhuman systems in their whole-part relation-
ships as a model for Gods relation to the world in special providence, I
resorted to the idea of a flow of information as being a helpful pointer
to what might be conceived as crossing the ontological gap(s) between
God and the world-as-a-whole. But now as I turn to more personal
categories to explicate this relation and interchange, it is natural to
interpret a flow of information between God and the world, including
humanity, in terms of the communication that occurs between per-
sonsnot unlike the way in which a flow of Shannon-type information
metamorphoses in the human context into information in the ordinary
sense of the word.80 Thus whatever else may be involved in Gods per-
sonal interaction with the world, communication must be involved,
and this raises the question: To whom might God be communicating?
We would not be deliberating here on scientific perspectives on divine
action if it had not been the case that humanity distinctively and, it
appears, uniquely has regarded itself as the recipient of communication
from an Ultimate Reality, named in English as God. But in what ways
has the reception of communication from God been understood and
thought to have been experienced?
My account so far of how God interacts with the world has been chiefly
concerned with devising a model for (1) the instrumental kind of rela-
tion. Now we have to think through the implications of this model for
explicating (2) Gods symbolic relation, that is, Gods communicating
relation to the world.
It is clear that all mutual interactions between human beings and
the world (the solid and dashed single-shafted, double-headed arrows
of fig. 1) are through the mediation of the constituents in the physical
79
See TSA, 16066, and, more recently, CAC, 28487, for an elaboration of this
move and a discussion of the extent to which it is appropriate, if at all, to think of
the world as the body of the ultimately transcendent God, who has a panentheistic
relation to that same world.
80
That is, Puddefoots 1 2 3; see sec. 2.3 above.
81
The sequence of thought in this section is more fully amplified in TSA, chap. 11.
88 arthur peacocke
world of which human beings are part and in which human actions
occur. Furthermore, all interactions between human beings (the pairs
of solid single-headed arrows in fig. 1) also occur through the media-
tion of the constituents of the physical world, including the cultural
heritage coded on to material substrates.82 Such interactions include, of
course, communication between human beings, that is, between their
states of consciousness, which are also, under one description, pat-
terns of activity within human brains. This raises the question: How,
within such a framework of understanding, can one conceive of Gods
self-communication with humanity? This in turn raises the traditional
question: How might God reveal Godself to humanity? How (in what
way) can we conceive of God communicating with and to humanity
in the light of the foregoing?
82
Cf. sec. 2.6 above.
83
The locus classicus is, of course, Romans 1:1920.
the sound of sheer silence 89
The Jewish and Christian traditions have, more than most others,
placed a particular emphasis on Gods revelation in the experienced
events of a history. Such special revelation, initiated (it is assumed)
by God, has been regarded by Christians as recorded particularly in the
Bible. How we are to receive this record today in the light of critical
and historical study is a major issue in contemporary Christianity since
it involves a subtle dialogue of each generation with its own past.
d. Revelation and religious experience. My attempt to discriminate
between modes of revelation according to the degree to which God is
experienced as taking the initiative in making Godself explicitly known
is helpful only up to a point, for there must be avoided the not uncom-
mon tendency to press the distinctions too sharply and to ignore the
smooth gradations between the different categories of revelation already
distinguished. It is notable from a wide range of investigations how
widespread such religious experience is, even in the secularized West,
and that it is continuous in its distribution over those who are mem-
bers of a religious community and those who are not.84 The evidence
suggests that the boundary between general revelation and revelation
to members of a religious tradition is very blurred. But so also is the
boundary between the latter and special revelation, for there are well-
documented non-Scriptural accounts over the centuries of devotional
and mystical experiences, regarded as revelations of God, among those
who do belong to a religious tradition.
It is also widely recognized that the classical distinction between
natural and revealed theology has proved difficult to maintain in
modern times, for it can be held that the only significant difference
between supposedly natural and supposedly revealed insights is
that the former are derived from considering a broader (though still
selected) range of situations than the latter. The same could also be said
of the subsequently more widely favored distinction between general
and special revelation, for the range of, and overlap between, the
84
See, for example, David Hay, Religious Experience Today: Studying the Facts
(London: Mowbray, 1990). Typical questions concerning religious experience to
which positive responses from between one third and one half of people in Western
countries were obtained were: Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a pres-
ence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday
self? or, Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a powerful spiritual
force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?
the sound of sheer silence 91
means whereby insights are gained into the divine reality has had to
be recognized.85
85
As David Pailin (Revelation, in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Alan
Richardson and John Bowden, eds. [London: SCM Press, 1983], 5046) puts it, the
ultimate justification of a supposed revelation is by showing that the resulting
understanding is a coherent, comprehensive, fruitful and convincing view of the fun-
damental character of reality.
86
These questions are rendered more pertinent by the recognition of the important
role played in recent years by religious experience as part of inductive and cumulative
arguments which claim to warrant belief in God.
92 arthur peacocke
the world or, rather, to patterns of events among them.87 Insights into
Gods character and purposes for individuals and communities can
thereby be generated in a range of contexts from the most general to
the special. The concepts, language, and means of investigating and
appraising these experienced signals from God would operate at their
own level and not be reducible to those of the natural and human sci-
ences. The interpretation of mediated religious experience would have
its own autonomy in human inquirymystical theology cannot be
reduced without remainder to sociology or psychology, or a fortiori to
the biological or physical sciences.
What about those forms of religious experience which are unmediated
through sense experience? Brown subdivides them into the mystical,
where the primary import of the experience is a feeling of intimacy
with the divine, and the numinous, those experiences where awe of
the divine is the central feature.88 Swinburne divides them, on the
one hand, into the case where the subject has a religious experience
in having certain sensations . . . not of a kind describable by normal
vocabulary, and on the other hand, religious experiences in which
the subject . . . is aware of God or of a timeless reality. . . . [I]t just so
seems to him, but not through his having sensations.89 The experience
of Elijah at the mouth of the cave on Mount Horeb was of all kinds:
God communicated to him, not only through the natural phenomena
of wind, earthquake, and fire, but eventually, apparently, and paradoxi-
cally, in an unmediated waythrough a sound of sheer silence, an
image of absolute nonmediation.
In such instances, is it necessary to postulate some action of God
whereby there is a direct communication from God to the human con-
sciousness that is not mediated by any known natural means, that is,
by any known constituents of the world? Is there, as it were, a distinc-
tive layer or level within the totality of human personhood that has a
unique way of coming into direct contact with God? This was, as we
saw in section 1, certainly the assumption when the human person was
divided into ontologically distinct parts, one of which (often called the
spirit or the soul) had this particular capacity.
87
This may properly be thought of as a flow of information from God to human-
ity, so long as the reductive associations of such terms are not deemed to excludeas
they need and should notinterpersonal communication.
88
David Brown, The Divine Trinity (London: Duckworth, 1985), 37, 4251.
89
Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 251.
the sound of sheer silence 93
Now, we cannot but allow the possibility that God, being the Creator
of the world, might be free to set aside any limitations by which God has
allowed his interaction with that created order to be restricted. However,
we also have to recognize that those very self-limitations which God is
conceived of as having self-imposed are postulated precisely because
they render coherent the whole notion of God as Creator with purposes
that are being implemented in the natural and human world we actually
have and which the sciences increasingly unveil. Such considerations
also make one very reluctant to postulate God as communicating to
humanity through what would have to be seen as arbitrary means,
totally different in kind from any other means of communication to
human consciousness. The latter would include the most intensely
personal inter-communications, yet even these, as we saw above, are
comprehensible as mediated subtly and entirely through the biological
senses and the constituents of the world (section 2.6).
So, to be consistent, even this capacity for unmediated experience
of God cannot but be regarded as a mode of functioning of the total
integrated unity of whole personspersons who communicate in the
world through the worlds own constituents. For human beings this
communicating nexus of natural events within the world includes not
only human sense data (qualia) and knowledge stored in artefacts, but
also all the states of the human brain that are concomitant (or whatever
word best suits the relation of mind-brain-body) with the contents of
consciousness and of the unconscious. The process of storage and accu-
mulating both conscious and unconscious resources is mediated by the
various ways in which communication to humanity can occurand all
these have been seen to be effected through the natural constituents of
the world and the patterns of events which occur in them.
When human beings have an experience of God apparently unmedi-
ated by something obviously sensoryas when they are simply waiting
upon God in silencethey can do so through God communicating
via their recollected memories, the workings of their unconscious and
everything that has gone into their Bildung, everything that has made
them the persons they are. All of this can be mediated through patterns
in the constituents of the world, including brain patterns. Experiences
of God indeed often seem to be ineffable, incapable of description in
terms of any other known experiences or by means of any accessible
metaphors or analogies. This characteristic they share with other types
of experience, such as aesthetic and interpersonal experience, which
are unquestionably mediated through patterns in the events of this
94 arthur peacocke
world. Experiences of God could take the variety of forms that we have
already described and could all be mediated by the constituents of the
world and through patterns of natural events, yet could nonetheless be
definitive and normative as revelations to those experiencing them, for
if God can influence patterns of events in the world to be other than
they otherwise would have been but for the divine initiativeand still
be consistent with scientific descriptions at the appropriate levelthen
it must be possible for God to influence those patterns of events in
human brains which constitute human thoughts, including thoughts
of God and a sense of personal interaction with God.
The involvement of the constituents of the world in the so-called
unmediated experiences of God is less overt and obvious because in
them God is communicating through subtle and less obvious patterns in
the constituents of the world and the events in which they participate.
The latter include the patterns of memory storage and the activities of
the human brain, especially all those operative in communication at all
levels between human persons (including inter alia sounds, symbols,
and possibly Jungian archetypes), and the artefacts that facilitate this
communication.
On the present model of special providential actionas the effects of
divine whole-part influenceit is intelligible how God could also affect
patterns of neuronal events in a particular brain, so that the subject
could be aware of Gods presence with and without the mediation of
memory in the way just suggested. Such address from God, whether
or not via stored (remembered) patterns of neuronal events, could
come unexpectedly and uncontrivedly by the use of any apparently
external means. Thus, either way, it would seem to the one having
the experience as if it were unmediated. The revelation to Elijah at the
mouth of the cave had both this immediacy and a basis in a long prior
experience of God.
On examination, therefore, it transpires that the distinction between
mediated and unmediated religious experiences refers not so much to
the means of communication by God as to the nature of the content
of the experiencejust as the sense of harmony and communion with
a person far transcends any description that can be given of it in terms
of sense data, even though they are indeed the media of communica-
tion. We simply know we are at one with the other person. Similarly, in
contemplation the mystic can simply be aware of God . . . it just seems
so to him (as Swinburne puts it), and both experiences can be entirely
the sound of sheer silence 95
90
Editors note: the original chapter included an appendix on the distinction between
theory-autonomy and process autonomy, which has been omitted for this edition.
CHAPTER THREE
John Polkinghorne
1. Introduction
1
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1980); Bohm and B.J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpreta-
tion of Quantum Theory (London: Routledge, 1993).
2
H. Everett, Reviews of Modern Physics 29 (1957): 454. See also, Alastair Rae,
Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
chap. 6.
3
John Polkinghorne, Science and Creation: The Search for Understanding (London:
SPCK Press, 1988) chaps. 3 and 5; idem, Science and Providence: Gods Interaction
with the World (London: SPCK Press, 1989), chap. 2; idem, Reason and Reality: The
Relationship Between Science and Theology (London: SPCK Press, 1991), chap. 3; and
idem, The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics in Quantum Cosmology and the
Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, Nancey
Murphy, and C.J. Isham (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1993; Berkeley, CA:
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993), 437448.
4
See Bernd-Olaf Kppers, Understanding Complexity in CTNS/VO, v. III.
100 john polkinghorne
5
See, e.g., Polkinghorne, The Quantum World (London: Longman, 1984), chap. 7.
6
See, e.g., James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (London: Heinemann, 1988),
chap. 1.
the metaphysics of divine action 101
Certainly such laws would be more difficult to discover than the familiar
laws governing the behavior of parts, and their form would surely be
different from that of the differential equations which are the staple of
current localized mathematical physics. Yet it would be a Procrustean
imposition on science to deny that it could have access to such laws. It
is clearly worthwhile to pursue the program of reductionist explanation
as far as it can legitimately be pursued, but that is a methodological
strategy for investigation, not a metaphysical strategy determining the
total nature of reality. The dawning holism of physics points in a more
hopeful direction if science is eventually to find a satisfactory integration
into a comprehensive and adequate metaphysical scheme.
One final criticism of too great a reliance on the principle of self-
organization needs to be made. The insights of non-equilibrium ther-
modynamics seem helpful in relation to the generation of structure
and long-range order. Agency, however, seems to correspond to an
altogether more flexible and open kind of time-development than that
corresponding to typical self-organizing patterns, such as convection
columns or chemical clocks.
7
Austin Farrer, Faith and Speculation: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (London:
A&C Black, 1967).
102 john polkinghorne
Farrer on his own admission can give no account of the causal joint
between the agency of the Creator and even human action.8 This seems
to me to be a strategy of absolutely last resort, only to be undertaken
if it proves impossible to make any satisfactory conjecture about the
causal joint of Gods agency. I do not believe we are in so desperate a
case, and I make my own suggestion in the course of what follows.
8
Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural and
Divine (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 149.
the metaphysics of divine action 103
4. Ontological Gaps
9
See Thomas Tracy, Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps (CTNS/VO,
v. III).
10
William Pollard, Chance and Providence: Gods Action in a World Governed by
Scientific Law (London: Faber, 1958); see also Nancey Murphy, Divine Action in the
Natural Order: Buridans Ass and Schrdingers Cat (in this volume); and Tracy,
Particular Providence (CTNS/VO, v. III.).
104 john polkinghorne
11
See, e.g., Polkinghorne, Quantum World, chap. 6.
12
Joseph Ford, What is Chaos, that we should be mindful of it? in The New Phys-
ics, ed. Paul Davies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
the metaphysics of divine action 105
with the realist strategy already discussed, I propose13 that this should
lead us to the metaphysical conjecture that these epistemological prop-
erties signal that ontologically much of the physical world is open and
integrated in character. By open is meant that the causal principles
that determine the exchange of energy among the constituent parts
(bottom-up causality) are not by themselves exhaustively determina-
tive of future behavior. There is scope for the activity of further causal
principles. By integrated is meant that these additional principles will
have a holistic character (top-down causality).
The deterministic equations from which classical chaos theory devel-
oped are then to be interpreted as downward emergent approximations
to a more subtle and supple physical reality. They are valid only in the
limiting and special cases where bits and pieces are effectively insulated
from the effects of their environment. In the general case, the effect of
total context on the behavior of parts cannot be neglected.
Of course, with present ignorance, it is no more possible for me to
spell out the details of the subtle and supple physical reality I propose
than it is for the physical reductionist to spell out how neural networks
generate consciousness, or for those who rely on quantum indetermi-
nacy to spell out how it generates macroscopic agency, or for those who
rely on an unanalyzed notion of top-down causality through boundary
conditions to spell out how it actually operates. We are all necessar-
ily whistling in the dark. I prefer the tune I have chosen because it
has a natural anchorage in what we know about macroscopic physical
process and because it exhibits certain promising features which I will
now discuss.
For a chaotic system, its strange attractor represents the envelope
of possibility within which its future motion will be contained. The
infinitely variable paths of exploration of this strange attractor are not
discriminated from each other by differences of energy. They represent
different patterns of behavior, different unfoldings of temporal develop-
ment. In a conventional interpretation of classical chaos theory, these
different patterns of possibility are brought about by sensitive responses
to infinitesimal disturbances of the system. Our metaphysical proposal
13
See n. 3 above. See also Polkinghorne, Science and Christian Belief: Theological
Reflections of a Bottom-up Thinker (London: SPCK Press, 1994; printed in the United
States as The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-up Thinker [Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1994]), chap. 1.
106 john polkinghorne
14
The discussion of Peacocke in Theology for a Scientific Age, p. 154, does not
correctly represent my view. I have never supposed agency to be exercised through
(calculated!) manipulations of individual atoms and molecules. See n. 3 above.
the metaphysics of divine action 107
5. A Metaphysical Proposal
6. Some Comments
15
See the discussion in Bohm and Hiley, Undivided Universe, 3538.
16
Cf. C.J. Isham and J.C. Polkinghorne, The Debate over the Block Universe in
Quantum Cosmology, 135144.
the metaphysics of divine action 109
This implies, I believe, that the God who is the creator of a world of
becoming must be a God who possesses a temporal pole as well as an
eternal pole.17 Because the future of such a world is not yet formed,
even God does not yet know it. This is no imperfection in the divine
nature. God knows all that can be known, but the future is still inher-
ently unknowable.
17
Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, chap. 7.
CHAPTER FOUR
William R. Stoeger
1. Introduction
I intend this brief essay as a trial balloon. I shall sketch how we can
describe Gods action in the world, accepting with critical seriousness
both our present and projected knowledge of reality as we have it from
the sciences, philosophy and other non-theological disciplines, and our
present knowledge of God, his/her relationship with us and our world,
and his/her activity within it.
By saying that we shall accept the knowledge we have from both
ranges of experience with critical seriousness, I mean accepting it
as indicating something about the realities it claims to talk about,
after carefully applying the critical evaluations of such claims which
are available within the disciplines themselves, and within philosophy
and the other human sciences. This obviously involves beginning with
a number of definite presuppositions, some of which favor neither the
sciences nor religion and spirituality, and some of which do. But it also
involves the presupposition that the claims of each have been carefully
examined in the light of the different ranges of experience and certain
principles of interpretation and validation. I shall not spend time here
going through that process step by step, but instead shall simply assert
some general results in each area which derive from such a distil-
lation. It will be somewhat obvious to those in the respective fields what
critiques I have applied to reach the results I shall assert. Then I shall
attempt to marshall these results into a roughly-sketched, integrated
theory of Gods action in the world.
The input into this integrated, coherent theory of Gods action
will not consist of highly technical assertionseither from science or
from philosophy and theologybut rather assertions which more or
less describe the general character of the world as we know it from
the contemporary sciences and the limits of our knowledge of it, and
112 william r. stoeger
1
Personal communication. Here and elsewhere in this paper I am indebted to
Happels very helpful comments.
describing gods action 113
1.1. Presuppositions
An obvious presupposition we make in pursuing this discussion is that
the sciences give us some knowledge of reality. We are not able to specify
that correspondence precisely, because we do not have an independent
handle on reality as it is in itself. Furthermore, our knowledge of it is
always only provisional and corrigible, and its certainty is only relative,
not absolute.2 But we are still reasonably persuaded to maintain that
there is correspondence, however precarious and uncertain it may be.
The care we exercise in validating and confirming scientific knowledge
indicates that this is what we as scientists are intending to do. And unless
reality is extraordinarily malevolent and contrary, the intersubjectively
applied criteria used in scientific observation, theory, and experiment
assure us that the sciences give us some purchase on the structures and
the dynamics of the physical, chemical, and biological world of which
we are a part. We presuppose in doing this that in its interaction with
us, reality reveals something of what it is. It could be very devious, it is
true, but we presume it is not so devious as to reveal nothing of itself
in the phenomena we observe.
The other key presuppositions we make here may not be so obvious
or common. They relate to God and to divine action, and to our knowl-
edge of it through Christian belief and theology, according to the critical
principles of discernment, validation, confirmation, and interpretation
2
See Frederick Suppe, The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism
(Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 475; and William Stoeger, Contemporary
Physics and the Ontological Status of the Laws of Nature, in Quantum Cosmology
and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Rus-
sell, Nancey Murphy, and C.J. Isham (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1993;
Berkeley, CA: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993), 20934.
114 william r. stoeger
which are applied in these areas. First of all, we presuppose that God
exists and is and has been actively present and involved in our lives
and in our world. How this action, presence, and involvement are
to be described and understood will be modifiedeven significantly
modifiedin the conversation with the natural sciences. We are not
attempting to prove Christian doctrines by appealing to scientific evi-
dence, but rather attempting to re-articulate and understand theological
truths in a more satisfactory way by looking at the relevant knowledge
available to us in the sciences and other disciplines. As Happel has said,
religion and theology are put in conversation with the data, concepts
and language of scientific performance and theory.3
Secondly, we presuppose that the sources of revelation, the scriptures,
tradition, and our living experience as believers who are individually and
communally openmore or lessto God and to Gods action, do give
us some reliable knowledge about God and about his/her action in our
world. As in the sciences, this is very limited and corrigible knowledge,
subject to error and modification, particularly with regard to interpreta-
tion and understanding of that revelation, and of our overall response to
it. And, as in the sciences, it too is dependent on the careful application
of critical principles of interpretation, discernment, and confirmation
suitable to the experiences being examined. We might also mention
that the limits and uncertainties of this knowledge derive both from the
extraordinary but limited character of the revelation we have available,
and perhaps most of all from our own limitations and lack of openness
to receiving, interpreting, and living out that revelation.
3
Private communication.
describing gods action 115
If we generalize from the vast knowledge of the universe and all that
makes it up, including living and conscious beings like ourselves, we
can say that at every level there are self-ordering and self-organizing
principles and processes within nature itself, which can adequately
describe and account for (at the level of science) its detailed evolution
and behavior, the emergence of novelty, possibly even of conscious-
ness, the inter-relationships between systems and levels, and even the
various laws of nature themselvesand the unfolding of all this, its
diversification and complexification, from an epoch very close to the
initial singularity or Big Bang. Some of these principles and processes
are well known and understood, and others are at present only conjec-
tured or suspected. No outside intervention is necessary to interrupt
or complement these regularities and principles at this level. Nor is
an lan vital called for to explain living thingsnor an lan spirituel
at the next level of development. At the level of the sciences there are
no gaps, except the ontological gap between absolutely nothing and
something.4
4
Somefor instance Ellis, Murphy, and Tracyconsider the indeterminacy at the
quantum level to be an essential gap which requires filling (see their papers in this
116 william r. stoeger
volume). Though this view needs much more careful discussion than is possible here,
my assessment is that indeterminacy is not a gap in this sense, but rather an expression
of the fundamentally different physical character of reality at the quantum level. It does
not need to be filled! To do so, particularly with divine intervention, would lead in
my view to unresolvable scientific and theological problems. The demand for a cause
to determine the exact position and time of an event misconstrues the nature of the
reality being revealed. Quantum events need a cause and have a cause, but not a cause
determining their exact time and position of occurrence, beyond what is specified by
quantum probability (the wave function).
5
See Stoeger, Contemporary Physics.
describing gods action 117
That is, why are there laws of nature in the first place? And why these
laws of nature and not some others? In fact, not even philosophy can
adequately answer these questions.
A third conclusion stemming from the sciences is one which is not
usually mentioned but one which I believe is quite importantbut
not for the first reason that will probably occur to us: The laws of
nature and nature itself constrain but underdetermine what develops
or occurs. Great possibilities are left open in nature. It is very pliable.
This does not mean that nothing happens, obviously, but it does mean
that uncorrelated coincidences often end up filling in what is needed
to complete determination. It is this pervasive feature of realityalong
with others, such as its knowability and its localizabilitywhich enables
human beings and other animals to manipulate and harness reality, and
even to know it. We can fly in airplanes, build bridges, and heal the
sick, precisely because the laws of nature as we know them, and perhaps
even as they are in themselves, underdetermine events. In fact we are
who we are as human beings because of this important featurewe
can decide to do things which otherwise would not happen within the
constraints imposed by physics, chemistry, and biology. Some of this
underdetermination is due to the indeterminism and unpredictability
of physical systems at the quantum level and to the unpredictability
of both simple and complex systems on the macroscopic level. As we
have seen in studying the behavior of chaotic, nonlinear, or nonequi-
librium systems, very slight changes in the initial conditions or the
boundary conditions can severely alter how they will behave, and what
sort of self-organizing behavior they will manifest. However, the under-
determination of phenomena by the laws of nature is due to much more
than these important sources of indeterminism and unpredictability. It
is due primarily to the freedom that exists in establishing initial condi-
tions and boundary conditions throughout nature. An agent can, with
some expenditure of energy, change initial conditions and/or bound-
ary conditions of a system or, even more importantly, construct new
systems, thus determining outcomes much different from those which
would otherwise occur.
Aha! You have pointed this out in order to leave room for divine
intervention! someone might say. In fact I have not, because, as we
shall see, this underdetermination of reality by the laws of nature does
not easily allow for divine interventionat least not direct divine
interventionbecause that would involve an immaterial agent acting
118 william r. stoeger
From revelation, and partially from reason, we know that God exists,
created the universe and all that is in it, reveals him/herself to people,
loves and cares for us, continually acts within material creation, par-
ticularly now through Jesus and the presence of his spirit among us,
and calls us to share his life and mission forevera promise which will
be fulfilled only after our deaths.8
Here a couple of conclusions stand out in reference to the issue we
are probing. Though it is not the primary revelation of God, the first
is that he/she is somehow the answer to the question, Why is there
something rather than nothing?and to the other similar fundamen-
tal questions we posed above. He/she created what is not God from
6
See n. 1 above.
7
Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural and
Divine (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
8
As Happel points out (private communication), this creedal summary is deceptive.
The meaning of the language used is neither static nor agreed on by all who accept it.
It will change, even radically so, as we live out of and reflect upon our individual and
common experience of Gods presence and action among us.
describing gods action 119
nothing. But how that was done is still very much a mystery, as well as
whether or not creation is eternaldoes God create from all eternity?
How that was done is understandable only to God, at the very depths
of the divine being. We know in a very limited way how it was done
by looking at nature as revealed to us by the sciencesor let us say,
we know how it was not done!
A second conclusion from revelation is Gods motivation for creation
and for his/her interaction with the worldit is Gods goodness, Gods
innate drive as God to share that goodness, and Gods love both for
him/herself and for all that he/she creates and holds in existence. So,
interpersonal relationships are of paramount importance to Godas
are the values of goodness and truth. This is true of God in him/
herselfGod as Trinity. But it is also true of Gods relationships ad
extra. This divine priority is most fully expressed in the Incarnation
of the Son of God in Jesus, and in the sending of the Spirit. But it is
manifest throughout creation at every level.
A third conclusion is that creation itself is good, and an expression
of Gods goodness and love. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that it
should reflect to some extent who God is and what his/her character-
istics are. Also, the more complex and capable beings are, the more
they reflect who God isincluding humanity, which is made in the
image and likeness of God. This perspectivethe priority of the values
of goodness and truth, along with reverence and respect for all that
isis consistent with the importance and value God gives to personal
relationships.
A fourth conclusion is that, although God reveals him/herself through
everything in creation, Gods most particular revelation is in terms of
persons and personal relationships involving generous, self-sacrificing
love and forgiveness. And our principal way of responding to Gods
revelation is in those same terms. So we experience revelation as per-
sonal and social, God among usas creator and source of life, yes,
but also as a personal presence and force who loves, invites love, gives
and invites giving, forgives and reconciles, and invites forgiveness
and reconciliation. The created, inanimate, and non-personal levels of
reality, though they exist in their own right and reveal God and Gods
goodness, power, and love in their own way, and give glory to God
in their own way (they cannot do otherwise!), exist also to enable the
development and maintenance of persons to whom God can reveal
him/herself and with whom God can maintain a personal relationship
leading to the full and harmonious union of the divine with created
120 william r. stoeger
9
My emphasis here on the priority of persons does not deny the wider role the Spirit
has throughout the created order, and the impact of the Incarnation on the cosmos.
Nor does my formulation properly describe the relationship of non-conscious entities
to the divine presence and their essential mystery.
10
Jos Porfirio Miranda, Marx and the Bible (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974),
40ff.
describing gods action 121
is the agent of creatio ex nihilo. In one way this is not accurate, for, as
I have already implied above, God has always existed as a necessary
being. He/she is, as the uncaused cause, or primary cause, as Christian
theology has traditionally described him/her. So something (i.e., God)
has always existed. There was never absolutely nothing, if something
exists. What we really want to say is that the only explanation for
something created to emerge from the absence of anything created is
God. This affirmation, as I have just said, does not particularly deepen
our understandinghow this happened, the detailsbut it is, strictly
speaking, an adequate answer to the fundamental question we are
considering.
It should be clear, furthermore, that this is not basically a temporally
weighted answer to the question of existence. It does not necessarily
imply that there was a state or situation when there was nothing besides
God, and then at some juncture God created entities other than him/
herself, and with them time, space, etc. As Thomas Aquinas11 realized,
it could be that God has created from all eternitythat created reality is
eternal in the sense that it has no temporal beginning (there was never
a state in which God existed and created reality did not), but it is still
radically contingent on God.12 There may have been a beginning of
time, but that is by no means essential. Ultimate origins are essentially
ontological, not temporal. In fact, I believe a good argument can be
made for eternal creation on the basis of who God must be as God. If
God is of his/her very nature bonum diffusivum sui, infinite love, and
therefore creator, then he/she was always and eternally such. Therefore,
in order to fully realize who he/she is, creation must in some sense,
at least in intention, be an eternal process. This may at first seem to
infringe on Gods freedom to create. But it really does not do that at
all. His/her creating is perfectly free, but is also a natural consequence
of Gods very nature. Nor does this mean that God or Gods love is
dependent on creation for self-origination. God and Gods love must
be sovereign. But Gods love must also be fruitful, and that one prin-
cipal manifestation of its fruitfulness be an eternal created order is not
surprising.
11
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 1.44.
12
See Ernan McMullin, How Should Cosmology Relate to Theology? in The Sciences
and Theology in the Twentieth Century, ed. A.R. Peacocke (Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 39ff.; and Stoeger, Contemporary Physics.
122 william r. stoeger
13
Stoeger, The Origin of the Universe in Science and Religion, in Cosmos, Bios,
Theos, ed. Henry Margenau and Roy A. Varghese (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1992),
25469.
14
Ibid.
15
See ibid.; and idem, Contemporary Cosmology and Its Implications for the Sci-
ence-Religion Dialogue, in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for
Understanding, ed. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, and George V. Coyne
(Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1988), 21944.
describing gods action 123
16
I prefer to reserve this term for our imperfect formulation of the underlying regu-
larities, constraints, and relationships we discover, or our models for those. However,
we must distinguish between the laws of nature as God knows them, and the laws
of nature as we have imperfectly and provisionally formulated them.
17
Though the general primary-cause-secondary-cause approach to the problem
of Gods action in the world is very traditional, I believe that it is the only one that
holds much promise. Owen Thomas (Recent Thoughts on Divine Agency, in Divine
Action, ed. Brian Hebblethwaite and Edward Henderson [Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1991], 3550.) arrives at a similar conclusion, that in the current state of discussion
only the theories involving either primary and secondary causality or process theol-
ogy even approach adequacy. I am thankful to Russell (Introduction, in Quantum
Cosmology; and in CTNS/VO, v. III) for this reference. In my view, the approach of
process theology, though attractive in some ways, has unresolved philosophical and
theological problems, particularly with regard to the doctrines of God, creation, and
Christology.
124 william r. stoeger
that the operation of the laws of nature, from the divine perspective,
is a principal channel of Gods active presence in our world, and as
such is an expressioninadequate and imperfect though it may beof
who he/she is. Thus, our investigation of these regularities, constraints,
and relationships, and our imperfect formulation of them in scientific
theories and in our laws of nature, articulates an important mode of
divine activity in created reality.
I shall have more to say about this later when we discuss Gods action
within personal and social contexts. Looking forward briefly to the
issues which will emerge there, we see that it is crucial to distinguish
carefully between the laws of nature, the regularities, constraints,
and relationships realized in nature, as we have conceptualized and
formulated them, and the laws of nature as they in fact function
in created realityfrom Gods full and complete point of view, so to
speakwhich somehow includes the internal or interior relationship
he/she has with nature, with us, and with other created entities.18
We immediately see the importance of this distinctionsince our
very limited account and formulation of these laws may leave out
crucial relationships (even constitutive relationships) which organize
the inanimate and unconscious world at a very profound level, which
function to subtlety link the personal and the non-personal, or which
subordinate the non-personal to the personal. We are not fully able to
see how this might happen, but we begin to see something of it in the
underdetermination of physical reality and its vulnerability to human
agency, which can mold it within its constraints to our intended use,
for better or for worse.19
From our point of view, manifestations of this may be interpreted
by us as contravening the laws of nature simply because we have not
fully understood them, whereas in fact they are in perfect accord with
the laws of nature as they are in reality. In other words, God may
act in a purely natural way within the relationships and regularities
he/she has established and maintained, but in a way which we see as
supernatural intervention simply because we have not yet come to
comprehend fully the relationships and regularities (the higher laws)
which obtain.20
18
Stoeger, Contemporary Physics.
19
Cf. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age.
20
Will all events be lawful in his extended sense? Referring to how I characterized
law in the introduction and in this section, that may very well be the case. However, it
describing gods action 125
needs more careful consideration than I can give it here. Certainly, relative to a more
restricted notion of lawas what is generalizablesome events will fall outside its
comprehension, e.g., what is important and significant in its radical particularity.
21
By direct I mean unmediated; by indirect I mean mediated.
126 william r. stoeger
22
St. Ignatius of Loyola, Rule for the Discernment of Spirits, The Spiritual Exer-
cises. See Karl Rahner, The Dynamic Element in the Church, trans. W.J. OHara, vol. 12,
Quaestiones Disputatae (New York: Herder & Herder, 1964), for a theological account
of this.
23
Cf. F. Suppe, The Scientific Vision and the Beatific Vision, paper presented at
the Notre Dame Symposium on Knowing God, Christ, and Nature in the Post-Posi-
tivisitic Era, University of Notre Dame, April 1417, 1993.
128 william r. stoeger
24
Russell (private communication) insists that we distinguish three different ideas
which I have tended to conflate here: (1) knowing where God acts directly (such as
at the quantum level or in the free moral agent); (2) having an immediate experience
of such a direct act; and (3) being able to model the act itself. My point here is that,
though we may know or suspect that God acts directly in a given place or situation,
we are never in the position to model it, simply because we do not have access to it
in its immediacy. We have mediated experience of it, but no experience of the direct
action itself, which is precisely what is in question.
25
Arthur Peacocke discusses this problem at lengththe problem of the how,
or what he refers to as the causal joint (Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age). He
suggests that the resolution of it can be approached by locating creation in God and
applying top-down causality, God acting on created reality.
describing gods action 129
26
At the same time, however, we must find a way of avoiding an overly anthropo-
centric theology.
27
Stoeger, Origin of the Universe.
130 william r. stoeger
28
Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age.
134 william r. stoeger
is realized. And, if God exists and is the primary cause, he/she must
have either chosen this realization, or allowed it to develop from some
other more primordial laws.
In either case, God at some point or in some way acts directly to
effect them, and continues to act directly and immanently to conserve
them. Again, we have the nexus problem, for which we have no
real solutionother than the observations made above concerning
the immanently and transcendently interior active presence of God in
all that is. God chose to make the world the way it is, however much
he/she allowed it to develop on its own. God implements that choice
by initiating and maintaining an existence-endowing (constitutive)
relationship with the possibilities he/she wishes to realize. The choice
of a particular instantiation and its direct implementationwhatever
the number of allowed outcomeswas necessary at some level. From
revelation, we appreciate some of the motivations directing that choice,
in terms of freedom and the primacy of love, dictating a world in which
God remains involved and caring, but in which we remain free and able
to freely give or refuse love and service to God and to one another.29
Top-Down Causality
In this discussion we are already aware of the final problem we shall
briefly discuss, that of top-down causality. The brief discussion of human
agency above provided examples of top-down causalitya human being
building a bookcase, typing a letter, brewing a pot of coffeein which
an entity of higher complexity or possessing greater versatility deter-
mines or causes entities at lower, more fundamental levels to behave in
a certain wayin a more organized and coherent way than they would
do otherwise. In the hierarchical layers of organization and complex-
ity which characterize our universe, top-down causality is pervasive.
Although some causal influences operate from lower levels of organiza-
tion to higher levels, constraining and also enabling what more complex
entities do, other causal influences act from the top down to marshall
and coordinate less organized constituents into coherent, cooperative
action in service of the more complex organism or system. A precondi-
tion for this being possible is the radical underdetermination of effects
29
Cf. George F.R. Ellis, The Theology of the Anthropic Principle, in Quantum
Cosmology, 367405.
136 william r. stoeger
by the laws of nature at lower levels (the freedom and the need to
establish initial conditions, or boundary conditions)rendering nature
very pliable within certain limits. There is really no problem herejust
a characteristic of reality which requires proper recognition and careful
analysis. Obviously in the case of divine action, we have the ultimate
case of top-down causality, in which the essential issues challenging our
understanding are those which we have already discussed.
The realm of divine action which is especially important for the mean-
ing, orientation, and direction of our lives is that of the personal. In
fact, within the context of Christian revelation at least, the focus of
divine action is on the personal and the communalGods continual
active presence with and on behalf of his/her people, drawing them
closer to God, and sharing the divine life ever more fully with them as
individuals and as groups. God takes the initiative in our regard, invites
us and enables us to establish a relationship with him/her, gives life,
reveals Godself, heals, punishes, reconciles, forgives, transforms, renews,
savesout of love and care for persons. The ultimate manifestation of
this is in the Incarnation, and in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, and
sending of the Spirit of the Incarnate One, who is Wisdom, Word, Child
of God. It is only as an afterthought, so to speak, but a very important
afterthought, that revelation and our response to it in faith speaks of
Gods creative action with regard to the whole context within which
God personally directed saving and transforming activity takes place.
It is obviously important from many points of view, but falls outside
the primary focus of attention in much of revelation.30
30
See Richard J. Clifford, Creation in the Hebrew Bible, in Physics, Philosophy,
and Theology, 15170. In saying this, however, we must not separate what is personal
and self-conscious from Gods action in its deepest form in inanimate creation. The
focus of much of revelation on the personal should not insulate us from attending
to and celebrating Gods active presence in all creation. In fact, in light of both what
we know from revelation and from contemporary sciences, part of our commitment
must be to emphasize our profound unity with the rest of creation, to learn from it
by contemplating it, and to take a more enlightened responsibility in caring for it
and fostering reverence for it. Though we must be faithful to revelation in terms of
the priority of the personal, we must be faithful to all that it offers us, and we cannot
continue to indulge in an overweening anthropocentrism.
describing gods action 137
31
Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
138 william r. stoeger
9. Conclusions
32
My special thanks to all those who have given me comments on a previous draft of
this paper or who have discussed aspects of it with me, especially Stephen Happel, Ian
Barbour, Tom Tracy, Nancey Murphy, George Ellis, Arthur Peacocke, Denis Edwards,
Bob Russell, Wim Drees, and John Polkinghorne.
CHAPTER FIVE
Wesley J. Wildman
1. Introduction
call this argument the teleological argument for divine action. The
English divine William Paley appealed to the teleological argument for
divine action when he drew his famous analogy between a watch and the
wondrous structures and processes of nature: both demand a designer.1
Likewise, Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of
the principle of natural selection, found the complexity of some features
of biology so amazing that he invoked an active designer God to explain
it.2 This peculiarly aggressive form of the teleological argument for
divine action (the so-called design argument) is comparatively rare in
our day because evolutionary biology has made impressive advances in
explaining how complex organs and biological systems developed from
simpler forms. That has made it exceedingly difficult to attempt to move
from the products of biological evolution to divine action by means of
the argument that the beauty and functionality of those products is so
wonderful as to demand a divine mind whose intention they are; or
from the process of biological evolution to divine action by means of
the argument that the evolutionary process requires occasional divine
moderation, adjustment, acceleration, or specific directing to account
for the forms of life that exist. The theory of evolution is increasingly
well justified in asserting that wonderful forms of life result from the
evolutionary process regardless of what any mind intends, and that this
process is automatic, in need of no occasional, special adjustments.3 The
argument from design has been thoroughly undermined as a result.
The teleological argument for divine action, however, has more mod-
est, more viable forms. One is driven by the question of the significance
and possible ultimate purpose of the evolutionary trajectory that has
produced human life.4 Another finds a congenial starting point in one
of the intuitions guiding neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, namely,
that increases in biological complexity probably occur at different speeds
1
William Paley, Natural Theologyof Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of
the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature (Oxford: J. Vincent, 1802; 2nd
ed., 1828).
2
This is so according to Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things (New
York: W.H. Freeman, 1997), who cites an article of Wallace in Quarterly Review
(April, 1869).
3
For marvelous descriptions of many particular case studies, see Richard Dawkins,
The Blind Watchmaker (New York, London: W.W. Norton, 1986), and even more
impressively, Climbing Mount Improbable (New York, London: W.W. Norton, 1996).
4
See, for example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (London:
Collins, New York: Harper, 1959; tr. from 1955 French ed.), and Mans Place in Nature
(London: Collins, New York: Harper, 1966; tr. from 1956 French ed.).
the teleological argument for divine action 143
5
See, for example, Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the
Nature of History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), and Niles Eldredge, Macroevolu-
tionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989),
and Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated
Equilibria (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985).
6
This topic is explored perhaps most vigorously by Stuart Kauffman. See The
Origins of Order: Self-organization and Selection in Evolution (Oxford and New York:
Oxford University, 1993), and At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of
Self-Organization and Complexity (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1995).
144 wesley j. wildman
7
This is not the place to defend the possibility of such metaphysical reflection. Suf-
fice to say that I do not suppose that Kants strictures on metaphysics can be set aside
lightly. On the contrary, the pragmatism of C.S. Peirce offers a way around them while
taking them with proper seriousness. My interpretation of the task of inquiry, and my
general indebtedness to pragmatism (not, however, to Richard Rortys neo-pragma-
tism), is laid out briefly in Similarities and Differences in the Practice of Science and
Theology, CTNS Bulletin 14.4 (Fall, 1994).
the teleological argument for divine action 145
8
For an example of such an ambitious undertaking, see William R. Stoegers paper
in CTNS/VO, v. IV.
146 wesley j. wildman
and nature. These depreciations range from the denial of the reality of
God and the God-affirming denial that divine action is a meaningful
phrase, to the rejection of nature and history as metaphysically signifi-
cant categories, as a result of the contention (typical of much Indian
and Buddhist philosophy) that ultimate reality lies deeply beneath its
misleading natural, historical appearance. Centralizing the category of
teleology helps here, because it is possible within limits to specify its
meaning for a wide variety of metaphysical and religious traditions;
the idea of divine action cannot be generalized to the same degree.
After conclusions about the conceptual relations between teleology and
biological evolution are drawn, the possibility will then exist of relating
these conclusions to other concepts, such as divine actionor, for that
matter, the Indian philosophical concepts of samsara and maya, though
I will not be pursuing this.9 The teleological argument for divine action
follows this procedure precisely.
2. Speaking of Teleology
Teleological categories have been generally out of favor in the West for
some time, so it is necessary to clear some terminological ground.
9
This two staged approach to the problem of teleology and divine action has been
adopted before to good effect, notably and influentially as the distinguishing principle
for the two books constituting Paul Janet, Final Causes, tr. From the 2nd French ed.
by William Affleck (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1892; 1st French ed., 1876).
10
The following translations of Aristotles works are referred to or quoted in what
follows: Physics (Physica), tr. R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye; Metaphysics (Metaphysica),
tr. by W.D. Ross; On the Parts of Animals (De partibus animalium), tr. William Ogle;
On the Gait of Animals (De incessu animalium), tr. A.S.L. Farquharson; and On the
Generation of Animals (De generatione animalium), tr. Arthur Platt.
11
References are in the form book.chapter, pagecolumn.line of the Berlin Greek text.
the teleological argument for divine action 147
the material, formal, efficient and final causes.12 The fourth of Aristotles
questions is answered by identifying the end of a thing. But how was
this conceived?
Aristotle implicitly defined an end when he spoke of the cause of
a thing in the sense of end or that for the sake of which a thing is
done, e.g. health is the cause of walking about (Physics II.3, 194b.33).
Thus, an end causes its means by virtue of the fact that the means
(as cause) are capable of securing that end (as effect). Now, the end,
since it lies in the future relative to the means, cannot obviously be
their cause, though the idea of the end can certainly be the cause of
the means. Thus, we arrive at a definition: An end, E, is the cause of
means, M, insofar as E is the foreseen effect of M. This is a common
definition of having an end, and fits Aristotles view rather well. It
captures the meaning of end through being explicit about how it is
that ends cause.
The usual way of allowing for literal application of teleological cat-
egories is through the concept of intending: since human beings and
some other animals intend, their behavior is genuinely purposeful and
causal. In the context of intentional agents, therefore, since foresee-
ing effects can be spoken of literally, the definition of end just given
is uncontroversial. Extending this definition to cover some cases of
habitual, preconscious, unconscious, goal-directed, and even some
acquired and instinctive behavior poses comparatively few problems.
Outside the realm of intending and its physiological derivatives, how-
ever, making sense of having an end is far more difficult. Aristotle
accepted human beings as free agents and allowed human intending
to be the metaphysical ground of many kinds of events that are for the
sake of something, such as habitual and what we would call unconscious
behaviors. Contemporary philosophy will go that far with Aristotle,
but rarely much further. In particular, Aristotles attribution of ends
to inanimate natural processes is genuinely difficult to justify.
Aristotle was fully aware of the problems with this more ambitious
usage of end. In the context of a discussion of the various kinds of
processes that have ends.13 Aristotle dealt with the problem of assigning
12
Aristotle himself used only nouns or nominal phrases to designate the four causes
(e.g. to telos); the adjectival forms are later Latin creations.
13
For details of the classification, see Physics II.5, and especially the discussion of
spontaneous and chance processes in Physics II.6, 197b.1821.
148 wesley j. wildman
14
Something akin to this is defended in R.B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1953), and in many other writers. Dawkins, whose
uses the term designoid for apparently designed, introduces statistical measures
that reflect human intuitions about what is designed and what is not designed. This
approach seems useful also for furnishing an approach to apparent endedness. See
Climbing Mount Improbable, chapter 1.
the teleological argument for divine action 149
15
This appears to be the reason for Francisco J. Ayalas approach to the problem.
He begins with a vague and general criterion: An object or a behavior is said to be
teleological or telic when it gives evidence of design or appears to be directed toward
certain ends. He then partially overcomes the vagueness of this definition by dis-
tinguishing between artificial (external) teleology, due to deliberate purposefulness,
and natural (internal) teleology, when no deliberate purposefulness is involved; and
then again by further distinguishing within the category of natural teleology between
determinate teleology (what I am calling closed-endedness) and indeterminate teleol-
ogy (open-endedness). The vagueness of the initial definition is understandable in
view of what it must cover. See Theodosius Dobzhansky, et. al., eds., Evolution (W.H.
Freeman, 1977), p. 497; reprinted as Teleological Explanations in Michael Ruse, ed.,
Philosophy of Biology (New York: Macmillan, London: Collier Macmillan, 1989). Also
see Ayalas contribution to CTNS/VO, v. IV.
16
Edwin Levy presents a hierarchy that is a subset of this one in Networks and
Teleology, pp. 159186, in Mohan Matthen and Bernard Linsky, eds., Philosophy
and Biology, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 14 (Calgary:
University of Calgary, 1988).
150 wesley j. wildman
Table 1. Hierarchical class of events, objects, and processes with nominal ends
necessary for adequate explanations, while those lower in the table are
less well placed. Unsurprisingly, it is Aristotles intelligent ends that are
at the top of the table (especially conscious and habitual behavior).
For each of the objects and processes falling under one of the catego-
ries in this table, it is possibleand this is the point of the criterion for
endednessto ask: Is the appearance of endedness in this instance due
to real ends in nature, or is it merely a misleading epiphenomenon of
complex natural processes without ends? If the epiphenomenal expla-
nation is to be preferred in every case, then this constitutes a strong
argument for eliminating the more metaphysically loaded usages of
teleological language from all descriptions and explanations of nature,
though of course speaking of ends and purposes may still serve a use-
ful heuristic function. If in some cases the explanation for apparent
ends is that they are real, then teleological categories will be needed for
adequate explanations of the processes in question, and some mediating
metaphysical theory of causality and teleology will be needed also.
17
This makes the prime mover something like the life principle of the entire cosmos,
which might seem inconsistent with Aristotles rejection of life principles in living
beings. It is his view nonetheless. This tension is closely related to a complex corner
of Aristotle interpretation having to do with his distinction between active and passive
reason. Aristotles need to find in human beings something akin to Platos indestructible
soul is the basis for attributing a mixture of active and passive reason to them. Active
reason suggests a life principle that requires no body and it is active reason that is
generalized and perfected in Aristotles concept of God. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists
in relation to all beings apart from God that their soul is their principle of unity and
not a mystical life principle separable from their constitution as formed matter.
18
The works on zoology include, in addition to those mentioned above, On the
Motion of Animals (De motu animalium), tr. A.S.L. Farquharson; History of Animals
(Historia animalium), tr. DArcy Wentworth; and the so-called Short Physical Treatises
(Parva naturalia).
152 wesley j. wildman
19
See especially Nicomachean Ethics (Ethica Nicomachea), tr. W.D. Ross; and Politics
(Politica), tr. Benjamin Jowett.
20
See Politics I, esp. I.1213, 1259a.371260b.25; and Nicomachean Ethics V.11,
1138b.59, VIII.11, 1161a.101161b.10.
the teleological argument for divine action 153
21
The Blind Watchmaker, chapter 2 is an extended appreciation of the apparently
designed character of so much in nature, and this is also a prominent theme throughout
Climbing Mount Improbable.
22
Dawkins approach begins from an idiosyncratic definition of biological com-
plexity, which functions as a criterion for the class of objects and processes equivalent
with apparent ends. After dismissing a few problematic alternatives, Dawkins defines
a complex object as statistically improbable in a direction that is not specified with
hindsight (15). He is quite prepared to work with an alternative definition for the
156 wesley j. wildman
sake of argument, however, as the crux of his argument lies elsewhere. Note that he
includes human-made objects as honorary living things (12,10). He considers that
this class of objects and processes will be explained when an account of it is provided
that is consistent with, and relies on nothing other than, the basic laws of physics.
Chapter three is devoted to spelling out the special way that the laws of physics are
deployed in evolutionary theory.
23
Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of
Modern Biology, tr. from the French by Austryn Wainhouse (New York, Alfred A.
Knopf, 1971). Monod advances a form of existentialist polemic against all manner of
vitalisms and animisms, superstitions, and self-deceptive metaphysics, in the name of
a materialist ethic of knowledge.
the teleological argument for divine action 157
24
Paul Davies interprets what I am calling the fundamental teleological principle
in this way. See The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Natures Creative Ability to
Order the Universe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), and The Mind of God: The
Scientific Basis for a Rational World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992). Also see
Davies essay in CTNS/VO, v. III.
160 wesley j. wildman
25
This approach is taken by many theologians. Arthur Peacocke in Theology for a
Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural, Divine and Human, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia:
Fortress, London: SCM, 1993) tends not to use explicitly teleological categories, but
he does take this approach to divine action. Also see Peacockes essay in this volume.
Process philosophers and theologians are interesting on this point. Some would allow
that the fundamental teleological principle could select out a particular end for realiza-
tion in an open-ended teleological process, as appears to be the case in Marjorie Hewitt
Suchockis Christology, for example, though not everywhere in her writing. See God,
Christ, Church (New York: Crossroad, 1989), especially Part III, God as Presence.
Other phases of that book appear to be in sharp tension with the tendency to require
specific outcomes of open-ended process that appears at times in connection with the
Christology, especially as regards the perfection of Jesus response to the (divine) initial
aim. Others (such as Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and Charles Birch)
would reject this possibility. John Cobb usually tilts decisively in the latter direction,
but on rare occasions, perhaps anxious to find continuities with traditional Christian
teaching, he seems to lean in the former direction. See, for example, the view of Jesus
Christ espoused in John Cobb, Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1975), which I would say requires certain specific outcomes to be effected in open-
ended teleological processes. This is a complex case, however, and cannot be argued
here. Process philosophy does, however, allow that nature is open to persuasion toward
specific, possible outcomes at every point.
the teleological argument for divine action 161
a living organism do not emerge inexplicably from thin air, but from
incipient possibilities already present in its constituent elements.26 On
one view, the doctrine of internal relations is superfluous, a meta-
physical enthusiasm; while on the other it is necessary to make sense
of self-organization, and is even an unacknowledged implication of the
emergence-due-to-complexity-of-arrangement view.27
26
Here again, process philosophers make an interesting contribution. See, for
example, the affirmation of the doctrine of internal relations in Charles Birch and John
B. Cobb, Jr., The Liberation of Life: From the Cell to the Community (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University, 1981), and Birch, A Purpose for Everything: Religion
in a Postmodern Worldview (Kensington: New South Wales University Press; Mystic:
Twenty-Third Publications, 1990).
27
This contrast is most evident when Davies view is compared to that of Birch
and Cobb.
162 wesley j. wildman
Type I N N/A N N N N
Type II Y N N Y N N
Type III Y Y N Y Y N
Type IV Y Y Y Y Y Y
to at least some of these appearances. But this raises the question: How
can we tell whether ends are merely apparent or real? More generally:
Do teleological categories have some advantages in spite of the objec-
tions to them in contemporary science.28
28
It is because of this bias that Richard Feynmans demonstration that classical
mechanics can be based entirely on least action principles (which are teleological in a
certain sense) is so striking.
164 wesley j. wildman
and useful for grinding down the foodsince they did not arise for this
end, but it was merely a coincident result; and so with all other parts in
which we suppose that there is a purpose? Wherever then all the parts
came about just what they would have been if they had come to be for
an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting
way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to per-
ish, as Empedocles says his man-faced ox progeny did. (Physics II.8,
198b.1732)
This is a remarkable passage, partly because it mentions ideas such as
fitness for survival and spontaneous organization, which eerily anticipate
contemporary discussions, and partly because of its sensitivity to the
logical possibility that the appearance of natural ends may not be due
to the existence of ends in nature. But Aristotles multi-pronged attack
on this beautiful statement of the evolutionary objection is ineffective
(Physics II.8, 198b.34199b.32), so I will not take space to criticize his
replies.
What is the logical force of this ancient objection after more than
a century of development of the theory of biological evolution? It is
clear that evolutionary theory imparts tremendous momentum to the
evolutionary objection: whereas Democritus was simply speculating,
Darwin and others adduced powerful evidence that those speculations
were right on target. But I do not think the evolutionary objection is
any more logically forceful because of evolutionary biology. To see
this, consider the two-fold logical point of the evolutionary objection,
in either its ancient or modern form.
The most forceful argument flowing from the evolutionary objec-
tion is not that evolutionary biology furnishes proof that Aristotles
teleology is mistakenafter all, metaphysical speculation can render
almost any hypothesis secure from threatbut only that it is arbitrary,
a charge fierce enough to worry a metaphysician. If the evolutionary
theory of Darwin (or Darwins successors or Democritus; it makes no
difference) is correct, real ends in nature are superfluous: explanations
in terms of ordinary efficient causes can account for all apparently
ended natural objects and processes. In this way, evolutionary biology
supposedly removes all of the good reasons in support of grand teleo-
logical visions, leaving their assertion in any formfrom Aristotle to
Whiteheadmerely an imposition of philosophical taste.
Thus, the evolutionary objection undermines arguments for real ends
in nature without directly attacking the teleological hypothesis itself.
To develop a direct attackagain, in Democritus time or our ownit
the teleological argument for divine action 165
29
For a similar critique, see George Ellis in CTNS/VO, v. III.
166 wesley j. wildman
30
See, for example, the contribution of Robert John Russell to CNTS/VO, v. III.
168 wesley j. wildman
If nothing else, this shows that Aristotle thought a lot harder and
more clearly about causation than is sometimes assumed. This is
essentially his reply, after all. But more needs to be said, and to take
the discussion further, it is necessary to ask about the nature of those
ends on account of which we say kidneys are for the sake of waste
processing. Two levels of answer present themselves, and the distinc-
tion between these two is of the utmost importance for the teleological
argument for divine action.
On the first level, being for the sake of may be a functional way
of speaking about the properties of the thing in question in some
larger context. For example, waste processing is a property that is only
functional in the context of a living body, and being for the sake of
expresses that context silently. To see this, imagine a change of context,
which for me brings up memories of having to eat steak and kidney pie
as a child. In that case, kidneys are for the sake of eating. The examples
can be multiplied. The signification of for the sake of shifts with the
context in which the kidney is considered. Now, if this was all there
was to be said about the ends, then ends in nature could be admitted
without interfering with efficient-causal explanations, and the richer
structure of a teleological metaphysics really would be superfluous.
On the second level, however, one context may have priority over
the others in the sense that it is the natural context for thinking about
the natural end of kidneys. This is, of course, a way to say that the
functional analysis just given may not exhaust what of significance
can be said about the end of kidneys. Indeed, it is the story furnished
at the level of efficient causation about the development and func-
tion of kidneys that determines the natural context for assessing the
natural end of kidneys. In that context, asserting that kidneys are for
the sake of waste processing has a more fundamental status than the
statement kidneys are for the sake of eating has in any context. It is
the fundamental status of the natural end that so impressed Aristotle;
it has always driven, and will continue to drive, teleologically minded
thinkers to try to speak of natural ends as a way of capturing what
is important in nature, even if such ends have no part in functional-
empirical accounts of evolutionary biology.
This is a subtle point, so let me be as clear as I can. We know roughly
how kidneys developed the capacities and functions that they have. We
can tell this story of origins and development in some detail without
recourse to categories of purpose. We can show how this process gives
kidneys the appearance of having been designed, even though no self-
170 wesley j. wildman
due to its influence, any claim that teleological categories are neces-
sary for efficient-causal explanations of apparent ends is desperately
weak. But teleological categories can no more be kept from the task of
accounting for naturalness than can metaphysics in general be kept
from the human imagination. Kant thought of these as understandable
but misleading impulses, but I see no sound reason decisively to ban
either, Kant to the contrary notwithstanding. Teleology may only appear
as teleonomy, at the level of the laws of nature, but appear it ought.
So, while admitting that this is a complex judgment involving bal-
ancing competing considerations, I conclude that there is a place for
teleological categories in accounting for apparent ends in nature. But
exactly what place is this? This question brings us to the first meta-
physical crossroads of the teleological argument for divine action, with
two more to come later. The way teleological categories are actually
wielded varies. Some philosophers, theologians and scientists would
be inclined to find real ends underlying apparent ends by virtue of
the laws of nature (for example, Davies). Some would make use of a
philosophical strategy hinging on supervenience, whereby multiple
independent descriptions of the same process can each be true on its
own level (for example Murphy).31 Some (such as myself ) are inclined
to resort to teleology to engage the topics of value and importance in
nature. And, as I have mentioned, there are even a few (including some
extremists in the process philosophy camp) who contend that teleo-
logical categories are needed even to produce adequate efficient-causal
accounts of apparent ends in nature. I have argued only that teleological
categories cannot be entirely ruled out of comprehensive explanations
for apparent ends in nature, and I have suggested that I find the causal-
gap prediction of the last option breathtaking but implausible. To that
I will add only that the other options seem compatible, and that every
option, even the supervenience strategy, requires contextualization in
a wider metaphysical theory to achieve intelligibility.32
31
See Nancey Murphys essay in CTNS/VO, v. III for a definition and discussion
of supervenience (primarily with regard to ethics). See also William Stoegers use of
this concept in CTNS/VO, v. III.
32
Nancey Murphy denies this; see her essay CTNS/VO, v. III. Murphy adopts the
supervenience strategy in order to argue for the feasibility of higher-order language
about ethics and theology, yet feels no need to explain how those higher order languages
relate in detail to other levels of discourse about the world, for which metaphysics is
indispensable. This freedom from the worries of metaphysics is held to be a desir-
able state of affairs to which we are propelled by Wittgensteins later philosophy. By
172 wesley j. wildman
The second stage of the teleological argument for divine action attempts
to situate the affirmation of the reality of natural ends in a broader
metaphysical theory that is capable of presenting real natural ends as
instances of a more general fundamental teleological principle. This
metaphysical context is the bridge between real ends in nature and a
theory of divine action, and must be compatible with both. It is clear
that real ends in nature can be metaphysically contextualized in a
variety of ways. The question for evaluation here is whether the second
stage of the teleological argument for divine action can successfully
move from real ends in nature to only those metaphysical theories that
are amenable to divine action (in some sense), avoiding all otherwise
adequate metaphysical theories that are antagonistic to divine action.
The answer to this question is negative, I shall argue, notwithstanding
the fact that the science-religion literature at the present time exhibits
views with a strong correlation between being friendly to teleology and
being friendly to divine action. This, therefore, is the second crossroads
at which a wealth of metaphysical choices obstructs the clear lines of
inference needed by the teleological argument for divine action.
33
An attempt to develop such a tradition of inquiry out of fragmentary, extant efforts
has been funded for 19956 and subsequent years by the National Endowment for the
Humanities in conjunction with some private foundations. The Principle Investiga-
tor for the three year project is Robert C. Neville, and the Co-Investigators are Peter
Berger and John Berthrong.
the teleological argument for divine action 179
interferes with the easy inferences that would make the teleological
argument for divine action simpler than it is.
34
Owen Thomas distinguishes six ways to parse the question How does God act?
in Gods Activity in the World: The Contemporary Problem (Chico: Scholars Press,
1983): By what means? In what way or manner? To what effect? With what meaning
or purpose? To what extent? On analogy with what? (234236). While these six ques-
tions considerably enlarge the ordinary sense of the original query, they also helpfully
draw attention to the fact that divine action probably cannot be discussed thoroughly
without suggesting answers to all or most parts of this six-fold battery of questions.
The following discussion focuses chiefly only on the first two questions, and so stops
short of complete thoroughness.
the teleological argument for divine action 183
35
See Robert Cummings Neville, Creativity and God: A Challenge to Process Theol-
ogy (New York: Seabury, 1980).
the teleological argument for divine action 185
34
This use of creatio continua is problematic on some views of causality. It is, of
course, quite natural in the context of process metaphysics. On some other views,
however, the teleological capacities of natural laws as currently understood are by
themselves sufficient for fostering trajectories toward complexity, which implies that
divine action would not be needed for the maintenance of processes of complexifica-
tion, except in the most basic sense that God, on this view, is the ultimate ground of
all natural processes (this is mode 2). This narrows the meaning of creatio continua as
it applies in these cases, accordingly. It also illustrates the intimate connection between
the meaning of creatio continua and metaphysical theories about causality and the
fundamental constituents of nature.
35
For example, it has been proposed by Troy Catterson in conversation with me
that superspace versions of quantum cosmology, in conjunction with an interpreta-
tion of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that applies to the relation of space and
time, allow for the possibility of understanding natural-law-conforming action of a
non-temporal deity in temporal nature.
186 wesley j. wildman
6. Conclusions
36
The scope of this essay prevents me from arguing to the more adventurous con-
clusion that the gap between what is possible by way of divine action and what can
be justified is large, no matter what the context of discussion. That is, this fundamental
kind of metaphysical ambiguity can be found not only in relation to evolutionary biol-
ogy, but also in relation to everything from cosmology to religious experience, from
history to mysticism, from sociology to hermeneutics. This is perhaps equivalent to a
thesis as to the limitations of human rationality.
188 wesley j. wildman
39
Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable, p. 326.
the teleological argument for divine action 189
Philip Clayton1
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Many of the essays in this
collectionessays by theologians as well as by professional scientists
describe the difficulties of our shared project. In fact, this book is replete
with warnings about how hard it is to determine the viable options for
interpreting the quantum mechanical results, then to interpret quantum
theory, and finally to specify which theories of action (human or divine)
are or are not consistent with the physics of the very small. Perhaps
more wisely than I, the majority of the authors have remained at the
descriptive level with regard not only to the physics but also to the
theology (if any) about which they write.
I am about to dive into the morass of constructive metaphysics, and
perhaps even constructive theology, in a rather less cautious manner.
Preparing to do so causes one to worry about what flaws of mind (or
character?) might be responsible for this lack of reticence. Do I not real-
izeas James Cushing has shown in many fine publicationsthat the
empirical data underdetermine the interpretive position that one takes?
Even if this underdetermination should be contingent on the current
state of science rather than expressing some necessary limitation, am I
not aware that experts are deeply divided on interpretive (ontological)
1
Acknowledgment. I am grateful to the entire workshop group for criticisms that
have improved the argument of this essay. Once again, the CTNS/Vatican Observa-
tory project has demonstrated the virtue of detailed and sustained critical interaction.
Indeed, importing the ethos of scientific critique into theology may be the greatest
long-term contribution of this fifteen-year project. I thank in particular John Polk-
inghorne, Owen Thomas, and Kirk Wegter-McNelly for their criticisms during the
final writing phase.
192 philip clayton
2
Philip Clayton, Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and
Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989); idem, God and Contemporary
Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); idem,
The Problem of God in Modern Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
from quantum physics to theology 193
3
See e.g., James Cushing, Philosophical Concepts in Physics: The Historical Relation
between Philosophy and Scientific Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998); John Polkinghorne, The Quantum World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1985).
194 philip clayton
4
This is a more philosophical formulation of what theologians call Rahners Rule.
See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, Geoffrey Bromiley, trans. (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991).
from quantum physics to theology 195
thinks the possible outcome is. Clearly ones decision on these questions
depends on subjective factors that go far beyond the context of this
(or any) academic essay. The most I can show here is that the wager is
not irrational. There is no point in wagering on an impossible option,
making bets one can only lose. But it is not irrational to wager on a
possible outcome.
What, precisely, is the wager? Formulated negatively, the wager is
that none of the three if s in the sentence two paragraphs above is
true. It is a wager because no empirical result can determine the answer,
at least at present. Nonetheless, it is the positive side of the wager that
sets the agenda for the present essay. Put positively, one can wager
that the structure of the physical world sets parameters onand thus
gives us some knowledge ofthe manner in which God could act. The
physical world would thus provide us some epistemic access to divine
action (if God acts); it would be conducive to knowledge of the source
of these actions and of the nature of that hypothetical source. Indeed,
if there is a God who creates, the bets not a bad one, for wouldnt one
expect the nature of the Creator to be represented in some way in the
structures of what has been created?5 As Owen Thomas has pointed
out in conversation, my approach also amounts to the wager that there
is some analogy between human and divine action, for our actions
are certainly constrained by the physical world. Hypothesizing some
similarity between the human and divine agent gives us some basis
for understanding divine action (if it exists), whereas hypothesizing
5
James Cushing refers to the problem of evil at this point. My approach, rather
than dodging this difficult set of issues, puts them right at the center. The history of
evolution in general, and human history in particular, includes incredible waste and
suffering, and the wager suggests that the biological and psychological structures that
cause this suffering are somehow indicative of the nature of the underlying divine cause
(if any). One pursuing this method must therefore introduce the categories of evil and
good, ask whether God can consistently be called good, and examine the reasons that
a divine being might have had for allowing biological and psychological structures of
this sort. Such debates belong to the field of theodicy; see e.g., John Hick, Evil and the
God of Love (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); John Feinberg, The Many Faces of Evil:
Theological Systems and the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994);
Thomas F. Tracy, ed., The God Who Acts: Philosophical and Theological Explorations
(University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994); David Ray Grif-
fin, Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1991);
Jane Mary Trau, The Co-existence of God and Evil (New York: P. Lang, 1991); Richard
Worsley, Human Freedom and the Logic of Evil: Prolegomenon to a Christian Theol-
ogy of Evil (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martins Press,
1996). Needless to say, I cannot resolve the debate in this essay, though the successful
outcome of my argument requires that I eventually address it.
196 philip clayton
that divine action is utterly sui generis would rule out any general
knowledge of it.6
But why treat quantum physics separately? If we had a unified
science in which the interrelationships between the various special
sciences were fully understood, as in the third-order form of theology
proposed above, we could use the shared structures common to all
scientific fields as the starting point for asking about the nature and
action of the divine. The task would be difficult, of course, even with
an agreed upon empirical and theoretical basis on which to draw. At
present, however, we are far from unified science; and major areas of
physics, such as quantum physics and gravitational theory, remain
theoretically distinct. There is no other option, then, but to consider
the various scientific fields seriatim, asking what divine action would
mean in that context, how it might occur (if it occurs) and, given the
laws and structures in question, what the nature of the divine source
might be. Whether or not the conclusions that one reaches within the
various fieldsfor example physics, evolutionary biology or genetics,
the neurosciences, and the social sciencesfit together into a single
picture is a separate question.7
I recognize that these proposals are controversial; there are oppo-
nents on all sides (Cannon to the left of them, cannon to the right of
them/Volleyed and thundered . . .) and the debates are often heated. If
one uses not only the present book but also other recent publications
as data, one finds at least five alternative positions:8
a. No reasons can be given, other than purely subjective ones, for any
theological position (Cushing);
b. Serious theological positions can be defended in light of science
in some cases, but quantum physics is too unclear, and subject to
too much difficulty, to give rise to helpful theological conjectures
(Polkinghorne);
c. Some constructive theology can be written on the topic of divine
action and quantum physics, even if our conjectures remain highly
6
This is the opposition of faith and reason first formulated by Tertullian and asso-
ciated in the twentieth century with the No! of Karl Barth in his debate with Emil
Brunner.
7
In The Emergence of Spirit (forthcoming) I argue for the affirmative, but obviously
that case cannot be made here.
8
Predictably, each of these schools view those to their left as unnecessarily empiri-
cist and positivist and those to their right as insufficiently aware of the power and
rigor of scientific thought.
from quantum physics to theology 197
speculative (the present essay, but also, inter alia, those by Chiao,
Russell, Stoeger and Tracy);
d. Rather strong theological conclusions can be reached on the basis
of modern physics, presumably including quantum physics. Thus,
for example, the physicist Cyril Domb finds clear evidence of the
Creator in the world, and the intelligent design theorists (William
Dembski, Michael Behe, et al.) argue that evolution requires a prior
intention and in-built design on Gods part.
e. The convergence between scientific conclusions and the teachings
of the religious traditions is so great that they should no longer
be viewed as separate realms that need to be connected but rather
as one integrated whole. The Mystics and Scientists conferences
have produced a variety of calls for their unification;9 Fritjof Capra
has long been famous for touting the role of intuition and holism
in quantum physics; and much popular and New Age thinking
presupposes that the science-religion separation is now defunct.
For many of these individuals quantum physics actually serves as
the central argument for their position.
9
See David Lorimer, ed., The Spirit of Science: From Experiment to Experience (New
York: Continuum, 1999).
198 philip clayton
theory of subjectivity. What are the intuitions that underlie their effort?
At the deepest level, as Jeremy Butterfield has argued in the context of
the CTNS/Vatican conference, physics has an inherent resistance to
invoking subjectivity. Subjectivity is certainly not part of that family of
physical properties (such as mass, charge, location, time, and entropy)
that makes up standard physical explanations.
It does seem true that one does not immediately need to invoke a
full metaphysics in order to interpret the transition from quantum
propensities to actual measurements. Some level of analysis lies between
the straight physical report and the robust metaphysics of subjectivity
or holism that some interpreters favor. In this middle level of analysis
one can formulate a more minimalist account of the transition. What
occasions the move from quantum coherence to decoherence? Is it a
sheer result of size, of the number of particles in a system, or does the
act of measurement, or even the intent to measure, play a crucial role
in this occurrence? The minimalist wants to know only what is entailed
by the physicsor, to put it differently, whether anything is presup-
posed in doing physics and formulating physical theories that (pres-
ently, or perhaps necessarily) lies outside the scope of physics. Some
minimalists thus argue that an observer is presupposed by quantum
theory, and that there is no place for the observer within that theory
as currently formulated.
It is important to ask how strong a role is played in this debate by
another assumption that has been a part of the history of physics in the
modern era. We might call it the ladder of disciplines or ladder of
the sciences assumption. That is, the success of science is based on the
explanatory reduction of one discipline to another. If chemistry were a
unique domain of its own, not connected via physical chemistry to the
fundamental laws of physics, then (it is argued) we would have a situa-
tion very similar to the age of alchemy: chemistry would be a completely
separate discipline, governed by its own rules, laws, and principles. But
(they argue) such isolation of explanatory fields would cast questions
on the unity of science and thus on the prospect of the completion of
science, or even of genuine scientific advancement. Likewise, if some
unique principle of life characterized all the biological sciences, such
as the striving for perfection or self-development (entelechy), then
biochemistry would not be sufficient to explain the functioning of liv-
ing beings, and again the ladder of the sciences would fail. Isnt some
such concern, at any rate, at the root of the resistance to allowing the
200 philip clayton
10
I have developed these ideas in more detail in the above-cited works; I list them
here only to illustrate some of the effects of alternative metaphysical or theological
frameworks.
from quantum physics to theology 201
11
See Nicholas Saunders, Divine Acnun and Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), which explores some of the difficulties associated with this view.
12
See David Bohm and Basil J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological
Interpretation of Quantum Theory (New York: Routledge, 1993), 296ff.
202 philip clayton
of these actual universes and not the others. In either case, no actual
reduction of the wavepacket occurs. Its not that the physical world
changes from indeterminate to determinate; its rather that a branch-
ing of universes occurs and the observer subsequently finds herself in
only one of them.
Everett was explicit that his interpretation was designed to avoid the
consequence that some mysterious subject should cause an ontological
change in the physical world, namely the collapse of the wavepacket.
He was thus reacting against the Copenhagen interpretation of quan-
tum mechanics, which held this sort of view. Consider, for example,
the position of Werner Heisenberg, who explained the Copenhagen
interpretation by taking a fundamentally Aristotelian view of quantum
mechanics. Heisenberg believed that quantum indeterminacy was like
the world of Aristotles metaphysics, in which (actual existing) potentials
strive to become actual. In this theory the subject acts as a sort of final
cause, pulling a certain (real) potential into actual existence. Note that
this view reverses the stance of classical (Newtonian) physics, which
requires that the subject ultimately be explained in terms of physical
laws. For the Copenhagen theorists, by contrast, when a definite mea-
surement is made at the subatomic level, the resulting macrophysical
state is a combination of a quantum-physical probability distribution
and the scientists decision of what, when, and how to measure. Indeed,
on this view the subjects role is in one sense the primary one: the
world is merely potential until the moment of observation, when the
conscious observer resolves it into an actual state. In its most extreme
form, the form propounded for instance by John Wheeler, the entire
universe may have existed in a state of quantum potentiality until the
first observer emerged, at which point it was retroactively resolved into
macrophysical structures such as stars, planets, and the like. Wheeler
even applied this view backwards to the creation of the universe:
Is the very mechanism for the universe to come into being meaningless
or unworkable or both unless the universe is guaranteed to produce life,
consciousness and observership somewhere and for some little time in its
history-to-be? The quantum principle shows that there is a sense in which
what the observer will do in the future defines what happens in the past
even in a past so remote that life did not then exist, and shows even more
that observership is a prerequisite for any useful version of reality.13
13
John Wheeler, quoted in Paul C.W. Davies, Other Worlds: A Portrait of Nature
in Rebellion, Space, Superspace, and the Quantum Universe (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1980), 126.
from quantum physics to theology 203
14
Ibid., 136.
15
Put more strongly, it sometimes seems that the major motivation for many-worlds
theorists is that Copenhagen or subjectivity-based views would stand in the way of a
strong, unambiguous reduction of all sciences, including the sciences of human sub-
jectivity, to physical objects, forces, and laws.
204 philip clayton
kingdom of means and ends.16 This was also the view taken by Eugene
Wigner and his followers. Wigner used the quantum revolution to argue
that the minds of sentient beings occupy a central role in the laws of
nature and in the organization of the universe, for it is precisely when
the information about an observation enters the consciousness of an
observer that the superposition of waves actually collapses into reality.17
Interestingly, one of Roger Penroses arguments against many-worlds
theories also appeals to subject-based considerations. He calls them
zombie theories of the world because the continual branching of the
world and the threading of my own consciousness through it would
seem to result in my becoming separated from the tracks of conscious-
ness of all my friends.18 Penrose insists that one needs an adequate
theory of consciousness before one can make sense of the many-worlds
view as an interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Now there are also serious objections to the subjective interpretation,
objections that emphasize its counterintuitive features. Every text on
the philosophy of quantum physics includes diagrams of the counter-
examples of Schrdingers Cat and Wigners Friend. Another form of
the objection imagines that a meter is set up to permanently register
whether the radioactive particle has decayed at the end of a minute
(assuming an experimental set-up in which there is a 50% probability
of this occurring). Two photographs are then automatically taken of
the meter reading, first photo A and then photo B. The photographs
are developed but no one looks at them. Imagine that ten years are
allowed to pass during which no subject observes either the meter or
the photos. At the end of that time a subject looks at photo B, and
suppose that she observes the meter to register a radioactive decay.
On Wigners viewaccording to the criticat that moment, but not
before, the superposition of states will be collapsed, the particle will
(retroactively) have decayed, the meter will (retroactively) register its
decay, and photo A (which no one has yet looked at) will suddenly
show a picture of the meter in its on position. Before that moment
16
Carl Friedrich von Weizscker, Zum Weltbild der Physik, 4th ed., revised (Stutt-
gart: S. Hirzel, 1949).
17
Eugene Wigner quoted in Davies, Other Worlds, 132f.
18
Roger Penrose, Singularities and Time-Asymmetry, in General RelativityAn
Einstein Centenary Survey, S.W. Hawking and W. Israel, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979).
from quantum physics to theology 205
19
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
(New York: Harper and Row, 1958); Carl Friedrich von Weizscker, Zum Weltbild der
Physik (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 1949).
206 philip clayton
20
James Cushing, Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copenhagen
Hegemony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
21
See, e.g., the numerous publications by Donald Davidson; cf. also Richard Double,
The Non-Reality of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Neuroscientists
from quantum physics to theology 207
There is no danger that we will resolve this debate here, though some
progress has been made in recent years.22 In this context we can ask
only about the effects of the debate on the interpretation of quantum
mechanics and theology, and vice versa. If one accepts compatibil-
ism, then the whole issue of physical determinacy or indeterminacy is
clearly irrelevant to the question of freedom and deserves no further
mention here. By contrast, what happens if one shares the incompati-
bilist intuition and holds that humans are, at least on some occasions,
genuinely free (as I do)? One answer is to side with a strongly dualist
view of the physical and mental realms. For the dualist (of the Car-
tesian as well as the Kantian variety), it doesnt matter if the physical
order is deterministic, since the action of the mental agent23 is by itself
sufficient to guarantee that the action is free, whatever the state of the
physical world.
But many of us do not find such dualistic views credible as a theory
of human nature and action. For nondualists who are incompatibil-
ists, there must be some place or places in the physical order where an
outcome in the natural world is not determined by the set of anteced-
ent conditions and states. Call it the Nondeterminism Postulate. As
Robert Russell has written, an ontological indeterminacy of this type
seems necessary if human beings are to enact their own choices in the
world.
We might look, for example, to see whether brain functioning allows
for an openness of outcome that is sufficient for counterfactual freedom.
Could the same complex brain state result in more than one subsequent
outcome (assuming that we had the knowledge to establish that it was
the same brain state that was correlated with two different outcomes
in two different cases)? Those of us who accept the Nondeterminism
have also weighed in on this side, e.g., Richard M. Restak, The Modular Brain: How
New Discoveries in Neuroscience are Answering Age-old Questions about Memory,
Free Will, Consciousness, and Personal Identity (New York: Scribners, 1994). But the
incompatibilist side has, if anything, become stronger in recent years. Among many
examples see especially Peter Van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1983); Timothy OConnor, ed., Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays
on Indeterminism and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); John Martin
Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994);
Derk Pereboom, ed., Free Will (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub. Co., 1997); Robert
Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
22
Van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will represents a particularly strong example.
23
By agent I mean here Descartess res cogitans, or a member of the kingdom of
means and ends, as in Kants Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.
208 philip clayton
Postulate argue that there must be this sort of openness at least some-
where in the hierarchy of natural phenomena. And, given what we
know of the microphysical world, its at least plausible that the required
openness of outcome has its first (and perhaps only) source at the
quantum level. As long as the openness could be amplified up through
the causal chain so that it remained relevant to the description of some
of your actionse.g., to the complex physical state underlying your
choice to commit a crime or notthen you could be said to be free and
thus responsible for your actions. Only in this sense could quantum
indeterminacy (if it exists) be said to be the necessary condition for
human free will. Incidentally, note that nothing in this account makes
indeterminacy sufficient to establish robust free will in humans; it is
only a prerequisite, a first step in showing how genuine freedom might
arise at the level of complex organisms like ourselves.
In this third example there is again room for one to engage in
some serious metaphysical reflection, though not all will wish to do
so. Imagine that you accept incompatibilism as defined above, as well
as some version of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum phys-
ics: you hold that the quantum world is genuinely indeterministic.
Suppose also that you do not think that indeterminacy arises at any
other or higher physical level than quantum mechanics. The minimal
formulation of your view is that quantum indeterminacy is a necessary
condition for human freedom. But you might also postulate and look
for other kinds of openness as well. You might hold, for instance, that
the hierarchical structure of the physical world, rather than eliminat-
ing the indeterminacy, actually augments or amplifies it. You might
look for expressions of indeterminacy at multiple levels of the physical
hierarchy, from the macrophysical level of measuring devices through
genetic variation to indeterminacy in neuronal firing within the brain
and the resulting behavioral plasticity. In your more philosophical
moments you might argue that the existence of mentality in general,
and free will in particular, are among the results of this openness of
the world at whatever levels it occurs.24
Your view would then commit you to giving some account of how
quantum indeterminacy could find macrophysical expression. Could
you suggest a physical mechanism for making this indeterminacy
24
Having said this, I must add that I am not currently aware of any concrete results
that suggest such openness at any other level than the quantum level.
from quantum physics to theology 209
4. Taking Stock
25
Henry P. Stapp, Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics (Berlin: Springer,
1993).
26
See e.g., Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, Theo C. Meyering, and Michael
A. Arbib, eds., Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action
(Vatican City State/Berkeley, Calif.: Vatican Observatory/Center for Theology and the
Natural Sciences, 2000), hereafter NAP.
210 philip clayton
27
Recent introductory texts to the philosophy of physics include James Cushing,
Philosophical Concepts in Physics: The Historical Relation between Philosophy and Scien-
tific Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Peter Kosso, Appearance
and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998); Roger G. Newton, Thinking about Physics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000). Significant works (among many others) in the field include Jarrett Leplin,
ed., The Creation of Ideas in Physics: Studies for a Methodology of Theory Construc-
tion (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995); Bernard dEspagnat, Veiled Reality: An Analysis of
Present-Day Quantum Mechanical Concepts (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995);
Jeremy Butterfield and Constantine Pagonis, eds., From Physics to Philosophy (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Elena Castellani, ed., Interpreting Bodies:
Classical and Quantum Objects in Modern Physics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1998).
from quantum physics to theology 211
28
Indeed, many have actually published on meta-physical questions raised by quan-
tum physics, and some even have books in which the word metaphysics appears in the
title! So the problem cannot be that all metaphysical statements are strictly speaking
meaningless and to be eschewed, as Professor Ayer famously held; A.J. Ayer, Language,
212 philip clayton
Truth, and Logic, 2nd ed. (New York: Dover, 1946). For positivists in Ayers tradi-
tion, metaphysical questions are unacceptable whenever they introduce any entities
or categories that cannot be directly justified by the mathematical formalism and the
empirical data. On this view, debates about the foundations or interpretation of quantum
mechanics might or might not be acceptable, depending on how they are pursued.
from quantum physics to theology 213
29
See Bernard dEspagnat, In Search of Reality (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1983). More
recently, see his Veiled Reality. See also idem, Realism and the Physicist: Knowledge,
Duration, and the Quantum World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989),
and his article in W. Schommers, ed., Quantum Theory and Pictures of Reality: Founda-
tions, Interpretations, and New Aspects (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1989).
30
Several critics are right to point out that dEspagnats monism is not a strict
entailment of his interpretation of quantum theory. The point of the continuum and
the pluralistic model I am advocating is that broader metaphysical discussions are
underdetermined by formalism + empirical data, and even by the basic interpretive
options, without thereby becoming purely arbitrary, bad metaphysics.
from quantum physics to theology 215
31
dEspagnat, In Search of Reality, 96f.
32
Ibid., 101.
33
Ibid., 167.
216 philip clayton
34
See Kevin J. Sharpe, Mysticism in Physics, in Religion and Nature, K.J. Sharpe and
J.M. Ker, eds. (New Zealand: The University of Auckland Chaplaincy, 1984), 43f.
35
Dennis Postle, Fabric of the Universe (London: Macmillan, 1976), 8f.
from quantum physics to theology 217
36
Bohm and Hiley, The Undivided Universe, 96, 102.
37
See David Bohm, Fragmentation and Wholeness (Jerusalem: The Van Leer Jeru-
salem Foundation, 1976), 1f.
38
Ibid., 8.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid., 10.
41
Henry P. Stapp, Theory of Reality, Foundations of Physics 7 (1977): 31323.
218 philip clayton
42
Ken Wilber, The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion
(New York: Random House, 1998), 38.
43
Ibid., 57.
44
Fred Alan Wolf, Star Wave: Mind, Consciousness, and Quantum Physics (New
York: Macmillan, 1994), 179.
from quantum physics to theology 219
45
Classically, Christian theology claimed that there were mental objects or souls
that constituted the essence of (at least) each person. Recent dialogue with the neu-
rosciences has led many theologians to think instead of mental properties rather than
essentially mental things. See, e.g., the essays in NAP.
46
I cannot do justice to the complicated criticisms in five sentences. In addition
to other works cited here, see Philip Clayton, The Case for Christian Panentheism,
Dialog 37 (1998): 2018; idem, Panentheist Internalism: Living within the Presence
of the Trinitarian God, Dialog 40 (2001), in press.
47
Even Christian theologians are now arguing that the notion of a (dualistically
understood) soul does not make sense. See, e.g., Warren S. Brown, Nancey C. Mur-
phy, and Newton Malony, Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological
Portraits of Human Nature (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1998).
from quantum physics to theology 221
5.3.2. Panentheism
As I have argued elsewhere,48 a panentheistic form of theism avoids
some of these difficulties. Panentheism is usually defined as the view
that the world is within God, although God is also more than the
world. If God includes the world with Godselfperhaps somewhat
on analogy with the relationship between your mental properties and
your bodythen the question of divine action within the world is made
less intractable than when God and the world are understood as fully
ontologically distinct.
Specifically, we can imagine the regularities of the natural world as
analogous to our bodies autonomic functioning. Of course, a being that
is omni-aware will know all the regular functions that are occurring in
the universe and can be said to be in control of them to an extent far
beyond a humans control over her autonomic bodily functions. This
means that each physical event, no matter how law-like, can be under-
stood as an expression of divine agency. In addition to such regular
functions, panentheism also allows us to speak of focal divine actions,
similar to the way that a human can carry out focal conscious actions
through an act of attention and will. It is a matter of dispute among
theists how many such focal actions God accomplishes in the world.
But if they occur in a top-down manner, acting as a lure or partial
motivation for individual human agents, then no natural laws need to
be broken and hence no contradiction with the results of science needs
to be introduced.
It is particularly fascinating to note the parallels between this sort
of panentheism and some of the interpretations of quantum mechan-
ics given above. One theme that has already been introduced in the
reflections of several quantum physicists is the distinction between
empirical appearances and an underlying reality. DEspagnat distin-
guished between the manifest and the veiled or hidden reality,
Bohm between the implicate and explicate (or implicit and explicit)
48
Clayton, God and Contemporary Science; idem, The Problem of God.
222 philip clayton
order: That is, there is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly,
but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly
definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be
abstracted from the universal flux.49 Some label this the fundamental
metaphysical move: to distinguish between the world of appearances
and something deeper. Think of Platos distinction between the phe-
nomena and the realm of the formsor, for that matter, any of the
other Greek attempts to specify the archor ultimate principle. Note
also that what the world ultimately turns out to be will depend on the
nature of this deeper principle.
Consider some candidates for the nature of this underlying reality.
In the Spinozistic tradition with which dEspagnat aligns himself, the
One is not an active principle; it is neither mind nor matter (though it
manifests itself as both); it is unchanging, eternal, and in itself unitary
and undivided. Contrast this position with the view of Bohm and the
physicists who draw on the process philosophy of Alfred North White-
head,50 for whom the deeper reality is process or movement: What
is is a whole movement, in which each aspect flows into and merges
with all other aspects. Atoms, electrons, protons, tables, chairs, human
beings, planets, galaxies, etc. are then to be regarded as abstractions
from the whole movement and are to be described in terms of order,
structure, and form in movement.51 One must then ask whether or not
this reality-in-motion is conscious. The Hindu traditions, for example,
have often understood it as a universal ground of consciousness. Thus
the Hindu quantum physicist Amit Goswami solves the measurement
problem by imagining all conscious observers to be manifestations of
a universal, omnipresent ground of consciousness.52 For Spinozists, by
contrast, although mentality appears among the infinite attributes of the
One, mind is no more basic to reality than matter. Panentheism can
be seen to split the difference. It does not draw the sharp separation
between this material world and its purely spiritual source that we found
in CPT. On the other hand, it does not equate world and God, physical
49
Bohm, Fragmentation and Wholeness, 10.
50
See the two special issues of Process Studiesvols. 26.34 (1997)edited by the
physicist Tim Eastman and containing articles by (among others) the physicists David
Finkelstein, Lawrence Fagg, and Eastman.
51
Bohm, Fragmentation and Wholeness, 39.
52
Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Mate-
rial World, with Richard E. Reed and Maggie Goswami (New York: Putnams Sons,
1993).
from quantum physics to theology 223
6. Conclusion
In this essay I have attempted to trace some of the lines that connect
quantum physics and theology. Admittedly, we have not found the
sort of tight conceptual connections that sometimes arise within the
philosophy of physics; in this sense there is certainly more freedom
than constraint. At least five tentative conclusions have emerged out
of the discussion:
53
On the supervenience relation see several of the essays in NAP, e.g., Murphy and
Clayton, and the literature cited therein.
54
See Bede Griffiths, The Vision of Non-Duality in World Religions, in The Spirit
of Science, Lorimer, ed.
224 philip clayton
55
Cf. Nancey C. Murphy and George F.R. Ellis. On the Moral Nature of the Universe:
Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996); Arthur Peacocke,
from quantum physics to theology 225
Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural, Divine, and Human (Min-
neapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Harold J. Morowitz, Emergences: Twenty-Eight Steps
from Matter to Spirit, forthcoming.
226 philip clayton
Thomas F. Tracy
1
Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (Haven: Yale University Press, 1974),
and The Identity of Jesus Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).
2
The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillan, 1941), especially Ch. 3.
creation, providence and quantum chance 229
the actions described in the biblical stories, then what if anything does
God do? If, for example, we are not prepared to say that God sent a
series of plagues to Egypt, parted the waters of the Red Sea to let the
Hebrew people pass, guided them with pillars of cloud by day and fire
by night, and fed them heavenly mana in the desert, then in what way
is God the agent of their liberation?3 Having granted that the biblical
narratives should not be read as direct reports of God mighty deeds,
modern theologians confront a host of difficult questions about how
to interpret these stories and about what claims they warrant regarding
divine action in the world.
Second, the rise of the natural sciences has profoundly changed
the intellectual context within which this theological enterprise of
interpretation is carried out. Since the sixteenth century, the various
sciences have progressively disentangled themselves from the explicitly
religious conceptions of the universe to which they initially were tied.
For example, the periodic divine interventions that Newton introduced
to correct the planetary orbits were replaced by the deterministic causal
closure of Laplace; traditional flood geology gave way to the unifor-
mitarianism of Hutton and Lyell; the exquisite divine design of each
creature for its place in nature (that Paley illustrated in his anatomical
studies) was succeeded by Darwins theory of natural selection. At
every point the sciences have proven their ability to provide powerful
explanations of events in the world without appeal to a transcendent
cause. Laplace spoke for the modern sciences generally in his famous
remark, when asked about the role of God in his astronomical theories,
that he had no need for that hypothesis. The sciences, for their own
explanatory purposes, not only get along perfectly well without God,
they systemically exclude appeals to such an agent from their battery
of explanatory strategies.
3
Langdon Gilkey famously pressed this question with great effect against the bibli-
cal theology movement (Cosmology, Ontology, and the Travail of Biblical Language,
The Journal of Religion 41 (1961), pp. 194205). The biblical theologians, e.g. G. Ernest
Wright in The God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital (London: SCM, 1952), argued
that nineteenth century liberal theology made a fatal error in identifying revelation
with certain modifications of human religious consciousness. By contrast, Wright
and others contended that we come to know God in response to Gods self-revealing
mighty acts in salvation history, as narrated in the biblical texts. Gilkey pointed out
that the biblical theologians were unwilling to take these stories at face value and yet
offered no alternative account of what they meant by an act of God. As a result, they
were left in the embarrassing position of proclaiming Gods self-revelation in action
without being able to say what God has done.
230 thomas f. tracy
4
See Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H.R. Macintosh and J.S.
Stewart (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), Para. 46; Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma and
Myth, ed. H.W. Bartsch (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), and Gordon Kaufman,
God the Problem, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972). Also see Langdon
Gilkey, op. cit.
creation, providence and quantum chance 231
5
Anonymous, Bethu Brigte, ed. Donncha O hAodha (Dublin: Dublin Institute for
Advanced Studies, 1978), Sect. 21.
232 thomas f. tracy
of the world and on habits of explanation that have been shaped by the
natural sciences. Accordingly, miracles are very much out of favor, if
by miracles we mean events that a) are brought about by God and
b) depart from the laws of nature. Although nothing in the sciences
entitles us to say that such events cannot occur, we know that there are
important evidential hurdles facing any particular claim that one has
occurred; on this point, critical approaches in historical analysis and
our scientifically shaped understanding of nature reenforce each other.
We have grown instinctively resistant to picturing the world as a place
where God persistently breaks in with astonishing displays of divine
power. So while the modern theologians predicament is not as severely
constrained as our initial dilemma suggested (viz. to a choice between
the scientific enterprise as a whole or the God who acts in history), the
options appear quite limited. We can speak of God as the creator who
sets the terms of cosmic history, which then unfolds according to the
natural laws God has established. But if we want to go on to affirm that
God acts within that history, then it appears that we must take up the
epistemic burdens associated with miracles.
There are, I think, at least two ways to respond to this theological
predicament. The first argues that Gods relation to the world as cre-
ator, properly understood, provides the basis for an account of Gods
particular actions in history that is sufficiently robust for theological
purposes. This is to challenge the claim that constitutes the first horn of
the dilemma we constructed; the strategy here is to show that traditional
claims about Gods special providence in history can be explicated by
reference to Gods activity as the creator of history. The second response
addresses the other horn of the dilemma; it challenges the claim that if
God acts to redirect the course of events in the world, then this must
constitute an intervention that departs from the lawful structures of
nature. If a) the structures of nature include events that are not fully
determined by the past, and b) these events have effects that sometimes
are amplified in the causal sequences that flow from them, then God
could shape the course of history by acting in these open interstices of
creation without disrupting its immanent structures. It is at this point
that quantum mechanical indeterminism may be relevant.
I want to explore some of the strengths and weaknesses of each of
these approaches. Much of the discussion of the relevance of contem-
porary natural science to the theology of divine action has focused on
variants of the second approach. In this paper, I would like to coun-
terbalance this tendency by including extended consideration of the
creation, providence and quantum chance 233
prospects for a position of the first type. There are two reasons for this.
First, it is important not to underestimate the resources available in the
classical theological tradition for giving an account of special divine
action in history that does not appeal to causal openness in the struc-
tures of nature. Note that if a position of this type could be sustained,
there would no longer be as clear and pressing a theological need to
need to develop a position of the second type; the theological stake in
scientific debates about (for example) deterministic interpretations of
quantum mechanics would be considerably reduced. Second, if we do
go on to claim that God acts through indeterministic structures in the
natural world, it is important to root this claim firmly in an account
of the basic creative relation of God to nature.
2. God as Creator
Gods fundamental action is the act of creating the world, i.e., the
totality of non-divine things. As this idea developed in the theological
traditions in the West, it came to include three elements. First, creation
is a free intentional action, rather than a necessity of the divine nature.
Because Gods being is complete quite without the world of created
things, creation is an act of gracious generosity. The effect of affirming
the freedom of Gods creative action is to emphasize the utter contin-
gency of the existence of created things. This stands in contrast, for
example, to Neo-Platonic conceptions of creation as a necessary and
involuntary emanation of the super-abundant plentitude of the divine
being. This classical understanding of creation also contrasts with the
views of most process theologians. Whiteheads metaphysical scheme,
for example, specifies that every individual entity must be a creative
integration of relations to other entities. God is no exception to this
scheme; God makes a uniquely pervasive contribution to the creative
becoming of the world, but God and world are co-eternal.
Second, Gods creative act cannot be understood on the familiar
human model of refashioning materials already at hand. There is no
prime matter, no chaotic primordial stuff, that is presupposed by and
constrains Gods creative work. Rather, God creates ex nihilo; apart
from Gods creation action, nothing but God would exist. Creation
accounts for the very being of the creature, and not just for the way it
is or for its properties over time. It follows that the divine creative act
cannot be regarded as a species of change; in creating, God does not
234 thomas f. tracy
transform or modify the state of things, but rather brings it about that
there are finite things at all.
Third, Gods creative action includes the continuous giving of being
to the created world in its entirety. Creation is not a particular event,
completed at some time in the distant past, which leaves behind (as
it were) a world that gets along perfectly well on its own. This under-
standing of creation was characteristic of eighteenth century Deism.
But the mainstream of the theological tradition has held that created
things do not possess a power of continuing in existence on their own;
rather, the existence of the created world depends absolutely at every
moment upon Gods creative action. This has typically been expressed
by saying that the act of creation includes the activity of sustaining, or
conserving, the existence of each creature.6 If God were to cease this
continuous creative action, finite things would cease to be.
6
The idea of divine conservation of the existence of created things should not be
confused with the scientific idea of conservation of mass and energy. The latter is
concerned with physical interactions between entities, and it specifies that these interac-
tions and the transitions they bring about cannot involve the creation or destruction
of matter/energy. This does not conflict with the theological idea of continuous divine
conservation of the being of finite things; on the contrary, the two ideas compliment
each other, since both assert that interactions between created things involve changes
of state but not the giving of being. For an extended discussion of this point, see J.L.
Kvanvig and H.J. McCann, Divine Conservation and the Persistence of the World,
in Divine and Human Action, ed. Thomas Morris (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1988), pp. 1349.
creation, providence and quantum chance 235
higher, not from any impotence on his part, but from the abundance
of his goodness imparting to creatures also the dignity of causing.7
God could simply cause, say, a kettle of water to become increasingly
warm until it begins to boil. But God instead grants to created things
the dignity of causing, so that the water is heated by the fire. This
contrasts with the view of those who have taken Gods working in
everything that acts to mean that no created power effects anything
in the world, but that God alone does everything without intermedi-
aries.8 The position that Aquinas rejects here has come to be called
occasionalism, because it holds that the created entities (or events)
identified as causes are merely occasions for Gods own direct action.
If we are to avoid occasionalism we must make a distinction between
direct and indirect divine action. In causing the being of creatures ex
nihilo God acts directly, without employing any subordinate agency as
a means, since there are no such agents until God creates them. But
in bringing about particular events in the world, God ordinarily acts
through secondary causes, producing the result through the operation
of created things.9
7
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ed. Thomas Gilby, O.P. (Garden City, NY:
Image Books, 1969), Ia, 22, 3.
8
Ibid., Ia, 105, 5.
9
We can borrow a distinction from the philosophy of action to help explain the
ideas of direct and indirect divine action. Philosophers of action have recognized that
any instrumental intentional actioni.e. an action in which an agent does one thing
as the means of doing anothermust, on pain of infinite regress, have at its base an
action that the agent intentionally undertakes without having to perform any prior
intentional action as the means to it. This basic action is direct, in contrast to its
intended result which is indirect. There has been controversy about which element
in an indirect human action should count as the basic action, and we could, in a
perverse mood, carry over this question into theology and speculate about whether
there is some divine action that is intentionally prior to the act of creation. For my
purposes it is enough to note that Gods act of creating and conserving creatures ex
nihilo obviously cannot have creaturely intermediaries, and so it is basic for all the
indirect divine acts that flow from it.
It is also worth observing in this connection that there are two crucially different
senses in which we may speak of bringing about the existence of something. On
the one hand, there is the act of creating/sustaining ex nihilo, which is unique to God
alone. On the other hand, there is the bringing to be of a particular arrangement of
matter/energy in the world. Finite agents create in this sense; we are able to bring about
changes in things, and thereby cause complex individuals to come into existence or
to pass out of existence, as in birth and death. God can also be said to create in this
second sense, by acting indirectly through secondary causes. Bearing this distinction
in mind, we can say that all complex individuals (like ourselves), which are produced
by the operation of secondary causes, are created by God both directly (in sustaining
our being ex nihilo) and indirectly (by working through the order of nature).
236 thomas f. tracy
10
Also see William P. Alston, Gods Action in the World, in Divine Nature and
Human Language, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 200203.
creation, providence and quantum chance 237
straightforwardly that this wind was sent by God. The wind, and the
deliverance it makes possible, is no less Gods act if it is a result of the
lawful operations of the natural order than if it is the product of a divine
intervention within that order. In either case, it is something that God
intentionally brings about in accordance with Gods overarching pur-
poses for history. On this view, Gods providential action in the world
is principally a function of Gods creative action at the foundation of
the world.11 The strong east wind is written into the course of history
when God establishes the laws of nature and the initial conditions of
the created world, and the billions of years of cosmic history that fol-
low are the means by which God carries out this action, along with an
unimaginably vast range of other actions.
It is important to note that while every event in such a world will be
Gods act, our ability to describe these divine actions will depend upon
our understanding of Gods purposes. Jews, Christians, and Muslims
might agree with the general principle that God as creator acts through-
out the history of the created world, but the traditions disagree about
some important aspects of the overarching plot-line that is being
enacted and therefore about which intention-descriptions should be
given of these actions. The differing stories they tell about Gods acts
have as their corollary diverging understandings of who God is, i.e.
of the identity of the divine agent.
11
I add the qualifier, principally, because it is possible to hold that God ordinarily
acts through secondary causes, but sometimes intervenes directly to bring about effects
outside the expected course of nature or beyond the natural powers of creatures. This
was Aquinass view.
238 thomas f. tracy
12
The Meaning of Revelation, p. 68.
13
Compare William Alston, op. cit., p. 216. What we take to be special about them
is simply that God has acted in such a way as to effect this result, that this is something
that God intended to bring about. How God chose to do this is not the heart of the
matter. This is right, as far as it goes, but it does not yet give us a basis for marking out
particular events as special acts of God, since every event (taken under an appropriate
description) in a deterministic world will be a specific result that God intends.
14
It is useful to map this idea onto the typology of divine action developed at
earlier conferences and presented in Russells introduction to Chaos and Complexity:
Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy,
and Arthur R. Peacocke (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1995), pp. 1012.
Both of the senses of special divine action that I have discussed are forms of uniform
divine action, within the terms of the typology. What I have called epistemically
special action corresponds to what the typology calls subjectively special action. The
second form of special divine action that I describe, however, cannot be located in the
typology as it is currently formulated. I have suggested that an event may both be an
expression of Gods uniform action throughout creation and be objectively special by
virtue of the role this event plays in realizing Gods purposes in the world. What marks
out the event is not that God plays a special causal role in producing it, but rather that
the event plays a special causal role in the unfolding course of events. The escape of
the Jews from Egypt may arise entirely through the ordinary interactions of natural
causes and human agents, and yet it may also turn human history in a new direction
and so be an objectively special, but indirect, divine act.
creation, providence and quantum chance 239
2.4.1. Chance
If the structures of nature in fact include a role for indeterministic
chance, then one option for the theologian is to think of God as
determining these events. In this case, chance events would be caus-
ally undetermined only in their horizontal relations to other finite
events, but they would be fully determined by their vertical relation-
ship to God. Note that a) in determining these finitely undetermined
events, God would be acting directly in the worlds history, rather than
15
Given the chaotic dynamics of some deterministic systems, however, no finite
intelligence could specify the initial conditions with sufficient precision to make these
calculations. Determinism asserts that the laws of nature and the initial conditions
jointly entail every future state of the system, but determinism does not entail predict-
ability for any knower other than God.
240 thomas f. tracy
indirectly through secondary causes, but that b) this direct action need
not disrupt the causal structures of nature, since chance events, ex
hypothesi, do not have sufficient secondary causes. This is the second
way of responding to the original dilemma we considered, and I will
consider this possibility at greater length in section 3 below.
An alternative would be to say that God leaves some or all chance
events undetermined, so that God really does play dice with the uni-
verse. To be sure, an extensive web of secondary causal conditions will
be necessary for the occurrence of the chance event. But this causal
nexus is not sufficient to produce the event, and if God does not
determine it, then nothing does. This situation generates a conceptual
puzzle. Is it coherent to say that God brings about a state of affairs in
which an entity or system undergoes a change that has no sufficient
cause, whether in creatures or in God? It is helpful here to recall the
distinction between Gods act of causing existence ex nihilo and the
act of causing creatures to undergo various changes; the divine action
of giving being to the entity does not cause the change of state that is
the chance event; creation/conservation is not, we have said, a matter
of working a change in the creature but rather of positing the creature
in existence. But in the special case of chance events, the creature that
God creates/conserves undergoes a change that not even God deter-
mines. Perhaps Gods creative act in such instances amounts to willing
that one from among a set of possible states for the system shall be the
one to which God gives being, without specifying which and without,
of course, providing any means by which a selection is made.16 This is
a puzzling idea, but this or something like it appears to be required if
we say that a) God is the creator of the world ex nihilo, b) the world
includes indeterministic chance, and c) God does not determine chance
events.
If it is a coherent possibility that God might build this kind of ran-
domness into the structure of the world, how would this affect our
account of divine action? The answer will depend on the role that chance
16
Peter van Inwagen discusses this possibility with regard to Gods creative choice
between equally good alternative initial states of the world. God might, van Inwagen
suggests, will that one from among a set of alternatives be actualized, without deter-
mining which it shall be. It does not seem to me to be logically or metaphysically
impossible that God should decree that either X or Y should be without decreeing
that X should be and without decreeing that Y should be. The Place of Chance in a
World Sustained by God, in Thomas Morris, ed. Divine and Human Action, (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 227.
creation, providence and quantum chance 241
plays within the worlds unfolding history. If chance events at one level
in the structures of nature are entirely subsumed within higher order
deterministic regularities, then the account of Gods indirect action
through these structures will be unaffected. On the other hand, if inde-
terministic chance plays a significant role in shaping the direction of
the worlds unfolding history,17 then the attribution of events to God as
divine acts must be correspondingly qualified. In establishing the laws
of nature, God determines how chance figures in the course of events,
and sets the range of outcomes that are possible. But if God chooses
not to determine these chance events, then at least some features of
the worlds future will be open, bounded but left unspecified in Gods
creative intention. The structures of nature will include within them a
means for trying out novel possibilities not rigidly prescribed by the
past; God would, in effect, make a world that must in some respects fill
in the details of its own creation. If, for example, some of the genetic
changes amplified by natural selection result from processes that involve
not just epistemic chance but also indeterministic chance, then which
living creatures appear over the course of cosmic history will not be
written into the design of the world.18 The natural order God estab-
lishes may assure the emergence of diverse forms of life with a wide
range of capacities, including eventually the ability to gain theoretical
knowledge of the world and to wonder about its creator.19 But on this
view, God may not have provided specifically that personhood should
be realized in a bipedal mammal; the particular species identity of the
rational agents that arise within the evolutionary process could be one
of the accidents of biological history. Gods agency would, of course, be
at work throughout this history as the creator who sustains all of the
secondary causes at work in it. And because God sets the boundaries
17
This is the question of amplification, which I take up in section 3.3 below.
18
See section 3.3 below.
19
Paul Davies, for example, suggests that God selects very special laws that guar-
antee a trend towards greater richness, diversity, and complexity through spontaneous
self-organization, but the final outcome in all its details is open and left to chance.
See Davies, Teleology Without Teleology, in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology:
Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger,
S.J., and Francisco J. Ayala (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1988). It is, of
course, a matter of controversy as to whether the laws of nature and the conditions
under which they operate make the emergence of intelligence to some degree probable
in our universe. See, for example, Paul Davies, The Accidental Universe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), and John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic
Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
242 thomas f. tracy
within which chance operates, thereby designing the dice that are set
rolling in cosmic history, the general result can certainly be attributed
to Gods action. But if, returning to our earlier example, the strong east
wind at the Sea of Reeds happened to be the meteorological amplifica-
tion of a chance event somewhere else in the structures of nature, then
it seems more appropriate to view the wind as a stroke of good luck,
rather than as a particular divine action in history.20
20
The story here could be made more complex, however. If omniscience includes
knowledge of how every random transition would in fact turn out if God were to permit
it, then God could choose which total set of chance and determined events to permit
(i.e. which world to create) with particular effects in mind. In this case, it seems to me,
the east wind would be Gods act by a different route but in just a strong a sense as if
it were the deterministic outcome of a closed series of secondary causes.
21
For some arguments that human freedom is incompatible with certain types of
determinism see Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1983). For some representative compatibilist arguments see Daniel C. Dennett,
Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free-Will Worth Wanting (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1984).
creation, providence and quantum chance 243
this sort would have, if the world were to include it, on the attribution
of events in the world to God as divine acts.
Just as we saw in considering chance events, there are two ways of
relating the divine agency to this second type of indeterministic transi-
tion. First, God might directly bring it about that the agent acts as she
does. There are at least two ways to argue that this divine causal role in
human action is compatible with the claim that the action is free. First,
one might insist that because God acts directly as creator to constitute
the finite agent and her act, God cannot be regarded as a determin-
ing cause that compromises the agents freedom. Second, one might
qualify the conditions for freedom of action so that indeterminism is
required only on the horizontal level of relations within the world; cre-
ated agents would possess indeterministic freedom in relation to other
creatures, but not in relation to God. This second view combines a
creaturely incompatibilism with divine determination, and so generates
a distinctive theological compatibilism. This seems to have been John
Calvins position, and it has also been attributed to Aquinas, though
some interpreters read him as taking a position of the first type, and
the construal of Aquinass view continues to be a matter of dispute.22
The alternative is to say that God empowers and permits human
agents to make choices that are not determined by other creatures or
by God. Gods creative agency, of course, intimately and pervasively
shapes the exercise of free human agency by establishing our pow-
ers of action, their limitations, and the circumstances under which
they are exercised. In this respect, it is appropriate to say both that 1)
God always acts with the created agent, and that 2) when free human
actions conform to Gods will, the human agent is the means by which
22
For the first way of reading Aquinas see, e.g., David Burrell, C.S.C., Aquinas: God
and Action (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979) and Freedom
and Creation in Three Traditions (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1993); and Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1988). For the second reading see, e.g., Thomas Flint, Divine Providence:
The Molinist Account (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), and Thomas J.
Loughran, Aquinas: Compatibilist, in Human and Divine Agency, ed. F. Michael
McLain and W. Mark Richardson, (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999).
The first approach faces important conceptual objections. See the discussion of these
issues in my Divine Action, Created Causes, and Human Freedom, and Kathryn
Tanner, Human Freedom, Human Sin, and God the Creator, in The God Who Acts:
Philosophical and Theological Explorations, ed. Thomas F. Tracy (University Park, PA:
The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). Also see David Burrells reply to me,
and William Haskers reply to Tanner.
244 thomas f. tracy
23
Although there are various traditional strategies for blunting the force of this
conclusion, they face important conceptual and moral objections. See, for example,
Kathryn Tanners careful discussion of this problem and William Haskers reply in
The God Who Acts, ed. Tracy.
24
This idea lies at the heart of most modern responses to the problem of evil. Gods
good purposes in creation may require (as a logically necessary condition) that God
creation, providence and quantum chance 245
permit various evils to occur. This can be argued with respect both to so-called natural
evils (i.e., the harm that befalls creatures simply by virtue of the natural conditions
of their lives) and moral evils (i.e., the misuse of moral freedom by rational agents).
A full defense of Gods goodness must 1) identify the good for the sake of which evil
is permitted, 2) explain the relation between evils and this good, and 3) argue that
this good is worth having even at this price. I have argued elsewhere that there are
important limits in principal on our ability to do this; we can make some helpful points
about why, in general, a God of perfect goodness, power, and knowledge would create
a world that includes the sorts of evils we see around us, but we cannot expect to give
a full explanation of the magnitude and distribution of evils in the world. Rather than
offering an explanation of evil, however, the central focus of Christian theology is on
Gods redemptive actions in response to it. See my Evolution, Divine Action, and
the Problem of Evil, in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on
Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, S.J., and Francisco J. Ayala
(Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1998), pp. 51130, and Why Do the Innocent
Suffer? in Why Are We Here: Everyday Questions and the Christian Life, ed. Ronald
F. Thiemann and William C. Placher (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,
1988). Also see Russells comments on the problem of evil, in the context of evolution,
in Special Providence and Genetic Mutation: A New Defense of Theistic Evolution,
in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology, pp. 220223.
246 thomas f. tracy
25
Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge: Part IV of the Concordia, ed. Alfred
J. Freddoso (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). For helpful discussions of
Molina and his dispute with Dominic Banez see Freddosos introduction, and Kathryn
Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, ch. 4.
26
These propositions have come to be called counterfactuals of freedom, and a
great deal has been written about them. For a small sampling of the contemporary
controversy see, for example, Robert Adams, Middle Knowledge and the Problem of
Evil, American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1977), pp. 109117, and An Anti-Molinist
Argument, in Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991), pp. 343353; Thomas Flint, Divine
creation, providence and quantum chance 247
Providence: The Molinist Account (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); William
Hasker, A Refutation of Middle Knowledge, Nous 20 (1986), pp. 545557.
27
See, for example, William Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1989); Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1991); Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretsmann, Eternity, Journal of Philosophy
79 (1981), pp. 429458, and Richard Swinburne, God and Time, in Reasoned Faith,
ed. Eleonore Stump (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 204222.
248 thomas f. tracy
28
Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps, in Chaos and Complexity:
Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and
Arthur Peacocke (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1995), pp. 289324.
29
It has often been noted that it is not possible to spell out very fully the action that
is ascribed to God when Christianity affirms that God raised Jesus from the dead. If
we interpret this language as pointing to an eschatological transformation of the human
creature, then the familiar notion of miraculous divine intervention in nature is not
so much wrong as insufficiently radical. Certainly the new creation is not merely the
disruption or violation of the old order, but rather its fulfillment.
creation, providence and quantum chance 249
causes. Note that this is not to say that God acts entirely without created
causes. The effects God brings about will have an extensive network
of causal antecedents in the world, but these will be necessary, rather
than sufficient, conditions.30 There are a number of different ways in
which this general theological strategy can be deployed, and the details
will vary from case to case. I will focus here on the possibility of direct
divine action through indeterministic events at the lowest levels in the
structures of nature.31 It is worth noting at the outset, however, that
there may be causal incompleteness at other levels of the natural order;
if the case can be made for the existence such open structures, then
it may be possible to conceive of God acting directly through these
structures as well.32
30
Russell makes a distinction between mediated and immediate divine action in
Divine Action and Quantum Mechanics: A Fresh Assessment (note #30) in this
volume. The former refers to divine action that presupposes secondary causal condi-
tions and works together with them. The latter would be unilateral divine action. If an
immediate divine action truly had no necessary causal conditions in the prior history
of the world, however, it is not clear that it could be an action in the world at all. So
all divine actions within nature and history will be mediated, whether those actions
are performed indirectly by means of secondary causes or directly in the way we are
now considering. Gods direct act of creating/conserving the world, of course, will be
unmediated.
31
William Pollard is an early proponent of one version of this theological strategy. See
Chance and Providence: Gods Action in a World Governed by Scientific Law (London:
Faber and Faber, 1958). For contemporary varieties of this approach see Robert Russell,
Special Providence and Genetic Mutation: A New Defense of Theistic Evolution, in
Evolutionary and Molecular Biology, and the articles by George Ellis, Nancey Murphy,
and Thomas Tracy in Chaos and Complexity.
32
John Polkinghorne, for example, argues that the unpredictability in principle of
macroscopic chaotic systems suggests an underlying ontological openness. Although
the non-linear equations describing chaotic systems are deterministic, Polkinghorne
suggests that this formalism is an abstract and approximate description of natural sys-
tems that are more flexible than the mathematics suggests. See Science and Providence:
Gods Interaction with the World (London: SPCK Press, 1989), and The Metaphysics
of Divine Action, in Chaos and Complexity.
creation, providence and quantum chance 251
33
A brief overview of competing interpretations of quantum mechanics can be found
in John Polkinghorne, The Quantum World, and Robert John Russell, Quantum
Physics in Philosophical and Theological Perspective, both in Physics, Philosophy and
Theology: The Common Quest for Understanding, ed. Robert John Russell, William R.
Stoeger, S.J., George V. Coyne, S.J. (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1988).
Also see Butterfield and Polkinghorne in CTNS/VO, v. V. There are a number of good
introductions to quantum mechanics written for the general reader. For example, see
Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (Garden City, NJ: Anchor/
Doubleday, 1985); Peter Kosso, Appearance and Reality: an Introduction to the Philo-
sophy of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); John Polkinghorne, The
Quantum World (London: Longman, 1984); Alastair Rae, Quantum Physics: Illusion
or Reality? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
34
This is the title of John Bells book (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987).
35
Werner Heisenberg is well-known for this indeterministic interpretation of quan-
tum theory. See his Physics and Philosophy: the Revolution in Modern Science (New
York: Harper & Row, 1958).
252 thomas f. tracy
36
Niels Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (New York: Wiley, 1958).
37
John Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987). Also see James T. Cushing and Ernan McMullin,
eds. Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on Bells Theorem
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989); Michael L.G. Redhead,
Incompleteness, Nonlocality, and Realism: a Prolegomenon to the Philosophy of Quantum
Mechanics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
38
David Bohm, A Suggested Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Terms of Hidden
Variables, I & II, Physical Review 85 (1952), and Wholeness and the Implicate Order
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
creation, providence and quantum chance 253
are determinate values for the properties (like position, which he treats
as basic and from which other properties, such as spin, are derived)
of entities in quantum systems, and he accounts for the probabilistic
character of our knowledge by postulating that these classical-like
particles interact with a pilot wave, which is mathematically related to
the wave function of the quantum formalism. In order to explain the
correlation of properties when measurement occurs on linked two-par-
ticle systems, these pilot waves must themselves be correlated in a way
that instantaneously incorporates information about the measurement
situation. In this way Bohm constructs an interpretation of quantum
theory according to which its probabilistic character is strictly an artifact
of the limits of our knowledge, and does not reflect any indeterminate-
ness in the properties of the quantum entities nor any indeterminism
in their causal histories.
Bohms version of quantum theory has not been widely embraced.
There are a variety of reasons for this: e.g. worries about how it handles
special relativity, uneasiness with its postulation of additional entities
for which there can in principle be no experimental evidence, its failure
so far to suggest novel lines of empirical research.39 But Bohms account
does save determinism and the principle of sufficient reason, and these
are powerful considerations in its favor. James Cushing has argued that
the current consensus in favor of the Copenhagen interpretation reflects
various historical contingencies in the development of modern phys-
ics.40 At this point in the development of quantum theory, the decision
for or against a Bohm-like approach remains perhaps a matter more
of metaphysics than of physics.
The alternative views I just sketched are by no means the only inter-
pretative options that the theologian faces, nor is Bohms account the
only deterministic interpretation of quantum theory. In a rather dif-
ferent way, many worlds interpretations are deterministic, insofar as
they insist that when measurement takes place all the possibilities (of
non-zero amplitude) prescribed by the wave equation are actualized.
There is no indeterministic transition from superposed possibilities to
a single actuality; the wave equation does not collapse, rather the world
branches, and it does so in accordance with the deterministic evolution
39
See the essays by Polkinghorne and Redhead in CTNS/VO, v. V.
40
James T. Cushing, Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copenhagen
Hegemony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
254 thomas f. tracy
41
Bryce S. DeWitt and Neill Graham, eds. The Many-Worlds Interpretation of
Quantum Mechanics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
creation, providence and quantum chance 255
42
John Polkinghorne, The Metaphysics of Divine Action, in Chaos and Complexity,
pp. 152153. Also see Polkinghornes remarks on this problem in this volume. The
idea that measurement should be understood as the irreversible macroscopic regis-
tration of a quantum effect can be found both in Polkinghorne, CTNS/VO, v. V and
in Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, in Evolutionary and Molecular
Biology, p. 212.
256 thomas f. tracy
43
Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, p. 204.
creation, providence and quantum chance 257
44
See Nancey Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridans Ass and
Schrodingers Cat, in Chaos and Complexity especially section 4.4.
45
George Ellis, Reflections on Quantum Theory and the Macroscopic World,
and Robert Russell, Divine Action and Quantum Mechanics: A Fresh Assessment,
in CTNS/VO, v. V. Also see Carl S. Helrich, Measurement and Indeterminacy in the
258 thomas f. tracy
Quantum Mechanics of Dirac, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 35, 4 (December
2000), pp. 489503.
46
Quantum Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 61.
47
Special Providence and Genetic Mutation: A New Defense of Theistic Evolution,
in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology.
48
James P. Crutchfield, J. Doyne Farmer, Norman H. Packard, and Robert S. Shaw,
Chaos, and Wesley J. Wildman and Robert John Russell, Chaos: A Mathematical
Introduction with Philosophical Reflections, both in Chaos and Complexity.
creation, providence and quantum chance 259
It is not clear, for example, whether chaotic processes really are per-
vasive within the structures of nature, how chaotic systems are related
to non-chaotic systems, and how much the latter tend to dampen out
the effect of the former.49 An even more basic set of issues concerns the
relation of quantum mechanics and chaotic systems.50 As has often been
noted, the Schrdinger equation for the evolution of quantum systems
is linear, and the prospects are not promising at present for a non-linear
reformulation of the quantum formalism. So it is not clear how deep
chaos goes in the structures of nature or how chaotic behavior emerges
at the macroscopic level out of its quantum mechanical substrate. The
idea of chaotic amplification of indeterministic quantum effects is an
enticing possibility, but it remains to be seen whether it will become
more than that.
4. Conclusion
49
See Jeffrey Koperski, God, Chaos, and the Quantum Dice, Zygon: Journal of
Religion and Science, 35, 4 (December 2000), pp. 54559.
50
This is the question of quantum chaos. For helpful discussion of these issues, see
the essays by Michael Berry and John Polkinghorne in CTNS/VO, v. V. Also see Abner
Shimony Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, in The New Physics, ed.
Paul Davies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 391392.
260 thomas f. tracy
the course of events in the world once the worlds history is underway.
I have argued that responsive divine action does not require that God
act directly to alter the course of events in the world, though some of
the specific things Christians have traditionally said about how God
responds to us (especially in Jesus Christ) do appear to require this. If
this is right, then theologians have less at stake than it might first appear
in the question of whether the science of quantum mechanics (or of
chaos theory or of emergent systems at higher levels of organization)
provide openings in the causal structures of nature through which God
can act without intervening. Even if the natural order is deterministic,
we can understand God to act responsively in history with particular
intentions, bringing about events that reflect Gods special providence
and doing so in most instances without miraculous interventions.
We may find, however, that our best physical theories support (even
if they do not require) an ontological interpretation that recognizes
a significant role for chance within the structures of nature, so that
chance and law are dynamically woven together in a way that makes
possible creative new developments not rigidly prescribed by the past.
This picture of the world would be consonant with theological under-
standings of Gods good purposes in creation, and it invites theological
interpretation. If what we think we know about the world suggests that
the structures of nature are open in this way, then there is good reason
for the theologian to consider the possibility that Gods providential care
for creation might be exercised in part by acting directly through these
flexible structures without forcing or deforming them. It is important to
bear in mind that this mode of divine action is limited and theologically
secondary.51 It clearly would not be sufficient by itself to provide a full
account of all that the theistic traditions have wanted to say about Gods
activity in the world. On the account I have given, Gods foundational
action is that of directly establishing and sustaining the existence of
all finite things. Because this creative action gives creatures genuine
causal powers of their own, God also acts indirectly by means of cre-
ated causes in an endless variety of particular ways. Now we tentatively
add to this account the idea that God may also act directly at points of
51
This has been overlooked by some of the critics of the idea of divine action
through quantum indeterminisms. For example see Nicholas Saunders, Does God
Cheat at Dice? Divine Action and Quantum Possibilities, Zygon: Journal of Religion
and Science, 35, 4 (September 2000), pp. 51744, and my response Divine Action and
Quantum Theory, Zygon, 35, 5 (December 2000), pp. 88998.
creation, providence and quantum chance 261
52
For a more detailed discussion of this objection, see my Particular Providence
and the God of the Gaps, sect. 1, in Russell, Murphy, and Peacocke, eds., Chaos and
Complexity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nancey Murphy
1. Introduction
In the Medieval period, especially after the integration of the lost works
of Aristotle into Western thought, Gods action in the world could be
explained in a way perfectly consistent with the scientific knowledge
of the time. Heaven was a part of the physical cosmos. Gods agents,
the angels, controlled the movements of the seven planets, which, in
turn, gave nature its rhythms. But modern science has changed all that,
primarily by its dependence on the notion of laws of nature. For Isaac
Newton and other architects of the modern scientific worldview, the
laws of nature were a direct expression of Gods willGods control
of all physical processes. However, today they are generally granted
a status independent of God, not only by those who deny the very
existence of God, but also by many Christians, who seem to suppose
that God, like a U.S. senator, must obey the laws once they are on the
books. Consequently, for modern thinkers, deism has been the most
natural view of divine action: God creates in the beginningand lays
down the laws governing all changes after thatthen takes a rest for
the duration.
Not all modern theologians have opted for this deistic account, but
in many cases the only difference has been in their additional claim that
God sustains the universe in its existence. Those who have wanted (or
who have believed Christianity needed) a more robust view of Gods
continued participation in the created order have been forced to think
in terms of intervention: God occasionally acts to bring about a state
of affairs different from that which would have occurred naturally.1
1
Authors represented in this volume are some of a small number of more recent
thinkers who have sought non-interventionist accounts of special divine acts.
264 nancey murphy
2
John Polkinghorne is the most important proponent of this view. See, e.g., his
Science and Providence: Gods Interaction with the World (Boston: Shambhala, 1989);
and idem, Laws of Nature and Laws of Physics, in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws
of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, Nancey
Murphy, and C.J. Isham (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 1993; Berkeley, CA:
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993).
3
Arthur Peacocke is to be credited with the most compelling accounts to date of
the role of top-down causation in accounting for Gods continuing action. See his
Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural, Divine and Human, 2d
ed., enlarged, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993). I owe a great debt to Peacockes
thought throughout this paper.
divine action in the natural order 265
4
Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 29.
divine action in the natural order 267
5
Ibid., 33.
6
John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God (London: SCM Press, 1972), 28, quoted in
Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 31.
268 nancey murphy
7
It is interesting to speculate about the meaning of the distinction between God
working on the inside versus from the outside. We can give a clear sense to from
the inside when we are speaking of macroscopic entities and God working within
them by manipulating constituent quantum entities, since the quantum entities are
inside of the macroscopic entity. But can we make sense of a distinction between
the inside and outside of the quantum entities themselves? If God has no physical
location, literally speaking, yet we say that God is omnipresent and immanent in all
of creation, perhaps we are assuming that a disembodied agents presence is to be
defined in terms of the agents causal efficacywherever God acts, there God is. Thus,
to say that God works within quantum entities would be equivalent to saying that God
affects quantum entities.
8
Ideally, one would like to be able to show that such a proposal is progressive in
the sense defined by Imre Lakatos. He proposed that a scientific research program is
progressive if it can be developed in such a way that its theoretical content anticipates
the discovery of novel facts. A similar criterion could be devised for metaphysical
theories: that they anticipate and solve problems in other disciplines. That is, a meta-
physical theory should be counted progressive if it turns out to contain resources for
solving conceptual or empirical problems in or between other disciplines that it was not
originally designed to solve. Lakatoss scientific methodology is found in Falsification
divine action in the natural order 269
2.1.1. Doctrine
I take it that one desideratum for theological construction is always
to see what sense can be given in each age to traditional formulations.
Only if the formulations of the past turn out to be hopelessly unintel-
ligible should they be rejected or radically changed. Gods continuing
action in the created world has been spoken of in a number of different
waysas sustenance, providence, continuing creation. One traditional
set of terms will turn out to be particularly useful: Gods continuing
work understood as sustenance, governance, and cooperation.9 The sense
that can be given to these terms by means of the proposal in this paper
will become clear as we go along.
An additional doctrinal requirement, I suggest, is that an account
of divine action throughout the hierarchy of levels of complexity must
show forth Gods consistency. Thus, if the paradigm of divine action for
Christians is found in the story of Jesus, we should expect that same
divine moral character to be manifested, analogously, in Gods action
within sub-human orders. I shall claim that the relevant feature of
Gods action in Christ, displayed analogously throughout the whole,
is its non-coercive character.
and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, in Criticism and the Growth
of Knowledge, ed. I. Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), 91196. See my adaptation of his work in Evidence of Design in the
Fine-Tuning of the Universe, in Quantum Cosmology.
9
These terms go back at least to Augustine, who formulated the discussion of
grace and free will using the concepts of providence, sustaining activity, governance
and cooperation. The terms have been used frequently in subsequent discussions of
divine action.
270 nancey murphy
10
My use of special here corresponds to that of objectively special divine acts as
defined in Russells Introduction to Chaos and Complexity.
11
See, e.g., David Humes critiques of the argument from design in Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion, and John Wisdoms parable, Gods, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, 19445.
12
See my Does Prayer Make a Difference? in Cosmos as Creation: Theology
and Science in Consonance, ed. Ted Peters (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989),
23545.
13
See Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, 6667.
divine action in the natural order 271
world where outcomes of our actions are often predictable, and this in
turn requires that the universe exhibit law-like regularity.
2.1.3. Summary
We can sum up the discussion of theological requirements by saying
that an adequate account of divine action will have to avoid the opposite
poles of deism and occasionalism. Occasionalism, as applied to theories
of divine action, denies the causal interaction of created things: created
entities only provide an occasion for the action of God, who is the
sole cause of all effects. This position has been rejected on the grounds
that it ultimately denies the reality of finite beings.
Schematic representations make clear the difference between these
two extreme positions. Occasionalism can be represented as follows,
where G stands for an act of God and E stands for an observable
event:
G1 G2 Gn
E1 E2 En
time
272 nancey murphy
Here, God is the sole actor, and any causal efficacy on the part of
observable events is mere illusion.
The following sketch represents the deist option, where L represents
a law of nature:
G E1 E2 En
{
{
L1 Ln
time
Here, Gods action is restricted to an initial act of creation, which
includes ordaining the laws that govern all successive changes.
Some modern accounts of divine action have sought to hold divine
action and natural causation together: God acts in and through the
entire created order. Thus, we get a combined picture:
G1 G2 Gn
E1 E2 En
time
This approach suffers from two defects. First, it leaves no room for
any sort of special divine acts and, second, it seems impossible to do
justice to both accounts of causation (the problem of double agency);
one inevitably slides back into occasionalism or else assigns God the
role of a mere rubber stamp approval of natural processes.
In short, we need a new picture of the relation of Gods action to the
world of natural causes that allows us to represent Gods sustenance,
governance, and cooperation in such a way that we can make sense of
revelation, petitionary prayer, human responsibility, and of extraordi-
nary acts such as the resurrection, without at the same time blowing
the problem of evil up to unmanageable proportions.
explain how God and natural causes conspire to bring about the world
as we know it. The salient features seem to be, first, the general law-like
behavior of macroscopic objects and events, qualified, however, by two
major exceptions: the apparent randomness of individual events at the
quantum level and human free actions.14 The fact that the rule of law
needs to be so qualified, however, suggests the value of recognizing as
a second, equally important, feature of the world known by science its
organization into a hierarchy of levels of complexity.15 More on this
below. It also suggests that in an account of divine action, attention
needs to be given to three very different regions or regimes within
the hierarchy: the quantum level, the realm of human freedom, and
an intermediate regime wherein the behavior of entities is describable
by means of deterministic laws.
14
Perhaps the higher animals are also capable of free actions, but if philosophers
are not agreed what it means to say that human actions are free, a fortiori we do not
know what to say about the animals.
15
See Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, inter alia.
16
See Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 46.
17
See, e.g., Paul Davies, The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate
Meaning (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).
18
For a discussion of this issue, see William Stoeger, Contemporary Physics and
the Ontological Status of the Laws of Nature, in Quantum Cosmology. See also Bas C.
van Fraassen, Laws and Symmetries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
274 nancey murphy
3. Metaphysical Considerations
the element earth, have the intrinsic power to seek their natural posi-
tion, which is at the center of the cosmos. That is why rocks fall when
dropped, and sink when placed in water. So in this worldview, while
prime matter is passive, it does not exist as such. All material beings
(primary substances), in contrast, have inherent powers to act in
their own characteristic ways. The self-moving capacities of animals
and humans need no special explanation.
In contrast, Ren Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Newton, and other early
modern thinkers developed a worldview in which material bodies were
inherently passive or inert. All macroscopic phenomena, including the
movements of animals and human bodies, were manifestations of mat-
ter in motion. According to Hobbes, all that exist are bodies. Bodies
move. In doing so they move other bodies; that is all that happens.19
We can describe this change by making use of terms coined by
Baruch Spinoza. He distinguished between immanent causes, which
produce changes within themselves, and transeunt causes, which pro-
duce changes in something else. The change from the Aristotelian to
the Newtonian worldview included a change from a world filled with
immanent causes to one in which all causes, when properly understood,
are transeunt causes. According to Newton, all motion in the universe
was introduced from the outside by God. The laws of nature were,
in the first instance, laws of motion that determined the patterns of
motion after that initial impetus.
It has been argued that Newton had theological motives for develop-
ing the inertial view of matter.20 One motive was what might be called
Calvinist theological maximalismto give as much credit to God as
possible for whatever happens. So Newton ascribed all motive power to
God. Second, this view of the physical universe made an obvious argu-
ment for the existence of God: someone had to have set it in motion
in the beginning.
So a second change in the understanding of causes, from Aristotle
to Newton, regards the question of what it is that causes cause. For
Aristotle causal analysis was given of substances and their modification
19
This summary of Hobbess materialism is Wallace Matsons, A New History of
Philosophy, vol. 2 (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), 288.
20
See Eugene Klaaren, Religious Origins of Modern Science: Belief in Creation in
Seventeenth-century Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977).
276 nancey murphy
21
However, Richard Taylor claims that there remain two important philosophical
questions regarding causation that have not been satisfactorily resolved. One is whether
the concept of power or causal efficacy is after all essential, and whether there is after
all any kind of necessary connection between a cause and its effect. The Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, 1967 ed., s.v. Causation, by R. Taylor.
22
See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and
Faith, ed. Ted Peters (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), esp. chap. 1,
Theological Questions to Scientists.
divine action in the natural order 277
23
See Carl Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation: and Other Essays in the Philos-
ophy of Science (New York: Free Press, 1965).
24
See Mary Hesse, Lawlessness in Natural and Social Science, draft paper for
conference on quantum cosmology and the laws of nature, Vatican Observatory,
September, 1991, typescript, p. 1.
278 nancey murphy
25
Davies, Mind of God, 81.
26
Stoeger, Contemporary Physics and the Laws of Nature.
divine action in the natural order 279
4. A Proposal
27
The sense in which God cannot do all things with an electron is explained in
section 4.3.
282 nancey murphy
28
In Spinozas terms, is the entity itself an immanent cause?
29
That is, moved by a transeunt cause.
30
However, this is probably a minor point, since it not clear what the principle
itself is based upon.
284 nancey murphy
31
This point stands even for those who want to add a mind or soul to the human
body in order to get a living person: the body is still nothing but a complex organiza-
tion of its most basic physical parts.
divine action in the natural order 285
This being the case, much (but not all) of the behavior of macro-level
objects is determined by the behavior of their smallest constituents.
Therefore, Gods capacity to act at the macro-level must include the
ability to act upon the most basic constituents. This is a conceptual
claim, not theological or scientific.
However, the theological question that arises immediately is whether
God acts upon these parts-making-up-wholes only in rare instances, or
whether God is constantly acting on or in everything. Over the long
history of the tradition, I believe, the majority view has been that God
acts in all things at all times, not just on rare occasions.
We can approach this question from the following angle: we object to
interventionist accounts of divine action because it seems unreasonable
that God should violate the laws he has established. We object to God
of the gaps accounts of divine action for epistemological reasonssci-
ence will progress and close the gaps. But I think there is a more basic
intuition behind the rejection of both of these views: God must not be
made a competitor with processes that on other occasions are sufficient
in and of themselves to bring about a given effect. In addition, if Gods
presence is identified with Gods efficacy32 then a God who acts only
occasionally is a God who is usually absent.
So our theological intuitions urge upon us the view that, in some
way, God must be a participant in every (macro-level) event. God is not
one possible cause among the variety of natural causes; Gods action
is a necessary but not sufficient condition for every (post-creation)
event. In addition, I claim that Gods participation in each event is by
means of his governance of the quantum events that constitute each
macro-level event. There is no competition between God and natural
determinants because, ex hypothesi, the efficient natural causes at this
level are insufficient to determine all outcomes.33
4.3.3. Conclusions
In this section I have proposed a bottom-up account of divine action.
God governs each event at the quantum level in a way that respects the
natural rights of the entities involved. Gods action is (and from the
point of view of science, must be) such that, in general, these events
32
See n. 6 above.
33
My suspicion is that arguments based on quantum non-locality could also be
used to reinforce the claim that if God works in any quantum event, God must work
in all of them.
286 nancey murphy
34
For reasons described in section 2.
288 nancey murphy
35
And of course they are intended to be subtle. The goal here is to produce an
account of divine action that does not conflict with observations.
36
There may be exceptions here, such as the law of gravity.
divine action in the natural order 289
37
The contentious point here has to do with the question whether or not quantum
effects necessarily wash out at the macro-level. I am assuming that they need not.
See section 5.4.
38
That is, within the limits circumscribed by top-down causation.
39
This is true even if the laws at higher levels cannot be derived mathematically
from the laws of quantum mechanics.
290 nancey murphy
40
See John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London: Macmillan, 1966).
divine action in the natural order 291
Yet the argument seems faulty, too. It seems to overlook the traditional
account of disbelief as sin, and the fact that even in the face of the
most astounding evidence given by and on behalf of Jesus, the crowds
largely failed to believe. I suggest that Gods action does remain largely
hidden and is always ambiguouswhen manifest it is always subject
to other interpretations. But this is not because we would otherwise be
forced to believe in God (as Hick claims) and then to obey him. Rather
it is because we would lose our sense of the reliable behavior of the
environment. When the environment is taken to behave in a set (and
therefore predictable) manner, we can make responsible choices about
how to act within it. If instead we saw the environment as a complex
manifestation of divine action, we would lose our sense of being able
to predict the consequences of our actions, and would also lose our
sense of responsibility for them. So, for instance, if I carelessly allow
my child to fall off a balcony, I would not see myself as responsible
for his injuries since God was there with all sorts of opportunities for
preventing them.
These psychological requirements for responsible action seem to
require in turn that extraordinary acts of God be exceedingly rare (that
we not have any adequate justification for expecting God to undo the
consequences of our wrong choices) and that they normally be open
to interpretation as (somehow) in accord with the laws of nature. So
Gods relation with us requires a fine line between complete obvious-
ness and complete hiddennessthe latter since we could not come to
know God without special divine acts.41 The difficulty in describing
Gods action is that we want to have it both ways: both that there be
evidence for divine actionsomething that science cannot explainand
that there be no conflict with science. So a suitable theory of how
God acts leaves everything as it was scientifically. But then there is no
evidence upon which to argue that such a view ought to be accepted
over a purely naturalistic account. Perhaps the ambivalence we find
41
History, both in scripture and elsewhere, reports frequent miracles in ancient times;
relatively few are reported today, and contemporary reports come more often from
less-educated populations. Most commentators assume that we are seeing a decrease
in gullibility. It is possible, though, that there are in fact fewer extraordinary events
because, with our sharpened sense of the order of nature, with increased abilities to
make measurements, our sense of the order of nature has become more fragile. As
technological and scientific capabilities to test miracle claims have increased, so have
our abilities to cast doubt upon causal regularity.
292 nancey murphy
4.6. Overview
I have claimed that we need to distinguish among three different regimes
for the purpose of devising a theory of divine action: the human, the
quantum and, in between, the regime of law. However, these three
42
See George F.R. Ellis, The Theology of the Anthropic Principle, in Quantum
Cosmology, section 8.1.
43
This notion originated with Augustines Platonic epistemology, but there must
have been some experiential correlate to keep the emphasis alive.
divine action in the natural order 295
5. Evaluation
5.1.1. Doctrine
The above account of divine action allows for Gods cooperation with
and governance of all events in a way that leaves (some) room for
special (extraordinary) divine acts. It also emphasizes the non-coercive,
freedom-respecting character of Gods action in the human realm and
extends these features to an account of divine action in the non-human
realm as well.
that all events fall into this category), and events that count as Gods
actions. In discussing human action we distinguish, from among all of
the events that humans cause, the smaller class of those that express
their intentions. Only the latter are described as actions. So all events
are the result of Gods causal influence; only some events express (to
us) Gods intentions. It is the latter that ought, strictly speaking, to be
called Gods actions.
5.1.3. Prayer
Petitionary prayer makes sense on this account, but more so for some
kinds of events than others. Events that are recognized as possible yet
unpredictable (i.e., the results of chaotic processes, unpredictable coin-
cidences) are more to be expected than events that defy the law-like
behavior of natural processes. However, prayers for the latter are not
out of the question. One condition under which we might expect such
prayers to be answered is when the divine act would serve a revelatory
purpose, since, by hypothesis, God must occasionally act in extraordi-
nary ways to make himself known.
It is clear that in cases where outcomes are not predictable (e.g.,
weather, healing), one of the most valuable conditions for recognizing
the action of God is that it constitutes a meaningful complex of prayer
and response. The prayer beforehand makes it possible for an unpre-
dictable eventan event that might have happened in any caseto
reveal the purposes of God. So while prayer might not be necessary to
persuade God to act, it will be necessary for us to recognize the fact
that God is acting.44
44
There are surely other reasons for prayer, as well, such as building a relationship
with God, and perhaps the praying itself in some way contributes to bringing about
the desired effect.
298 nancey murphy
5.3.1. Ad Hoc-ness
One criticism of this position is that it appears ad hoc: God can make all
sorts of wonderful things happen, but almost never does so. In defense, I
claim that the apparent absence of divine action is ethically necessary.45
First, unless and until we know more about how Gods acts at the quan-
tum level affect the macro-level, we really do not know what actions
are possible for God without violating Gods ethical principles.
Second, the intentional but metaphysically unnecessary decision on
Gods part to act openly only on rare occasions is necessary if God is
to interact with humans without destroying their sense of the depend-
ability of the natural order and of their own responsibility. This not
only answers the charge in question, but has the further advantage of
answering the very troubling question raised for Christians who believe
in providence: Why would God answer prayers for small things (cure
of a cold), while apparently refusing to take actions that would prevent
much suffering (an early death for Hitler)?
45
See Ellis, Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action (in this volume).
divine action in the natural order 299
(Gen. 45:5). The full account of the event involves both human and
divine agency. Joseph emphasizes Gods providence while recognizing
at the same time that his brothers can indeed be held accountable.
46
William Pollard, Chance and Providence: Gods Action in a World Governed by
Scientific Law (New York: Scribner, 1958).
47
Barbour has already noted the need for this qualification in his discussion of
Pollards position in Issues in Science and Religion, 430.
48
See David J. Bartholomew, God of Chance (London: SCM Press, 1984), 12728.
divine action in the natural order 301
49
See Donald MacKay, The Clockwork Image: A Christian Perspective on Science
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1974).
50
Bartholomew, God of Chance, 25.
51
It also avoids the interventionist overtones of Bartholomews suggestion that it
might be better to assume that God leaves most quantum events to chance and only
acts upon occasion to determine some specific outcome. See ibid., 130.
302 nancey murphy
through being their determinator would also only be acting from time
to time. Such an episodic account of providential agency does not seem
altogether theologically satisfactory.52
Polkinghorne would include among these possible instances of meaning-
ful divine action, I believe, cases where sensitivity of chaotic systems to
initial conditions involves changes so slight as to fall within the domain
of quantum mechanics. The classic example of a macroscopic system
that measures quantum events is Schrdingers poor cat, whose life
or death is made to depend on the status of one quantum event.
Against Polkinghornes view, Robert Russell would argue that the
important fact that has been overlooked here is the extent to which
the general character of the entire macroscopic world is a function of
the character of quantum events. Putting it playfully, he points out that
the whole cat is constituted by quantum events!
We can imagine in a straightforward way Gods effect on the quan-
tum event that the experimental apparatus is designed to isolate; we
cannot so easily imagine the cumulative effect of Gods action on the
innumerable quantum events that constitute the cats existence. Yet
this latter is equally the realm of divine action.53 I have been assuming
Russells position throughout this paper. Yet even if Russell is correct,
there still remains a question. Does the fact that God is affecting the
whole of reality (the whole cat) in a general way by means of operation
in the quantum range allow for the sort of special or extraordinary
divine acts that I claim Christians need to account for? Or would such
special acts be limited to the few sorts of instances that Polkinghorne
envisions?54
A second open question comes from our lack of knowledge regard-
ing the possibilities for top-down causation, and the role of holist
laws. In particular, we lack knowledge of the possibilities of divine
top-down causation and of the possible behavior of natural entities
within a regime constituted by the full presence and action of God.
We have a glimpse of this regime in the resurrection of Jesus, and a
hint from Paul that the whole cosmos awaits such a transformation.
52
Polkinghorne, Metaphysics of Divine Action.
53
See Russell, Quantum Physics in Philosophical and Theological Perspective, in
Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding, ed. Russell,
William R. Stoeger., and George V. Coyne (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory,
1988), 34368.
54
My hope is that this question can be addressed at a future conference.
divine action in the natural order 303
Are there states in between this final state, in which God will be all in
all, and the present state of Gods hiddenness in natural processes? Do
the extraordinary events surrounding the lives of Jesus and the saints
represent such an intermediate regime?
Finally, it has been the consistent teaching of the church that God
respects the freedom and integrity of his human creatures. I have pro-
posed as an axiom of my theory of divine action that God respects the
natural rights of entities at the quantum level as well. Is it, then, the
case that all created entities have intrinsic characters that God respects in
his interaction with the world? And what does God do when the rights
of creatures at different levels of the hierarchy come into conflict? The
claim that God acts consistently throughout the hierarchy of complexity
has consequences regarding what sort of thing God should and should
not be expected to do with creatures within the intermediate realm
between humans and quarks. For instance, it would be consistent with
my proposal for God to cause Buridans ass to eat, but not to cause
Balaams ass to speak. Does our experience of Gods action in our lives
bear out such a distinction, and does this distinction help explain why
some prayers are answered and others not?
My hope is that despite these unanswered questions, the foregoing
proposal provides insights that are worthy of further pursuit.55
55
I thank all conference participants for their responses to this paper. Steve Happel
and Bob Russell were especially diligent critics.
CHAPTER NINE
Prologue
1
Nancey Murphy and George F.R. Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe:
Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (Mineapolis: Fortress, 1996)developing themes
outlined in Ellis, Before The Beginning: Cosmology Explained (New York: Bowerdean/
Boyars, 1993).
306 george f.r. ellis
1. Introduction
2
That is, it is in agreement with centuries-old aspects of the Christian tradition. See,
e.g., Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, ed. Gordon Wakefield (London: SCM Press,
1989); and Denis Edwards, Human Experience of God (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983).
However it is certainly not fundamentalist in its attitude; rather it is in agreement with
the kind of modernizing approach advocated by Peter Berger in his superb book, A
Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (New York:
Doubleday, 1969; reprint, New York: Anchor Books, 1990).
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 307
3
See John Polkinghorne, Gods Action in the World, CTNS Bulletin 10, no.
2 (Spring 1990), 7; idem, Science and Providence: Gods Interaction with the World
(London: SPCK Press, 1989); and William Stoeger Describing Gods Action in the
World in the Light of Scientific Knowledge of Reality (in CTNS/VO, v. II).
4
See Arthur Peacocke, Gods Interaction with the World (in CTNS/VO, v. II).
5
Bernd-Olaf Kppers, Understanding Complexity (in CTNS/VO, v. II).
6
See, e.g., Roger Penrose, The Emperors New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds,
and the Laws of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); and Euan Squires,
Conscious Mind in the Physical World (Bristol: Adam Hilger, 1990).
7
CTNS/VO, v. II.
308 george f.r. ellis
solution to this problem of causal gaps; and (b3) the fact that quantum
uncertainty does indeed have this potential. Overall these contentions
are supportive of the argument in Murphys paper.
As regards (c), while proof will not be available, one would like
some broad brush-stroke defense of the position presented in terms of
general lines of evidence.8 The main point here is that, as emphasized
in Murphys present paper, one of the needs is to satisfy the Christian
tradition in terms of doctrine and practice; but then the issue is, Whose
doctrine? Whose practice? What is the foundation for choosing and
supporting one particular brand of tradition?
Either one goes here for a rather inclusive, broad-stream interpreta-
tion which aims to be widely acceptable across the many varieties of
Christian tradition, and therefore will inevitably be regarded as weak
by many of them; or one aims to be more particular and detailed in
terms of developing the view of some particular branch of that tradition
in depth. But then the product becomes rather exclusive in its nature,
and may be regarded as irrelevant by others. In either case the issue
becomes that of validating what is claimed to be true by the chosen
traditions or doctrines, in the light of manifest errors, in many cases,
in what has been claimed in the past.
To cope with the issue of inclusivity, one can suggest that this defense
should, first, have a broad base aimed at validating a religious worldview
in general, strongly supported by widely acceptable evidence; second,
support a more specifically Christian view developed as a second stage
of the argument, refining its methods, detail, and evidence; and with
support for a particular tradition developed in the third stage. I shall
make some comments along these lines at the end. The proposal made
here is that the idea of top-down causation, with different layers of
description, effective laws, meaning, and evidence, is the best framework
for understanding and testing the overall scheme suggested.
8
Cf. Murphy, Evidence of Design in the Fine-Tuning of the Universe, in Quantum
Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert
John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and C.J. Isham (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory,
1993; Berkeley, CA: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993).
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 309
9
Peacocke, Gods Interaction.
10
Neil A. Campbell, Biology (Redwood City, CA: Benjamin Cummings, 1991), 23.
11
Kppers, Understanding Complexity.
12
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, The Gifford Lectures, 19891991, vol. 1
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990).
13
Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and BecomingNatural and Divine
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
310 george f.r. ellis
Ecosystem I
Biological Community community
Species structure
Population
Organism
Organ Systems
Organs II
Tissues organism structure
Cells
Organelles
Molecules III
Atoms cell
Ions and electrons structure
In a biological system, the two crucial levels of order are that of the cell
and the individual organism; at each of these levels there is a higher
level of autonomy of coherent action than at any of the other levels. A
biologist regards individuals as the elementary components of a popu-
lation, and cells as elementary components of the individual, while
(broadly speaking) a microbiologist regards molecules and a biochemist,
ions and electrons, as the elementary components. A physicist would
continue down the hierarchical scale, reducing these to quarks, gluons,
and electrons.
14
For a very clear exposition of the hierarchical structuring in modern digital
computer systems, see Andrew S. Tannenbaum, Structured Computer Organization
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990).
15
Ibid., 23.
312 george f.r. ellis
Application package
Level 6 (e.g., word-processor)
Translation (compiler)
Problem-oriented language
Level 5 level (e.g., C or Basic)
Translation (compiler)
Assembly language level
Level 4
Translation (assembler)
Partial interpretation
(operating system)
Interpretation
(microprogram)
Level 1 Microprogramming level
Directly executed by
hardware
Level 0 Digital logic level
16
Ibid., 47.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 313
Consequently the machine language at each level also has a tight logical
structure with a very precise set of operations resulting from each
statement in that language. The detailed relation of operations from
high to low levels, and at each level, will depend on the actual memory
locations used for the program and data; but the logical operation is
independent of these details.17
In biological systems, with hierarchical levels as indicated above,
the same kind of logical structure holds; however the languages
at the higher levels are much less tightly structured than in the case
of the computer,18 and the links between different levels correspond-
ingly less rigid.
17
These structures and their interconnections are described in considerable detail
in Tannenbaums book.
18
The major aim of the AI (artificial intelligence) movement is to arrive at a cor-
respondingly loose structure in the computers higher-level languages.
19 Kpperss concept of boundary condition conflates these three rather different
concepts. See Understanding Complexity.
314 george f.r. ellis
* Level of Meaning N
* Level of Law N
* Level of Meaning N1
* Level of Law N1
Top- Bottom-
Down Up
Lowest level
Constituents
I* F* Environment
Microscopic laws E
Boundary B
20
If the computer output were predictable in any simpler way we would not need
to run the computer program.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 315
Because the semantics of the higher level are intrinsic to its nature, the
language (vocabulary and syntax) at each level cannot be reduced to
that at a lower level, even though what happens at each higher level is
uniquely determined by the coordinated action taking place at the lower-
levels, where it is fully described in terms of the lower-level languages.
Thus, the whole structure shows emergence of new properties (at the
higher levels) not reducible to those of the constituent parts.
Examples: (1) lowering the undercarriage in an aircraft (realized by
gas particles exerting forces on a piston in a cylinder); and (2) a com-
puter reading out a text file and printing it on the screen (realized by
electrons impinging on the screen).
What happens to a given system is controlled by the initial state
along with the boundary conditions. The system boundary is either:
(i) closed (no information enters); or (ii) open (information enters;
possibly also mass, energy, momentum). In the latter case we have to
know what information enters in order to determine the future state
of the system.
B: The final state attained at the bottom level is uniquely determined
by the prior state at that level (the initial conditions) and the incoming
information at that levelthat is, by the boundary conditions (assum-
ing a given system structure and given microlaws). This determines
uniquely what happens at the higher levels. We assume that a unique
lower-level state determines uniquely the higher-level states through
appropriate coarse-graining. When this is not true, the system is either
ill-defined (for example, because our description has omitted some
hidden variables), or incoherent (because it does not really constitute
a system). We exclude these cases. Note that the loss of information
implied in the definition of entropy results because a particular higher-
level state can correspond to a number of different lower-level states
(each of which leads to that single higher-level state).
Note 1: This statement does not contradict the idea of top-down
causation. Any given macro-state at the top level will correspond to a
restricted (perhaps even unique) set of conditions at the basic level. It
is through determining a set of micro-states as initial conditions at the
bottom level, corresponding to the initial macro-state, that the top-level
situation controls the evolution of the system as a whole in the future.
How uniquely it does so depends on how uniquely the top-level state
determines a state at the bottom.21
21
Or, equivalently, it does so depending on how much information of the micro-
states is lost by giving only a top-level descriptionthis information loss defining the
entropy of the macroscopic state.
316 george f.r. ellis
22
In this paper the prime quantum effect considered is that of indeterminacy (which
is closely related to the problem of measurement). There are other equally important
aspects of quantum theoryFermi vs. Bose statistics, nonlocality, etc.; but they do not
seem to bear directly on the argument at hand, except perhaps that of non-locality.
23
These are really two ways of saying the same thing.
24
See Robert John Russell, Quantum Physics in Philosophical and Theological
Perspective, in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding,
Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, and George V. Coyne, eds. (Vatican City State:
Vatican Observatory, 1988).
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 317
25
In principle, the same kind of description applies to complex biological systems,
e.g.: (7) people in a room; and (8) an ecosystem. But so many extra issues arise because
of social, economic, and political interaction that it is better first to consider and
understand the simpler examples.
26
See Stafford Beer, Brain of the Firm: The Managerial Cybernetics of Organization,
2d. ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981), for an illuminating discussion.
27
See, e.g., John C. Eccles, The Human Mystery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1984); or idem, The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind (New York:
Free Press, 1984); and Gerald M. Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of
Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1992), for contrasting views.
318 george f.r. ellis
In the latter case, the issue is the nature of this openness: is it truly
indeterminaterepresenting a random process whose final state is not
determined by the initial stateor is it in fact determinate, through
some hidden variable presently inaccessible to us? We will return to this
later. In any case the above analysis suggests the following speculation:
Meaningful physical top-down action with openness in a hierarchical
structure can occur only either (i) via injection of information from
outside, that is, by manipulation of the boundary conditions (probably
in a very directed manner, conveying specific information to specific
sub-components); or (ii) through a process that resolves quantum
uncertainty at the microscopic level by a choice of a particular out-
come from all those that are possible according to quantum laws, thus
resolving the uncertainties in a quantum mechanical prediction. This
effect can then be amplified,28 or it could be effective at the larger scale
because it takes place in a coordinated way at the micro-level (as in
superconductivity).
Note to (i): Bill Stoeger29 has pointed out that it is essential to be clear
about what is inside and what is outside the system considered
particularly when non-local effects occur. A more adequate character-
ization of a system to better account for the observed phenomena may
result in some of what was outside being brought inside the system.
Our comment applies after such adjustments have been made.
Note to (ii): The basic point made here is that our present descrip-
tion of the quantum world is essentially causally incomplete,30 as is
clear from every discussion of the measurement process in standard
quantum mechanics. Quantum theory determines the statistical proper-
ties of measurements, but does not determine the result of individual
measurements where the initial state is not an eigenstatea condition
which includes almost all measurements. However, a specific final
state does in fact result in each case. There is no known rule that leads
uniquely from the initial state to the final state. Thus, the final state in
28
See, e.g., I. Percival, Schrdingers Quantum Cat, Nature 351 (1991): 357ff. DNA
responds to quantum events, as when mutations are produced by single photons, with
consequences that may be macroscopicleukemia, for example.
29
Private communication.
30
This issue is separate from the further thorny problem of defining what a measure-
ment is, in a fully quantum system, and when it will take place. See, e.g., M.A. Morrison,
Altered States: The Great Measurement Mystery, in Understanding Quantum Physics:
A Users Manual (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990).
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 319
3.1. Cosmological
The first domain of action is the cosmological creative act:
31
This may or may not imply a specific event at t=0. Cf. the discussions in Physics,
Philosophy and Theology; and Quantum Cosmology.
32
As seen from within the universe. Seen from outside, this may well be no differ-
ent from Action 1.
320 george f.r. ellis
The initial act of creation, if there was one (i.e., if there was a t=0), may
properly be regarded as an extraordinary divine act, but in the past
rather than the present; it has taken place, rather than being ongoing.
The second (sustaining all events) is what underlies the predictable
nature of the laws of physics, as is required for meaningful moral
activity.33
Together these are the prerequisites and basis for ordinary divine
action; that is, divine action carried out through the means of regular
laws of behavior of the physical universe. The true creativity involved
in these acts is in the selection of the laws of physics, and in choosing
specific boundary conditions for them (whether in a single universe,
or in an ensemble of universes) that enable the desired results to be
attained (cf. CTNS/VO, v. I).
3.2. Functional
The laws of physics in the existent universe provide the basis for the
evolution and functioning of complex systems. They therefore allow
ordinary divine action, which is second-order or indirect action.
Its nature is fashioned by the laws of physics and the boundary condi-
tions; it is understood specifically that divine input in such ordinary
actiononce the system is runningis to maintain the regular function-
ing of nature in such a way that it is describable by means of scientific
laws, and therefore its results are largely determinate.34
In the relation of theoretical biology to fundamental physics, there
are three main kinds of issue: the functioning of general living systems,
evolution, and the issue of consciousness and free will. We will look
at these in turn.35
33
Ellis, The Theology of the Anthropic Principle, in Quantum Cosmology; and
Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridans Ass and Schrdingers Cat
(in this volume).
34
Quantum uncertainty and sensitive dependence on initial conditions to some
extent limit predictability and allow for indeterminacy.
35
The concerns of this section relate to the Anthropic Principle discussed in
Quantum Cosmology; the point is that not every set of laws of physics will allow life
to function.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 321
The basic mechanisms in all three cases are feedback controls operating
in hierarchically-structured complex systems, made of matter function-
ing according to the fundamental laws of physics, and in the first two
cases, organized according to digitally-coded information contained
in DNA.
The first and second are highly controlled processes; it is very unlikely
that chaotic mechanisms of any kind can play a significant role here.
Indeed the whole purpose of feedback organization is to damp out any
deviations from the desired developmental or physiological path; thus,
these processes are usually of an anti-chaotic nature when properly
functioning (they efficiently guide the system to a desired final state,
despite errors in initial data or disturbances that may occur). What
does occur here is self-organization, but based on very specific and
highly controlled mechanisms (e.g., a reaction-diffusion equation with
restricted boundary conditions, or cells moving over an extra-cellular
matrix). Given the laws of physics, these mechanisms for the operation
of life not only function but in some sense seem to be preferred solu-
tions of the physical equations: experience seems to show that physics
prefers life (e.g., simple organic molecules assemble themselves from
an appropriate primeval soup, providing the basis for more complex
molecules to form). However, it seems a reasonable view that no special
intervention is required to make all this happen; it is just the wonder
of ordinary divine action (cf. the next subsection).
The third case, ecology, is less well-controlled (as is well known),
and here chaotic effects may well happen. The most significant question
(apart from learning how to cope with them) is whether this played any
significant role in evolutionary processes, for example, by enhancing the
range of the environments to which living beings were subjected. That
will be a difficult question to answer; it may just as well have placed
evolution in jeopardy as assisted it in creating more complex beings.
36
Cf. Ellis in The Anthropic Principle: Proceedings of the Second Venice Conference
on Cosmology and Philosophy, ed. F. Bertola and U. Curi (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).
322 george f.r. ellis
37
See, e.g., Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986).
38
See, e.g., Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (London: Penguin Books,
1991).
39
Cf. L. Wolpert, The Triumph of the Embryo (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1990).
40
Dennett, Consciousness Explained, 18487. The basic point here is that if there
is a high peak of suitability associated with some specific brain wiring state but not
any nearby states, nevertheless nearby states will be more likely to survive because of
brain plasticity. Their initial wirings will alter during their lifetime, because of plastic-
ity of the brain connections, and will explore the region near where they start; all
those ending up at (or passing through?) the highly preferred state will be more likely
to survive than those that do not. But they will be more likely to end up there if they
start nearby.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 323
Given some explanation of what happens in the mind, one can then
envisage downward causation from intentions formed in the brain
acting to enable specific events to happen in the body: bodily condi-
tions alter, cells function in altered environments, different currents
flow and adjust electric potentials. Consequently muscles move, allow-
ing limbs to fulfill the intent in the mind and alter conditions in the
physical world. This clearly is a case of downward causation from the
brain to events in the body.42 The issue is how the mind relates to
the brain,43 a core question in terms of personal existence and meaning.
An open-minded investigation must consider four features that might
contribute (singly or together):
a. organized complexity,
b. chaotic motion (openness),
c. quantum uncertainty,
d. mental fields.
41
See R.E. Lenski and J.E. Mittler, The Directed Mutation Controversy and
Neo-Darwinism, Science 259 (1993): 188ff., for a discussion refuting directed mutation.
42
Cf. Kppers, Understanding Complexity; and Stoeger, Describing Gods
Action.
43
See, e.g., Squires, Conscious Mind; Dennett, Consciousness Explained; Edelman,
Bright Air, Brilliant Fire; Eccles, The Human Mystery; and Penrose, The Emperors
New Mind.
324 george f.r. ellis
44
See, Dennett, Consciousness Explained.
45
See, Penrose, The Emperors New Mind.
46
Cf. Tracy, Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps (in CTNS/VO, v. II).
47
See Campbell, Biology.
48
See Ellis, Before the Beginning, for further discussion.
49
See, e.g., Morrison, Understanding Quantum Physics, 7073, 8587, and 22628.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 325
for a lack of cause. For example, Morrison states, after discussing the
unsatisfactory state of the problem of measurement, that:
Underlying the problem of measurement there is a deeper question. As
a consequence of an ensemble measurement of an observable Q, the
original state collapses into one of the eigenstates of Q. The question
is, what mechanism determines which eigenstate a particular member
collapses into? According to the conventional epistemology of quantum
mechanics, the answer is that random chance governs what happens to
each member of an ensemble. Many (your author included) consider
this no answer at all.50
View III suggests rather that there is some cause: something not
contained in our current physical descriptions of quantum theory
determines the details of what happens in each specific case. This
something may be related to mind in two ways. First, indeterminism
is needed at the quantum level of nature if mind/consciousness is to
be effective in animals as in humankind,51 and it extends the possibil-
ity of a non-algorithmic kind of activity that is essential in a full view
of consciousness.52 Second, mind/consciousness could be necessary to
collapse the wave function and give a complete account of natural
events, which quantum physics by itself cannot supply.
The suggestion is that the apparent randomness of quantum theory
is not truly random but rather is a reflection of the operation of mind,
intricately linked to the unsolved problems of the observer in quantum
mechanics and the collapse of the wave function.53 Imbedded in a com-
plexly structured system, this provides the freedom for consciousness to
function, mind being allowed to determine some of the uncertainty
that quantum physics leaves open (thus being completely compatible
with quantum physics, but allowing some other level of order to act
in the physical world with openness). On this view one can maintain
that information entry from mental to physical levels of nature is,
for example, through the choice of when a quantum state will decay,
which, because of quantum uncertainty, is not determined by known
physical laws. This allows a transfer of information between levels of
the world without an expenditure of energy or a violation of the known
physical laws.
50
Ibid., 61718.
51
See, e.g., Squires, Conscious Mind; and Eccles, The Human Mystery.
52
See Penrose, The Emperors New Mind.
53
Squires, Conscious Mind.
326 george f.r. ellis
54
Ellis, Before the Beginning.
55
See Eccles, The Human Mystery.
56
Although complex problems of dualism then arise: if our minds and Gods can
both influence what happens, how do they compete for such influence? This would
have to be modeled on the basis of our understanding of the chosen mode of Gods
action. Cf. Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 327
Indeed view III is basically consonant with the view of special divine
action in Murphys paper.57
Second, and related to the first point, what is at stake here is the
closedness or openness of the physical world to other influencesnot
the rattle of a dice (as in view II) but the intervention of some pur-
poseful consciousness that is not wholly bound into physical systems.58
On the latter views, physics is not all that controls the functioning of
the physical universe: at higher levels of organization, information is
introduced that affects lower levels by top-down action. This theme
will be picked up again in the discussion of special divine action in
the next section, and later sections will consider how that higher-level
information could be inserted.
57
Murphy, Divine Action.
58
Tracy, Particular Providence.
59
Thich Nhat-Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual of Meditation (New
York: Random House, 1991), 12. This is also the standard viewpoint of nineteenth-
century liberal Protestantism (cf. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to
Its Cultured Despisers [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988]), and continues
in much of contemporary theology, in particular being part of the views of Peacocke
and Barbour.
60
I have to admit that it is almost impossible to make this statement precise and
give it a watertight justification. It is, however, highly plausible.
328 george f.r. ellis
61
Cf. the anthropic discussion in Quantum Cosmology.
62
By Cosmology I intend to refer to a more complete account of reality than that
provided by scientific cosmology. See Ellis, Before the Beginning.
63
Murphy, Evidence of Design.
64
Thus, all these events are subjectively special, in terms of the typology of modes
of divine action presented in Russells Introduction to CTNS/VO, v. II.
65
In terms of the typology of modes of divine action in the Introduction, CTNS/
VO, v. II they are objectively special.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 329
I identify two main themes here: revelatory insight and the possibility
of miracles proper, and consider them in turn.
66
Murphy, Divine Action.
67
Cf. Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
68
Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, ed. Wakefield.
69
See, e.g., Maurice Wiles, Religious Authority and Divine Action, in Gods Activity
in the World, ed. Owen Thomas (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983).
330 george f.r. ellis
70
Denis Edwards, Human Experience of God (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 5.
71
Ibid., 13; 28.
72
See Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of the Society of Friends
(London: Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 1972).
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 331
73
See, e.g., Edwards, Human Experience of God; and Murphy, Theology in The Age
of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), where this topic
is discussed in depth.
74
Cf. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age; idem, Gods Interaction with the
World; Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle; and Murphy and Ellis, Cosmology,
Theology, and Ethics.
332 george f.r. ellis
75
See Ellis, Before the Beginning.
76
See Murphy, Divine Action; and Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
77
Apart from giving humans insight that leads to purposeful action, as in Action 6.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 333
This is where the traditions differ most, the modern liberal view denying
their existence at all, in contrast to many more traditional views. They
may or may not occur (or have occurred in the past); we will return to
that issue in the next subsection. For the moment we simply consider
this as a possibility in a non-committed, open-minded way. In doing so,
we note that action 7a is the only possibility considered in this paper
that does not respect the laws of physics;78 all the rest do (they are all
strictly compatible with the regularities of those laws).
Considering the first type of exception (7a), these certainly are pos-
sible, although there may be a problem of interface with the rest of the
universe: If some exceptional interaction takes place in a space-time
domain U, then in general these illegitimate effects will causally
interact with events outside U, eventually spreading the consequences
to a large part of the universe. Problems could arise at the interface of
the region where the laws of physics hold and the region where they
are violated; for example, how are energy, momentum, and entropy
balances maintained there?
Leaving this technical issue aside, examples of what might conceivably
occur range from the Resurrection to altering the weather or making
someone well if they are ill. It is here that one needs to distinguish
different strands of the Christian tradition, and the various ways they
view the question of miracles. Some will take literally all the miracle
stories in the Old and the New Testaments; others will explain away
some, many, or even all of them. Supposing that they do occur, or have
occurred, one has then to face the thorny questions: What is the crite-
rion that justifies such special intervention? When would they indeed
occur? These issues will be picked up in the next sub-section.
The second type (7b) is quite possible in principle too, the classic
case being God affecting the weather through the butterfly effect but
within the known laws of physics. In its effect this is similar to the
previous possibility, but of course in practical terms this has to be seen
through the eyes of faith: no physical investigation could ever detect
the difference between such action and chance effect, even if it was
clear that the desired rain had fallen just after a major prayer meeting
called to petition God for an end to the drought. Thus, one has here the
possibility of an uncertainty effect deliberately maintained in order
78
In terms of the types of modes of divine action, these are objectively special
interventionist events.
334 george f.r. ellis
79
Perhaps this corresponds to the non-basic objectively special events identified in
the typology of divine action.
80
It is not possible in the space available here to do justice to the debates on the
enormous hermeneutical and historical problems concerning the miracles reportedly
performed by Jesus, and their relation not only to enlightenment science but also to
the problems of interpreting ancient, often contradictory, texts.
81
Such an occurance is allowed and possible because the laws are the expression
of the will of God, who could therefore suspend them if he/she wished. See Murphy,
Divine Action.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 335
problem of evil, brought to special focus by the claim that the laws that
enable it to take place are the optional choice of God.
In broadest terms,82 the solution has to be that greater good comes
out of the arrangement we see, based on the unwavering imposition
of regularities all or almost all the time, even though that conclusion
may not be obvious from our immediate point of view. For example,
death is not so important when life is considered in a full perspective
that takes into account the promise of resurrection. More particularly
the regularity and predictability gained by the laws of physics must be
seen as the necessary path to create beings with independent existence
incorporating freedom of will and the possibility of freely making a
moral and loving response.83 Pain and evil are the price to be paid both
for the existence of the miracle of the ordinary (cf. the previous section)
and for allowing the magnificent possibility of free, sacrificial response.
But thenif miracles do occurthe issue is why on some occasions
this apparently unchanging law should be broached; this would strongly
suggest a capriciousness in Gods action, in terms of sometimes decid-
ing to intervene but mostly deciding not to do so.
What one would like hereif one is to make sense of the idea of
miraclesis some kind of rock-solid criterion of choice underlying such
decisions to act in a miraculous manner,84 for if there is the necessity
to hold to these laws during the times of the persecutions and Hitlers
Final Solution, during famines and floods, in order that true morality
be possible, then how can it be that sometimes this iron necessity can
fade away and allow turning water to wine, or the raising of Lazarus?
Here as before I am not going to deal directly with the enormous
hermeneutical problems of interpreting texts on miracles. Instead I
am asking a different kind of question. If we are to be able to make
any sense whatsoever of these miracles, what one would like to have
is some kind of almost inviolable rule that such exceptions shall not
82
Cf. Stoeger, Describing Gods Action.
83
See John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (New York: Macmillan, 1977); Murphy,
Divine Action; Stoeger, Describing Gods Action; and Ellis, Theology of the
Anthropic Principle.
84
These are criteria from our limited viewpoint, being applied to Gods activity.
Stoeger points out we must realize that in considering this, what appears to us to
be intervention may not be so from Gods viewpoint; and that while in some sense
through revelation, God has given us access to his/her point of view, this is only a
limited access.
336 george f.r. ellis
Assertion 1: Exceptional divine action (7) can take place only in the case
of events that make a unique and vital difference to the future evolution
of humanity as a whole, and/or its understanding of the action of God,
significantly influencing the entire future of humankind.
This does not include making rain in a drought-stricken area, stop-
ping slaughters, or saving children from starvation, but could include
the Resurrection of Christ as one of the most important ways of God
communicating with humanity about the nature of life here and after.
It could just conceivably include some steering of biological evolution
at vital junctures (cf. 4) in a way compatible with the laws of physics
(cf. 7b), although in that case it would be impossible to prove that this
steering had ever happened; believing this to be so would be an act of
faith. The alternative, suggested in my previous paper,85 is:
Assertion 1a: Exceptional divine action (7) never takes place, but action
(6) does. Then extraordinary divine action must always be in the form
of provision of pre-images of right action or of ultimate reality, as
freely attested in the spiritual tradition, thereby guiding and assisting
free agents as they struggle to understand the world; the miraculous
option, although possible, would not be used. This view somewhat
assuages the problem of evil in that the charge of capriciousness is
removed: the same laws always holdimplemented in order that free-
dom and morality can exist. Regularity is always there, and the rights
of matter are always respected.
I suggest that what is needed here is a testing and examination of
such possible views, looking again, systematically, at the different kinds
of claims about miraculous intervention and whether they would or
would not be permitted by the criterion being considered, and what
the moral and religious implications are (a centuries-old debate). As
emphasized previously, this would be tantamount to choosing between
various viewpoints on the nature of Christianity. My own present
preference has been made clear above: I would exclude interventions
7a and 7b, because otherwise the charge of capriciousness becomes
85
Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 337
86
Apart from a point made by Willem Drees about respecting the integrity of sci-
ence, relevant to 7a. See Willem Drees, Gaps for God? (CTNS/VO, v. II).
338 george f.r. ellis
87
See Polkinghorne, Science and Providence; and Stoeger, Describing Gods
Action.
88
In Russells terms, this is a time-dependent miracle.
89
Murphy, Divine Action.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 339
90
Polkinghorne, Science and Providence; Stoeger, Describing Gods Action.
340 george f.r. ellis
intentions are made a reality, and where the causal nexus could be
whereby this top-down action could be initiated in the world (whatever
interpretation one may give to the concept of special divine action).
It is essential here to distinguish two rather different kinds of down-
ward causation. Firstly, there is generic downward causation: this
influences a whole range of events through alteration of operational
conditions in a region (e.g., variation in temperature or pressure or
magnetic fields affects the way matter responds). Most of the examples
mentioned by Kppers are of this kind.91 This kind of general top-down
influence alters conditions over a wide range of events in a region, and
affects them all.
By contrast, there is specific or directed downward causation, which
influences very specific events as occurs, for example, in the human body
or complex machinery and is essential to their functioning. Instances
include brain action to move a specific muscle in the body, a command
to a computer that activates a particular relay or sensor, or hitting a
specific typewriter or organ key that effects the desired result. In each
of these cases a very specific local change in environment (current flow,
pH levels, etc.) is effected, which causes proximate events to proceed
in a specific way that is very localized and directed. This is possible
through specific communication channels (nerves in a human body,
bus lines in a computer, wires in a telephone exchange, or fiber optics
in an aircraft) conveying messages from the command center to the
desired point of activity.92
The point here is that setting boundary conditions at the beginning
of the universe can achieve generic downward action but not specific
action. An event such as influencing a mental state requires specific
acts, changing circumstances in a locally highly specific way, rather
than an overall change in the boundary conditions (a change in tem-
perature, for example). I reject the possibility of setting special initial
conditions at the beginning of the universe (t=0) to make this happen.
While this is theoretically possible, it would amount to solving the
problems involved in a reversal of the arrow of time. It would require
setting precisely coordinated initial conditions over a wide area of the
universe so as to come together at the right time and place in such a
way as to achieve the desired effect, despite all the interactions and
91
Kppers, Understanding Complexity.
92
Cf. Beer, Brain of the Firm.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 341
interfering effects that will have taken place from the hot early uni-
verse, where the mean free path even for neutrinos is extremely small,
up to the present day, where the possibility of agents acting with free
will implies an essential unpredictability in the environment within
which this distant effect will be propagating. This tuning would in fact
be impossible to accomplishwith the usual arrow of timefor one
highly specific event, let alone a whole series of such events, each to be
accomplished independently. According to Oliver Penrose,93 this feature
is the essential foundation of the second law of thermodynamics, based
on a lack of correlations in initial conditions in the past (in contrast to
the existence of such correlations in the corresponding final conditions
in the future). This law can in principle be confounded; for example,
one could reverse the motion of molecules from a fallen and broken
glass to reassemble it. In practice, however, this is not possible94or
at least not without special directed intervention.
Thus, the specific top-down action needed requires either specifically
directed lines of access to particular nerve cells (as in the physiology
of the human body), or a universal presence with detailed and specific
knowledge of and access to each atom (as conveyed by the idea of
the immanent presence of God). The latter is what is required for the
Christian tradition to make sense as envisaged in Murphys essay in
this volume. Thus, in order for any of the special action discussed
in the previous section to be possible (and specifically the provision of
pre-images of ultimate reality or notions of spirituality to a persons
mind), the interaction must be such as to provide highly directed
information and influence, rather than some broad, overall top-down
influence.
93
Oliver Penrose, Foundations of Statistical Mechanics, Reports on Progress in
Physics 42 (1979): 19372006.
94
See Penrose, Emperors New Mind.
342 george f.r. ellis
95
This seems to be implied by Peacockes proposals, but it raises problematic aspects
in terms of its interaction with normal physics.
96
See Murphy, Divine Action; Tracy, Particular Providence; and Squires,
Conscious Mind.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 343
97
Murphy, Divine Action.
98
Peacocke, Gods Interaction with the World.
344 george f.r. ellis
The analysis supports the proposal of Murphy and Tracy that quan-
tum uncertainty is a, perhaps even the only, vehicle through which spe-
cial divine action (particularly as experienced in revelatory acts affecting
human minds) can take place as required by many religious traditions.
This provides an important part of the foundation of Christian spiritual-
ity. It also supports view III above as to the functioning of the brain,99
which seems to be a closely related issue.
6. Evidence
The final topic I wish to discuss briefly is the issue of supporting evi-
dence for these views.100 It is clear from the nature of the argument that
some aspects are compatible both with chance and with divine action;
they will only be seen in the latter context through the eye of faith.
But what then is the starting point for our discussion of the nature of
faith? Furthermore, in view of conflicting standpoints, whose doctrine
of faith and whose practice will one accept and why?
This is the whole issue of apologetics, which cannot be dealt with
properly here.101 However, some key points can be made. The suggestion
will be that the Christian Anthropic Principle102 selects a particular
viewpoint based on the theme of self-sacrifice or kenosis,103 which
structures the argument and opts for specific Christian traditions from
among the competitors. We can present the analysis in summary form
by referring to the implied scheme of top-down action, with emergent
layers of description and meaning,104 that arises from that discussion.
The structure envisaged is one of layers of meaning and morality as
shown in Figure 5 (on following page).
Top-down causation is active in this hierarchy in terms of action and
meaning. The fundamental intention of the creator shapes the structure
and brings into being the physical foundations. The interactions at the
physical level are the basis for all the higher levels of order (through
99
Cf. Squires, Conscious Mind; and Penrose, Emperors New Mind.
100
Cf. section 2 of Murphys paper.
101
A systematic presentation is given in Murphy and Ellis, Cosmology, Theology,
and Ethics.
102
Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle, section 6.
103
The different levels of kenosis are discussed in K.M. Cronin, Kenosis: Emptying
Self and the Path of Christian Service (Rockport, MA: Element, 1992).
104
Cf. section 2 above.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 345
Level 1: Spiritual/religious
Spiritual values: Data 1
kenosis in relation to transcendence
Level 2: Moral/ethical
Ethical values: Data 2
kenosis in relation to others: serving
Level 5: Biological
Levels of biological organization: life Data 5
self-organization, evolution
Level 6: Physical
Level of physical entities and action Data 6
regularities of physical law
Figure 5. Hierarchinal structuring of meaning and morality in the Universe.
Top-down and bottom-up action occur as in the other hierarchically structured
systems, leading to emergent meaning at the higher levels as indicated. The
data at each level must be in terms of the kinds of concepts and meanings
appropriate at that level.
346 george f.r. ellis
105
See Anthony N. Flew, Thinking about Social Thinking: Escaping Deception, Resisting
Self-Deception (London: Harper Collins, 1991), for a discussion of the dangers of such
selective choices.
106
See Murphy, Divine Action; and Ellis, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
107
Cf. Ellis, Before the Beginning; and idem, Theology of the Anthropic Principle.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 347
108
This is really an aspect of W. Ross-Ashbys law of requisite variety. See his
Introduction to Cybernetics (London: Chapman & Hall, 1956); and Beer, Brain of the
Firm.
348 george f.r. ellis
7. Conclusion
109
I see Murphys paper as being complementary to my own (Theology of the
Anthropic Principle). I regard the two as being (in broad terms) in agreement with
each other and with others in CTNS/VO, v. II, for example, that of Tracy.
110
I am here avoiding an explicit reference to free evil spirits, e.g., a Devil operating
independently of God, or to the Jungian alternative of a dark side of God. This could
be one of the areas where various Christian traditions differ strongly from each other,
possibly leading to significant variations of the theme proposed in Murphys paper.
111
Polkinghorne, Science and Providence; Stoeger, Describing Gods Action.
ordinary and extraordinary divine action 349
112
I thank all the members of the second Vatican Observatory/CTNS conference
for the stimulating interaction with them that has led to the thoughts presented in this
paper. I am particularly grateful to Bill Stoeger, Bob Russell, and Nancey Murphy for
detailed comments on the manuscript, which have led to major improvements.
CHAPTER TEN
1. Introduction
In this essay, I will explore further a thesis about divine action and
quantum mechanics whose roots trace back four decades in the field
of theology and science.1 It has been extensively developed recently
by scholars in the decade-long CTNS/Vatican Observatory series of
research conferences. The thesis is the following: if quantum mechan-
ics is interpreted philosophically in terms of ontological indetermin-
ism (as found in one form of the Copenhagen interpretation), one
can construct a bottom-up, noninterventionist, objective approach2
to mediated direct divine action in which Gods indirect acts of gen-
eral and special providence at the macroscopic level arise in part, at
least, from Gods objective direct action at the quantum level both in
sustaining the time-development of elementary processes as governed
1
For historical background, see Robert J. Russell, Special Providence and Genetic
Mutation: A New Defense of Theistic Evolution, in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology:
Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, R.J. Russell, W.R. Stoeger, and F.J. Ayala, eds.
(Vatican City State/Berkeley, Calif.: Vatican Observatory/Center for Theology and the
Natural Sciences, 1998), secs. 2.3.12, the volume hereafter EMB.
2
For a discussion of such terms as objective and noninterventionist, see Robert
J. Russell, Introduction, in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine
Action, R.J. Russell, N.C. Murphy, and A. Peacocke, eds. (Vatican City State/Berkeley,
Calif.: Vatican Observatory/Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1995),
secs. 3.3 and 3.4, esp. figure 1, the volume hereafter CAC. For an anthology and
careful analysis of the contemporary theological literature on divine action see Owen
Thomas, ed., Gods Activity in the World: The Contemporary Problem (Chico, Calif.:
Scholars Press, 1983), hereafter GAW, and idem, Recent Thought on Divine Agency,
in Divine Action, B. Hebblethwaite and E. Henderson, eds. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1990). For a detailed analysis of the philosophical problems involved, see Keith Ward,
Divine Action (London: Collins, 1990), and Thomas F. Tracy, ed., The God Who Acts:
Philosophical and Theological Explorations (University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State
University, 1994).
352 robert john russell
2. Clarifications
3
For a discussion of how a bottom-up approach relates to possible top-down
approaches, as well as why a bottom-up approach is essential in the context of the
early evolution of life, see Russell, Introduction, in CAC, sec. 4.3.
divine action and quantum mechanics 353
essay will focus on bottom-up causality, like most scholars I believe that
a combination of all three will eventually be needed for an adequate
account of objective, noninterventionist divine action.
In the bottom-up approach, God is thought of as acting at a lower
level of complexity in nature to influence the processes and properties
at a higher level. To qualify as a noninterventionist approach, the lower
level must be interpretable philosophically as ontologically indeter-
ministic. A number of scholars4 have focused on quantum mechanics
because it deals with the lowest levels in nature (i.e., fundamental par-
ticles and physical interactions) and because it can be given such an
interpretation. Their work will serve as sources for the current essay.
First, however, I need to stress what the approach adopted in this essay
does not claim.
1. This approach does not explain how God acts or even consti-
tute an argument that God acts.5 Instead it assumes that warrants for
the belief in divine action come from extended theological arguments
4
Karl Heim, The Transformation of the Scientific World (London: SCM Press,
1953); Eric L. Mascall, Christian Theology and Natural Science: Some Questions in Their
Relations (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1956); William G. Pollard, Chance and
Providence: Gods Action in a World Governed by Scientific Law (London: Faber and
Faber, 1958); Mary Hesse, On the Alleged Incompatibility Between Christianity and
Science, in Man and Nature, Hugh Montefiore, ed. (London: Collins, 1975); Donald
M. MacKay, Chance and Providence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); Nancey
Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridans Ass and Schrdingers
Cat, 32558, Thomas F. Tracy, Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps,
289324, and George F. Ellis, Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action: The Nexus
of Interaction, 35996, all three in CAC; Ian G. Barbour, Five Models of God and
Evolution, EMB, 41942; see as far back as idem, Issues in Science and Religion (New
York: Harper & Row, 1971); Mark W. Worthing, God, Creation, and Contemporary
Physics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), esp. 13046; Christopher F. Mooney,
Theology and Scientific Knowledge: Changing Models of Gods Presence in the World
(Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1996), esp. chap. 3, 10810; Philip Clayton, God and
Contemporary Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), esp. chap. 7,
8. Some scholars have raised objections to the approach taken by these scholars. See,
for example, Arthur Peacocke, Gods Interaction with the World: The Implications
of Deterministic Chaos and of Interconnected and Interdependent Reality, in CAC,
27981. For an interesting recent response to Peacocke in terms of quantum indeter-
minacy, see John J. Davis, Quantum Indeterminacy and the Omniscience of God,
Science and Christian Belief 9.2 (October 1997): 12944. and Peacockes reply in the
same volume. See also John C. Polkinghorne, The Metaphysics of Divine Action, in
CAC, esp. 1523, articles in Niels H. Gregersen et al., eds., Studies in Science & Theology
1996: Yearbook of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, vols. 3
and 4, The Concept of Nature in Science & Theology, Parts I and II (Geneva: Labor et
Fides, 1997), articles in Science and Christian Belief 7.2 (October 1995), and George
Murphy, Does the Trinity Play Dice? Zygon 51.1 (March 1999).
5
See Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, sec. 4.1.
354 robert john russell
6
Michael Ruse, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? The Relationship Between Science
and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 868, 912, provides a
thoughtful and often conciliatory approach to the relations between Darwinism and
theism. Unfortunately, though, he reiterates the charge that the appeal to quantum
mechanics is an epistemic form of the gaps argument without discussing previous
responses by Tracy, Ellis, Murphy, and myself. He adds to it the claim that it raises
the problem of theodicy. I think the latter is a valid point, but again, it is one that I
have discussed in Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, sec. 5.2, and that I treat
in some detail below.
7
Here I am again following Tracys usage in his Particular Providence, sec. 1.1.
divine action and quantum mechanics 355
acts within these natural processes and together with natural causes to
bring them about.
The theological warrants for a noninterventionist account of divine
action include the following: objective special providence is achieved
without contradicting general providence (since Gods particular acts,
being noninterventionist, do not violate or suspend Gods routine
acts as represented in the laws of nature); God as the transcendent
creator ex nihilo of the universe as a whole is the immanent on-going
creator of each part (creatio continua); Gods intentions are disclosed
in what we know, not in what we dont know, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer
urged;8 noninterventionist objective special divine action offers a robust
response to atheistic challenges to the intelligibility and credibility of
Christian faith, since the presence of chance in nature does not imply
an absent God and a pointless world but an ever-present God acting
with purpose in the world.
3. It does not reduce God to a natural cause, nor does Gods direct9
action at the quantum level give rise to phenomena that cannot be
explained by science. It affirms that science is characterized by meth-
odological naturalism, and thus it abstains from viewing God as an
explanation within science.10 Instead, Gods direct action at the quantum
level is hidden in principle from science, supporting the integrity of
science and yet allowing science to be integrated fruitfully into con-
structive theology where God as an explanation of natural events is
appropriately and fully developed.
8
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, enlarged ed. (London: SCM
Press, 1972/1979), 311. See Tracy, Particular Providence, 289.
9
God may be thought of as acting directly at the quantum level (more precisely, the
effects of Gods direct action may occur at the quantum level). The events we attribute
to God at the macroscopic level are their indirect result. A direct, or basic, act is one
for which there is no prior act (such as willing my arm to move), and one which may
initiate a sequence of acts resulting in an indirect act (such as my arm moving). Thus
divine acts of general and special providence at the ordinary, classical level are medi-
ated and indirect divine acts that arise from Gods direct acts mediated in, through,
and by quantum processes. Such providential acts can equally be seen as a form of
Gods ongoing, continuous creative action. See Tracy, Particular Providence and the
God of the Gaps, in CAC, 2956.
10
This approach thus differs from that of Intelligent Design since it does not
introduce concepts such as agency or designer into scientific theory. Instead it argues
that when quantum physics is introduced into theology through the lens of philosophy,
it offers a new theological approach to noninterventionist divine action.
356 robert john russell
11
Nicholas T. Saunders, Does God Cheat at Dice? Divine Action and Quantum
Possibilities, Zygon 35.4 (September 2000): 51744, offers a helpful overview of the
kinds of interpretations of quantum physics and of the theological notions of provi-
dence and divine action. He then delineates four ways of relating divine action and
quantum mechanics. The first three are the ones I have mentioned here: that God alters
the wavefunction between measurements, makes measurements on a given system, or
alters the probabilities of obtaining a particular result. They do not seem to describe
the actual positions of any of the principal scholars in theology and science, nor does
Saunders claim that they do.
I agree with Saunders that I and several others probably fit into his fourth approach:
as Sanders puts it, God ignores the probabilities predicted by orthodox quantum
mechanics and simply controls the outcomes of particular measurements. (I would
rather say that God acts with nature to bring about the outcomes of particular mea-
surements consistent with the probabilities given before the event occurs.) Saunders
acknowledges that he does not find any specific problems with this approach, except
that it requires us to work within a particular philosophical position. I agree with
him, but I think that this is unavoidable. I have discussed this problem extensively in
previous publications and return to it below.
12
One can think of God as acting either in, through, and together with the pro-
cesses of nature (mediated) or as acting unilaterally (unmediated). In the latter case,
often called occasionalism, all events in the world occur solely through Gods action.
Occasionalism denies that there are natural causes in the world and undercuts the
importance of science in discovering and in representing them mathematically. As
Murphy stresses, any adequate account of divine action must avoid both occasionalism
and deism (in which Gods action is restricted to a single event, the beginning of the
world); Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order, 332.
13
Again, what is crucial here is that the inclusion of a philosophical interpretation
is not an option; the only option is which interpretation is to be chosen.
14
Chris J. Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory: Mathematical and Structural
Foundations (London: Imperial College Press, 1995), 1312; Paul Davies, Quantum
Mechanics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), 4; Ian G. Barbour, Religion in
an Age of Science (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 123.
divine action and quantum mechanics 357
15
For earlier detailed discussion see Robert John Russell, Quantum Physics in
Philosophical and Theological Perspective, in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A
Common Quest for Understanding, R.J. Russell, W.R. Stoeger, and G.V. Coyne, eds.
(Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1988), hereafter Quantum
Physics; idem, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation. How macroscopic phe-
nomena first arose out of the quantum processes of the very early universe remains
a profound problem. Here I simply take it for granted that we can describe both our
ordinary experience using classical science and our subatomic data using quantum
physics, and look to their relation.
358 robert john russell
16
Technically, superfluidity and superconductivity involve both FD and BE statistics,
as Carl York pointed out (private communications). FD and BE statistics are intimately
connected to the indistinguishability of fundamental particles (all electrons are identi-
cal) and their spin: y is anti-symmetrized for fermions (which carry odd spin) and
symmetrized for bosons (which carry even spin). Indistinguishability and spin, in turn,
are strictly quantum features, and yet they too can be seen as giving rise to the ordinary
features of the classical world. The space-like correlations in these statistics are also
intimately related to the problem of nonlocality in quantum physics, as Bells theorem
reveals (discussed below). A full discussion of spin-statistics requires a relativistic treat-
ment of quantum physics, such as given by Dirac. Thus, in a strict sense, it lies outside
the confines of nonrelativistic quantum physics, although quantum statistics can be
warranted at least in part on the basis of indistinguishability.
17
FD statistics, 1/(eE/kT + 1), and BE statistics, 1/(eE/kT 1), both approach Boltzmann
statistics, namely 1/eE/kT, at energies E >> kT. Here E is the energy of the system, k is
Boltzmanns constant and T is the equilibrium temperature of the system. At low
energies, BE statistics still resemble the classical form, but FD statistics are strikingly
different. See for example figures 11:13 and table 11:1 in Robert Eisberg and Robert
Resnick, Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1974), chap. 11.
18
Here, bulk properties of solids, liquids, and gases were derived mathematically
from a statistical treatment of the deterministic interactions between their component
parts (e.g., the kinetic theory of gases).
divine action and quantum mechanics 359
19
God may act at other levels in nature should they, too, be open to an indeter-
minis-tic interpretation. This would apply most clearly in the domain of neurophysi-
ology and thus involve an analysis of the neuro- and cognitive sciences. See Robert
J. Russell, Nancey Murphy, Theo Meyering, and Michael A. Arbib, eds., Neuroscience
and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican City State/Berkeley,
Calif.: Vatican Observatory/Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1999),
hereafter NAP.
20
George Ellis makes this same point nicely in CTNS/VO, v. V sec. 2.1; note his
references as well. See also Russell, Quantum Physics, 3446; Murphy, Divine Action
in the Natural Order, sec. 4.3; Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation,
sec. 2.3.2.
21
See Russell, Quantum Physics. It is widely asserted that individual quantum
events always average out at the macroscopic level, thus making quantum mechanics
irrelevant to special providence and human free will. Instead, the Schrdinger cat
argument provides an elegant way to combine both general and special providence on
the same quantum template.
22
Ellis actually discusses two possibilities: (i) coherent firings in large arrays of neu-
rons leading to a holistic response in a region of the brain (here amplification is an
almost inappropriate term), and (ii) localized firings in microtubules that are amplified
to macroscopic effect, following the suggestions of Roger Penrose; see George F.R. Ellis,
Intimations of Transcendence: Relations of the Mind and God, in NAP, 472; idem,
Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action, in CAC, 36971.
360 robert john russell
3. Methodological Issues
23
See Ellis, in this volume, sec. 2; Barbour, Five Models of God and Evolution, in
EMB, 426. For an extended discussion of quantum mechanics, evolutionary biology,
and divine action see Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation.
24
Polkinghorne, Metaphysics of Divine Action, section 4.1. Also see Polkinghornes
contribution to this volume, secs. 4 and 5. See also Fred Sanders, The Image of the
Immanent Trinity: Implications of Rahners Rule for a Theological Interpretation of
Scripture (Berkeley: GTU dissertation, unpublished, 2000), 540. Although quantum
chaos is not a problem for the present approach relating divine action and quantum
physics, it is a serious problem when one tries to relate chaos theory, at least in its
present state, to divine action, particularly when an appeal is made to quantum physics
to provide those variations in initial conditions of specifically chaotic systems that give
rise to the appearance of openness in deterministic, closed systems.
25
As Barbour notes, most authors who explore this approach also insist on eventually
combining these approaches; Barbour, Five Models of God and Evolution, 4323.
divine action and quantum mechanics 361
26
I agree with Murphys 1995 assessment that Arthur Peacocke has given the most
compelling account to date of the role of top-down causation in accounting for Gods
continuing action. Her reference was to Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, to
which could now be added a variety of his articles, including Biological Evolution
A Positive Theological Appraisal, in EMB, 35776, and The Sound of Sheer Silence:
How Does God Communicate with Humanity? in NAP, 21548. See Murphy, Divine
Action in the Natural Order, 326, fn. 3.
362 robert john russell
27
Murphy outlines similar problems with a strictly top-down approach to divine
action in Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order, 4.1.
divine action and quantum mechanics 363
28
Actually this is a concrete example of the multiple interpretability and historical
relativity that inevitably surround any scientific theory. How these factors affect the
philosophical and theological discussions of a scientific theory is a crucial methodologi-
cal issue lying at the heart of any conversation about theology and science. A decision
regarding it is required of every scholar in the field. I will try to describe mine here,
though all too briefly. See also Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation,
sec. 4.2; idem, Quantum Physics.
29
But note Berrys careful discussion of this issue in CTNS/VO, v. V.
364 robert john russell
has pointed out.30 Thus their arguments, too, are fundamentally flawed.
So sticking only with proven theories is out.
As is well known, quantum mechanics can be given a variety of philo-
sophical interpretations.31 The Copenhagen interpretation is, arguably,
the most widely held view by physicists and philosophers of science.
According to Jim Cushing, it essentially involves complementarity (e.g.,
wave-particle duality), inherent indeterminism at the most fundamental
level of quantum phenomena, and the impossibility of an event-by-
event causal representation in a continuous spacetime background.32
Although rooted in the work of Niels Bohr, the term Copenhagen inter-
pretation includes several distinct versions. Bohr himself stressed the
epistemic limitations on what we can know about quantum processes.
Compared with their effortless union in classical physics, spacetime
description and causal explanation become complementary (necessary
but mutually exclusive) aspects of a quantum account of microscopic
processes.33 Bohr also believed that quantum formalism applies to
individual systems, compared with Einsteins statistical view in which
the formalism applies to ensembles only.34 Heisenberg both supported
the completeness of quantum mechanics and developed his own realist,
30
George F.R. Ellis, The Thinking Underlying the New Scientific World-Views,
in EMB, 25180.
31
In 1966, Ian Barbour provided what is still one of the most helpful surveys of
these interpretations. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, chap. 10, sec. III. See also
Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, 1014. For a more recent and accessible account
see Nicholas Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (Garden City, N.Y.:
Anchor Press; Doubleday, 1985). For a technical survey of the philosophical problems in
quantum physics see Jammer, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics; Michael Redhead,
Incompleteness, Nonlocality, and Realism: A Prolegomenon to the Philosophy of Quantum
Mechanics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); James T. Cushing and Ernan McMullin,
eds., Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on Bells Theorem
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989); Abner Shimony, Conceptual
Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, in The New Physics, Paul Davies, ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989); James T. Cushing, Quantum Mechanics: Historical
Contingency and the Copenhagen Hegemony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1994); Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory.
32
Cushing, Quantum Mechanics, 24.
33
In his famous 1927 Como lecture Bohr argued that the spacetime coordination
and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, [are]
complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization
of observation and definition respectively. For a convenient source and translation,
see Jammer, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, 8694. See also Cushing, Quantum
Mechanics, 28.
34
See Cushing, Quantum Mechanics, for a discussion of Leslie Ballentines argu-
ments about Bohr versus Einstein. Cushing views Stapps interpretation as close to
Ballentines statistical approach.
divine action and quantum mechanics 365
35
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
(New York: Harper, 1958); idem, Physics and Beyond (New York: Harper & Row,
1971). Heisenberg apparently had a two truths view of the relation between science
and religion, with religion as a set of ethical principles. See for example idem, Across
the Frontiers, Peter Heath, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974/1971), chap. XVI.
He also argued that the extension of scientific methods of thought far beyond their
legitimate limits of application led to the much deplored division between science and
religion; idem, Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett
Publications, 1952), chap. 1.
36
Henry Margenau, Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Interpretations of
the Quantum Theory, Physics Today 7 (1954), quoted in Barbour, Issues in Science
and Religion, 3034.
37
Cushing, Quantum Mechanics, 32.
38
What is particularly interesting here is that Shimony not only argues for one
philosophical interpretation against its competitors, but that he allows his philosophical
commitments (i.e., to realism) to drive his scientific research program in new direc-
tions that seek to revise current physics; Shimony, Search for a Worldview which
can Accommodate Our Knowledge of Microphysics, in Philosophical Consequences
of Quantum Theory, Cushing and McMullin, eds., 2537, esp. 34. His interest in a
modified version of quantum mechanics provides an excellent example of how ones
philosophical and theological commitments can play a positive influence in the con-
struction of new and empirically successful scientific theories. In essence, the creative
mutual interaction between theology, philosophy, and science can include not only
366 robert john russell
40
See again Shimony, Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, 34.
368 robert john russell
41
Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory, chap. 8.
42
Butterfield, in CTNS/VO, v. V describes four strategies to solve the measure-
ment problem: modify the Schrdinger equation or ascribe additional (though not
hidden) variables, and pursue each assuming that the macrorealm is either definite
or not definite.
divine action and quantum mechanics 369
of the wavefunction and its implications for divine action below, I will
stress again the challenge posed to a realist interpretation.43
43
An excellent example of the challenge that quantum mechanics poses to realism is
given by the wavefunction y. On the one hand, y can be thought of as a mathematical
function defined on a multidimensional configuration space; for n particles, configura-
tion space is 3n-dimensional. Thus to represent the quantum state of two particles in
three dimensional physical space requires a six-dimensional configuration space. From
this perspective, a realist (versus, say, a Platonic) interpretation of y is problematic at
best. (Abstraction increases as one moves from configuration space to Hilbert space).
On the other hand, elementary texts on quantum mechanics routinely treat y as a physi-
cal wave in ordinary three-dimensional space, and not without precedent: de Broglie
favored a physicalist interpretation of quantum waves, while Schrdinger (and later
Bohm) recognized their imbedding in configuration space. For an excellent discus-
sion and references, see Cushing, Quantum Mechanics. For the difference between de
Broglie and Schrdinger, see Cushings comments, 105 (and fn. 72) and 120. Cushing
tells us (124) that Schrdinger began with a realist interpretation of the wavefunction,
but quickly ran into the problems posed by its configuration space context. For the
gloss on Bohm, see 149.
44
Since we are working within the Copenhagen interpretation, we have not invoked
consciousness in accounting for the measurement process. Thus references to macro
might involve laboratory instruments, but not conscious observers per se. However,
see Butterfield, in CTNS/VO, v. V for complex ways of including consciousness in the
analysis of measurement.
370 robert john russell
45
Measurement involves an intervention by our everyday world into the quantum
world (Polkinghorne, The Quantum World, 60). Also, see him in CTNS/VO, v. V,
secs. 1 and 4.
46
Although phenomena such as superfluidity and superconductivity are not specifi-
cally what I mean by micro-macro interactions, they do, as Ellis in CTNS/VO, v. V
points out, represent essentially quantum effects at the macro level.
47
Note here the crucial role of irreversibility in defining measurement. In order to
distinguish a measurement from the ordinary time-development of a quantum system
as governed by the Schrdinger equation, we must refer to irreversibility. But this term
is usually borrowed from thermodynamics, which reflects yet another profound prob-
lem at the heart of quantum physics: thermodynamics is, arguably, not a fundamental
theory, whereas quantum physics is. Why, therefore, would irreversibility play such a
fundamental role in quantum physics? For the sake of this essay, I will use irrevers-
ible as though its meaning were self-evident, although this is overtly not the case. For
a complex discussion, see Michael Berrys essay in CTNS/VO, v. V.
divine action and quantum mechanics 371
48
As is well known, one attempt to address this problem was to assume two separate
ontologies: classical and quantum. The Schrdinger equation governed the latter, but
not the former. Thus when classical objects were seen as interacting with quantum
processes, a measurementin both restricted (laboratory) and general (micro-macro)
sensesoccurred. The problem is that if we insist that classical objects are made of
quantum processes, the basis for the ontological distinction breaks down and the
measurement problem remains.
372 robert john russell
49
I will return to this point in my critique of process philosophy /theology below.
50
Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, 304; note his reference to Northrop.
51
In a similar way Ellis acknowledges the unsettled issues surrounding measurement
but proceeds to discuss quantum physics and divine causality; see Ellis, Ordinary and
Extraordinary Divine Action, 369.
divine action and quantum mechanics 373
5. Theological Issues
52
A fuller warrant for including the discussion of FD and BE statistics would require
relativistic quantum mechanics, and this lies beyond the scope of this essay; here we sim-
ply have introduced it in relation to the symmetry properties of the wavefunction.
374 robert john russell
53
When applied to the realm of molecular and evolutionary biology, the relations
are further complicated, since the micro-macro processes are involved in all geno-
typic-phenotypic relations, including those that have little effect on a species, as well
as those that, accumulated over time, lead to species differentiation and in turn to
what might be called general and special providence. See Russell, Special Providence
and Genetic Mutation.
54
See in particular Arthur Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979) and his many subsequent publications.
55
Ilya Prigogines order out of chaos program, adapted so creatively by Peacocke.
divine action and quantum mechanics 375
56
See Polkinghorne, Metaphysics of Divine Action, 1523, and secs. 4, 5 of
Polkinghornes contribution to CTNS/VO, v. V where he uses the term episodic to
describe the limitations of this approach. Sanders apparently agrees with Polkinghornes
claim that measurements are relatively infrequent events, and thus any theory of divine
action linked to them is likely to be highly episodic in nature. Sanders, The Image of
the Immanent Trinity, 541, 5323. I have previously responded to this claim in some
detail. See Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, particularly sec. 3.2.
376 robert john russell
57
See my previous response in Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, 2112.
There I did not mean ubiquitous in the sense that both (i) the time-evolution of a
quantum system and (ii) its irreversible interaction with other systems are the domain of
noninterventionist direct divine action and, in turn, of indirect special providence in the
macroscopic world. But surely this was evident since it was the indeterminism implied
by quantum physics that allowed us to think of noninterventionist direct divine action
in the first place, and indeterminism obviously does not apply to the time-evolution of
quantum systems governed by the deterministic Schrdinger equation.
58
However, these claims presuppose a realist interpretation of quantum mechan-
ics in general, and of as referring, even if only partially, to the physical world. But
a variety of profound problems are associated with any such realist interpretation of
, not the least of which is that is typically formulated in an abstract space called
configuration space, mentioned above in fn. 43. Such challenges to realism should
be borne clearly in mind in the following discussion.
59
Again, this tends to presuppose a physical space approach instead of configura-
tion space and this would be highly problematic when considering a quantum state
composed of more than one system. However, see Cushing, Quantum Mechanics, fn.
33, 2512.
60
For simplicity, we will work strictly in configuration space, although a momen-
tum-space formulation is certainly an option, too. Again, for simplicity, we restrict the
discussion to one spatial dimension, x.
61
Of course, to be physically admissible, must be normalized properly and thus
be square integrable.
divine action and quantum mechanics 377
62
In essence, the classical ontology is of a fully localized material object whose
properties include its place in space, and this place can change in time, allowing an
x = x(t) conceptuality. In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics,
however, we picture y as defined everywhere in space and in time.
63
Of course there are qualifications here. Consider, for example, a wavefunction
bounded by an infinite square well of length L (such that = 0 when 0 x L).
Although wavefunctions of this type are useful for various practical purposes, infinite
square wells do not exist in nature. In principle, the ubiquity of always holds, and
thus the caution about presupposing a classical assumption of locality in conceptual-
izing special divine action.
378 robert john russell
64
Bear in mind, though, that it is an example of mediated and indirect divine
action.
65
At the same time, Gods action in regard to both s and x is fully global in the
general sense that both wavefunctions, in principle at least, extend infinitely in both
space and time.
divine action and quantum mechanics 379
66
I will not extend this essay to include relativistic quantum mechanics, the union
of quantum physics and special relativity, and its heir, quantum field theory.
67
See for example Chris J. Isham and John C. Polkinghorne, The Debate Over the
Block Universe, in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives
on Divine Action, R.J. Russell, N.C. Murphy and, C.J. Isham (Vatican City State/
Berkeley, Calif.: Vatican Observatory/Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences,
1993), 13444.; Robert J. Russell, Time in Eternity, Dialog 39.1 (Spring 2000): 4655.
Thus even if special relativity is given a world-line flowing time interpretation, one
should be careful about referring to Gods action in terms of the world-as-a-whole
and the future, as well as divine action in a specific event. A closely related problem
exists for all theologiestrinitarian, dipolar, panentheist, and processclaiming that
God experiences the world as a whole in a moment of time.
380 robert john russell
68
These issues are extraordinarily subtle. Cushing claims that Bohm gives us a pre-
ferred frame for instantaneous action, and thus allows for true becomingwhich may
sound strange, since it is also a completely deterministic theory in which what becomes
is fully predetermined. He has also argued that Bohms approach allows for action-
at-a-distance but without remote signaling either, and that it offers a unique solution
to the problem of simultaneity in special relativity. Michael Redhead, however, claims
that Bohms approach is inconsistent with a stronger requirement, the philosophically
grounded invariance principle. See their essays in CTNS/VO, v. V.
divine action and quantum mechanics 381
69
Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, 221.
70
The challenge to divine purpose is more complex still in the context of biological
chance, i.e., the uncorrelated inter-relation between mutations at the level of molecular
biology and change at the level of environment and population ( la Monod).
71
Thus I would not agree with Sanders claim; see Sanders, The Image of the
Immanent Trinity, 535.
72
Peacocke, Gods Interaction with the World, 27981.
73
I hope eventually to formulate my response in a way that is consistent with special
relativity and the irreducibility of flowing time and free will.
382 robert john russell
every quantum event or only in some? And what are the theological
implications for human freedom and the problem of evil in nature?
To respond to these questions, it will be helpful to focus carefully on
the responses given by Murphy, Ellis, and Tracy as they have explored
these and other crucial issues.
74
Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order.
75
Ellis, Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action; idem, in this volume.
76
Murphy prefers this term instead of miracle. See Murphy, Divine Action in the
Natural Order, 331. In private correspondence, Murphy indicates that she now thinks
that Jesus resurrection should be placed in an entirely separate category from other
miracles, since it cant be the result merely of Gods guiding quantum events.
77
Ibid., 343.
divine action and quantum mechanics 383
78
Ibid., 3556.
79
Tracy, Particular Providence. Tracy clearly indicates that his thought on this
issue is not settled. He is instead exploring a particular option to test its strengths and
weaknessesa research approach that I find highly congenial.
80
Ibid., 3212.
384 robert john russell
(the ordinary physics of solid matter and Ohms law, the routine biology
of metabolism, etc.), which we describe as general providence. But it
also results in specific differences in the ordinary worldthe cat living
instead of dyingwhen God acts in one way instead of another in a
specific quantum event. For example, God acts with nature so that the
particle is emitted now and not later, or it is emitted in the +x direc-
tion rather than -x, etc. Which way God acts determines (indirectly)
a specific result in the ordinary world. Thus we may attribute special
providence to the cat being spared from death and granted life in the
crucial moment. In fact, it is precisely the nature of the measurement
problem, namely the collapse of the wavefunction from a superposition
of states to a single state, that might allow us to combine Murphys per-
vasiveness of divine causality with Tracys concern for the event to be
objectively special: God acts in this event as in all events (Gods action
is never more or less but the same, equally causative). Still in this
occasion, with two states superposed before the event, God will chose
one state in particular and not the other, the one destined to promote
life, thus conveying Gods intentionality in this particular event. We
can thus interpret this particular event, in which the cat lives instead
of dying, in terms of objective special providence without restricting
Gods action to that event, and yet still maintain the objectively revela-
tory character of that particular event.
The chief virtue of Tracys option is that it provides a more intuitive
connection between the idea of Gods occasional action at the quantum
level and Gods special providence in the everyday world. Still, it seems
less clear how Gods general providence could be based on Gods occa-
sional action at the quantum level. Murphys approach, unlike Tracys,
conforms with the principle of sufficient reason, which I find a highly
attractive philosophical advantagealthough I agree with Tracy that, at
least in principle, God need not create a world in which the principle
of sufficient reason holds.
In sum, Murphys approach (and possibly Tracys too) delivers just
what is needed for noninterventionist objective, special providence. It
involves objective special providence, for the actual fact is that the cat
lives when it might have died; it is objective special providence since it
truly conveys Gods intentions through the event of the cat living; and
it is special providence because it is that event that we use to refer to
Gods providence against the assumed backdrop of the general situa-
tion itself: the cat purring, the sun shining, the apparatus functioning
routinely, and so on. Most importantly, it is noninterventionist objective
divine action and quantum mechanics 385
81
Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, 133, 30514, particularly 308; Arthur
Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1928);
Arthur Compton, The Freedom of Man (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1935).
82
Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, 215, point 2.
386 robert john russell
83
See Nancey Murphys careful discussion in her Supervenience and the Downward
Efficacy of the Mental: A Nonreductive Physicalist Account of Human Action, in
NAP, esp. 1547. If Murphy adopts a compatibilist view then it would be clearer why
she doesnt need quantum indeterminism.
84
Tracy, Particular Providence, 3169.
85
Ellis, Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action, 393.
86
See Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, secs. 3.3, 4. This approach
might also shed light on the profoundly hard problem of the origins of sin in an evo-
lutionary perspective.
divine action and quantum mechanics 387
87
In this sense, my approach is compatible with either a neo-orthodox or a process
view of divine self-limitation. I wish to note, however, that Ted Peters rejects the use of
divine limitation in general as a zero-sum view of freedom. Instead he argues for a
both-and view theologically. In future work I wish to consider the issue of quantum
physics, divine action, and human freedom from the perspective that Peters offers.
88
It is one of the most powerful arguments used by atheists in their rejection of
attempts to accommodate Christianity and Darwinian evolution. See for example
Richard Dawkins, A River Out of Eden (New York: Basic Books, 1995). In fact, the
argument goes back to Darwins own writings. For the pertinent reference to Darwins
letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860, see Ruse, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?, 130. It
is noteworthy that, even while suggesting some creative ways in which Christianity
and Darwinism might find a bit of common ground (or at least some appreciation for
their respective positions), Ruse underscores the fundamental problem for that com-
mon ground raised by pain and suffering in the natural world; ibid., 912. Ruse refers
specifically to the thesis being explored here, but he does not discuss the response to
the problem of theodicy in this reference, although he, too, suggests that a theology
that stresses the suffering of God might be relevant to Darwinian evolution; ibid., 134,
and Russell, Special Providence and Genetic Mutation, sec. 5.2.
89
Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, chap. 8, pt. 4; Denis Edwards, Original
Sin and Saving Grace in Evolutionary Context, in EMB, 37792; David Ray Griffin,
God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976);
Gary Emberger, Theological and Scientific Explanations for the Origin and Purpose
of Natural Evil, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 46.3 (September 1994):
1508; John F. Haught, Evolution, Tragedy, and Hope, in Science & Theology: The
New Consonance, Ted Peters, ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998); Philip
J. Hefner, The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1993), 271; Nancey Murphy and George F. Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the
Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1996),
sec. 4.1; Ruth Page, God and the Web of Creation (London: SCM Press, 1996), esp.
91105; Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, chap. 8, sec. 2e; Polkinghorne, The
Faith of a Physicist, esp. 817, 169; Robert J. Russell, Entropy and Evil, Zygon 19.4
(December 1984): 44968; Worthing, God, Creation, and Contemporary Physics, 14656.
A frequent source for these ideas is John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed. (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1966).
388 robert john russell
90
Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science, 166.
91
Ellis, Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action, 360.
92
Note that her reference does not occur specifically in the context of theodicy.
Murphy, Divine Action in the Natural Order, 342. See Polkinghorne, Science and
Providence. I have worked along similar lines in developing Polkinghornes approach
in term of thermodynamics. Robert J. Russell, The Thermodynamics of Natural Evil,
CTNS Bulletin 10.2 (Spring 1990): 205.
93
For a helpful discussion, see Daniel Howard-Snyder, God, Evil, and Suffering, in
Reason for the Hope Within, M.J. Murray, ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1999),
esp. 968. and his references to Peter van Inwagen, William Rowe, and, interestingly,
Quentin Smith. His conclusion should give us pause: My sense is that we have no
idea how God would be justified in permitting the isolated suffering of nonhuman
divine action and quantum mechanics 389
animals at Natures hand. For a classic version of the challenge of theodicy involv-
ing animal pain, see John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Religion (London: Longmans,
Green, Reader & Dyer, 1875).
94
Murphy and Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe, chap. 10, sec. 4. See my
response in Robert J. Russell, The Theological Consequences of the Thermodynamics
of a Moral Universe: An Appreciative Critique and Extension of the Murphy/Ellis
Project, CTNS Bulletin 19.4 (Fall 1998): 1924.
95
Tom Tracy, Evolution, Divine Action, and the Problem of Evil, in EMB, sec. 3.
Also see the extensive discussion in Howard-Snyder, God, Evil, and Suffering, sec.
6, of what he calls the argument from amount.
390 robert john russell
Edwards, Peters and many others in the theology and science conver-
sation, I believe we must look to a kenotic theology that respects human
freedom and focuses on the passibility and suffering of God: through
the cross and the atonement of Christ, God redeems the world, suffer-
ing with and taking on the pain and death of all creatures. We could
explore the route Murphy and Ellis have taken, or pursue the theologies
of nature articulated by Peacocke and Polkinghorne, or explore the
directions taken by other scholars in theology and science. However,
I am still persuaded by Barbours argument some thirty years ago that
an elaborated metaphysics is needed if we want to relate rather than
simply juxtapose divine causation, natural causation, and free human
causation.96 Owen Thomas has recently underscored the lasting cen-
trality of this problem, asserting that the most promising options are
the metaphysical systems of neo-Thomism and Whitehead;97 I would
add to these the metaphysical framework of Wolfhart Pannenberg and
other theologians exploring the doctrine of the Trinity.
It would be natural to explore divine action and quantum physics
from the perspective of process theology. Ground breaking research in
theology and science has already come from a variety of scholars who
work in differing ways within the broad outlines of process theology,
including Ian Barbour, Charles Birch, John Cobb, Jr., David Griffin, and
John Haught. These scholars draw on a crucial aspect of Whiteheadian
metaphysics: namely, that reality consists of actual occasions that
perish as they come to be, an idea highly reminiscent of quantum
events. Such actual occasions experience the causal efficacy of the past
by prehension, are characterized by inherent novelty, and respond freely
to Gods inviting, subjective lure. Process theology views God as active
in all levels of nature, stressing Gods respect of human free will and
Gods kenotic and redemptive suffering with all creatures.98
96
Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, 430.
97
Thomas, Recent Thought on Divine Agency, 3550.
98
Process scholars argue that the inclusion of Gods subjective lure to evoke a
response from creatures offers a creative new approach to noninterventionist divine
action at various levels of organization and complexity in nature. See Barbour, Religion
in an Age of Science, 2324; John F. Haught, Darwins Gift to Theology, 4025,
Charles Birch, Neo-Darwinism, Self-Organization, and Divine Action in Evolution,
secs. 4, 8, both in EMB. The problem here is that one has to explain how divine
agency is effective in the domains of chemistry, biology, and early evolutionary life, if
the result of a succession of actual occasions is described classically by deterministic
laws and epistemic (not ontological) chance. Even with the metaphysical richness of
the subjective lure, I believe we need quantum mechanics to offer the indeterministic
divine action and quantum mechanics 391
103
Ibid., 309. Shimony proposes a hybrid between the most radical elements in
quantum theory and the philosophy of organism, but in my view the input is almost
entirely from quantum physics after the fact and not a priori from process metaphysics
(chap. 19, esp. 3034). Shimony also points to Whiteheads treatment of an n-particle
system as being at odds with a quantum treatment and leading to revolutionary
philosophical implications (3002).
104
Henry P. Stapp, Quantum Mechanics, Local Causality, and Process Philosophy,
Process Studies 7.4 (Winter 1977): 17382; Charles Hartshorne, Bells Theorem and
Stapps Revised View of Space-Time, Process Studies 7.4 (Winter 1977): 18391;
William B. Jones, Bells Theorem, H.P. Stapp, and Process Theism, Process Studies
8.1 (Spring 1978): 25061; Henry J. Folse, Jr., Complementarity, Bells Theorem, and
the Framework of Process Metaphysics, Process Studies 11.4 (Winter 1981): 25973.
See also the two recent issues of Process Studies, vols. 26.34 (1997), guest edited by
Timothy Eastman and devoted to the question of the relation between process thought
and physics.
105
Jrgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and
Criticism of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 236. At the same
time, he claims that only a theology of the cross can extricate us from the perpetual
warfare over the problem of evil between theism, which is tantamount to idolatry,
and its brother atheism. Ibid., 250, 221.
divine action and quantum mechanics 393
106
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols., G.W. Bromiley, trans. (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 3:chap. 15, sec. 5, 645. See also Pannenbergs com-
ments on Barths response to eighteenth-century theodicies.
107
Ibid., 1:382ff; idem, The Doctrine of Creation and Modern Science, in Cosmos
as Creation: Theology and Science in Consonance, Ted Peters, ed. (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1989), esp. 1627; idem, Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and
Faith, Ted Peters, ed. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), esp. chaps.
5, 6, 7.
394 robert john russell
108
See for example John Polkinghorne, Pannenbergs Engagement with the Natural
Sciences, Zygon 34.1 (March 1999): 1518.
109
Ernest Simmons has developed this approach in relation to divine kenosis. See
his recent article, Toward a Kenotic Pneumatology: Quantum Field Theory and the
Theology of the Cross, CTNS Bulletin 19.2 (Spring 1999): 116.
110
Acknowledgment. I wish to thank Nancey Murphy, John Polkinghorne, and Kirk
Wegter-McNelly for their helpful comments on this essay, and all the participants for
a most enjoyable conference.
divine action and quantum mechanics 395
111
Chiao, Raymond Y. Quantum Nonlocalities: Experimental Evidence, esp. pp. 12,
2000.
112
Note: Chiao suggests that the non-localities in nature and the possibility of tem-
poral quantum entanglement may lead to a nonlocal form of divine action. See Chiao,
Raymond Y. Quantum Nonlocalities: Experimental Evidence, 12, 2000.
113
Cushing, James T. Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copen-
hagen Hegemony, 5660. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. where he also
discusses non-locality in Bohms theory.
114
Cushing, James T. Determinism Versus Indeterminism in Quantum Mechanics:
A Free Choice: DRAFT, 8, 2000.
396 robert john russell
B) interpretation-specific features:
i) the measurement problem:
a) Copenhagen: acceptance of the measurement problem/onto-
logical indeterminism
b) Copenhagen: overcome the measurement problem
1) modification of the Schrdinger equation
i) non-linear terms
ii) stochastic terms
2) introduction of consciousness
ii) Bohm: the quantum potential/non-classical determinism
iii) Everett/Wigner: many-worlds
iv) Butterfield: many-minds
The task will then be to see how the interpretation-specific features
give particular expression to the generic features as we study the rela-
tion between each interpretation of quantum physics to philosophy
and theology.
115
See the article by Jeremy Butterfield in CTNS/VO, v. V.
divine action and quantum mechanics 397
116
Mermin, N.D. Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Physics Today 38
(April 1985): 38. See also Mermin, N. David. Can You Help Your Team Tonight
by Watching on TV? More Experimental Metaphysics from Einstein, Podolsky, and
Rosen. In Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on Bells Theorem,
edited by James T. Cushing and Ernan McMullin. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1989.
398 robert john russell
117
Cushing, James T. Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copen-
hagen Hegemony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994; Cushing, James T.
Determinism Versus Indeterminism in Quantum Mechanics: A Free Choice:
DRAFT, 2000; see also Greenstein, George, and Arthur G. Zajonc, Eds. The Quantum
Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Boston: Jones
and Bartlett Publishers, 1997; Polkinghorne, John. Physical Process, Quantum Events
and Divine Agency, 2000.
divine action and quantum mechanics 399
118
See for example Cushing, James T. Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency
and the Copenhagen Hegemony, Appendix 1.1, 6063. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1994.
400 robert john russell
119
Greenstein, George, and Arthur G. Zajonc, Eds. The Quantum Challenge: Modern
Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Ch. 6. Boston: Jones and Bartlett
Publishers, 1997.
120
Greenstein, George, and Arthur G. Zajonc, Eds. The Quantum Challenge: Modern
Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, 145 and Figures 611, 612.
Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1997.
divine action and quantum mechanics 403
through the factor R=R (r1, r2, . . .,rn), and not just on the coordinates
of the particle at ri . As Cushing stresses, the many-body quantum
potential entangles the motion of the various particles.121 In essence,
the force is a function of a local gradient on a non-local potential U
as well as on a local potential V. It thus combines both classical and
highly non-classical features in producing the net acceleration of each
individual particle.
4) Moreover, quantum nonlocality is highly non-mechanical in the
sense that the quantum potential U depends not only on the positions
of the other particles, but also on their wave functions and thus on the
state of the entire system. As Greenstein and Zajonc write: The inter-
pretation of Bohm and colleagues . . . goes beyond simple non-locality,
and calls upon us to see the world as an undivided whole. Even in a
mechanical world of parts, the interactions between the parts could,
in principle, be nonlocal but still mechanical. Not so in the quantum
universe.122
In short, it should now be abundantly clear that the meaning of
determinism in the Bohmian formulation is highly non-classical,
involving these strikingly non-local and non-mechanical features simply
not found in the Newtonian picture. This point is crucial if we compare
Bohm and Bohr: Bohm does not offer a deterministic interpretation
in comparison with the indeterminism of Bohr, as though the term
referred to its ordinary, classical sense. Both quantum indeterminism
and quantum determinism are highly non-classical. The use of either
in a discussion of divine action thus requires a thorough rethinking of
the conversation compared to its traditional context.
121
An important exception arises with independent systems in which the wave
function factors out and the quantum potential reduces to a linear sum of terms for
each system. See Cushing, James T. Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and
the Copenhagen Hegemony, 6263. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
122
Greenstein, George, and Arthur G. Zajonc, Eds. The Quantum Challenge: Modern
Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, 148. Boston: Jones and Bartlett
Publishers, 1997. In a helpful example, Greenstein and Zajonc show how even in
Bohms case the motion of electrons in an atom is not mechanical in the way the
motion of the planets is.
APPENDIX
Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify
science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a
wider world, a world in which both can flourish.1
Of the many remarkable events and publications that marked the decade
of the 1990s as a watershed in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field
of theology and science, one of the most significant was the series of
five international and ecumenical research conferences co-sponsored
by the Vatican Observatory (VO) and the Center for Theology and
the Natural Sciences (CTNS). Some fifty scholars participated in the
series, many with cross-disciplinary expertise in physics, astronomy,
cosmology, mathematics, evolutionary and molecular biology, the
neurosciences and cognitive sciences, philosophy of science, history
of science, philosophy of religion, history of religion, Old and New
Testament, philosophical and systematic theology, and theological eth-
ics. Ninety-one essays were published in the five volumes, along with
detailed analytic introductions to each volume. The overarching goal
was to engage theology, philosophy, and natural science in a process
of constructive dialogue and creative mutual interaction. The purpose
of this chapter is to provide an overview of the topics addressed, to
offer a brief assessment of the divine action project represented more
specifically by two dozen chapters in the series, and to conclude with
a survey of the problems and progress achieved.
First, though, we will take a brief look at the historical background
of the series. The Vatican Observatory, or Specola Vaticana, is housed
1
John Paul II, Message to George Coyne, in PPT, M 13.
408 appendix
2
Discourses of the Popes from Pius XI to John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences (Vatican City State: Pontificia Accademia Scientiarum, 1986), Scripta Varia
66, 7384.
3
G.V. Coyne, M. Heller and J. Zycinski, eds., The Galileo Affair: A Meeting of Faith
and Science (Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Vatican City State, 1985).
4
G.V. Coyne, M. Heller, and J. Zycinski, eds., Newton and the New Direction in
Science (Libreria Editrice Vaticana: Vatican City State, 1988).
overview of the ctns/vo series 409
5
Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, and George V. Coyne, eds. (Vatican
Observatory Publications, 1990).
6
CTNS was able to accept the invitation thanks to a generous grant from a local
Bay Area family foundation which supported our participation for the entire series
of conferences.
410 appendix
The Results
With these strategies in place the organizing committee then planned a
series of five conferences to span the decade of the 1990s. Each would
involve a two year cycle: the first year for pre-conferences and critical
412 appendix
7
See QC.
8
See CC, EMB, and NP.
9
See QM.
overview of the ctns/vo series 413
In this section I will briefly touch on the six areas in which I believe
progress has been made through the CTNS/VO research series, includ-
ing the initial publication (PPT) that served as a basis and warrant for
the series. I will then suggest five areas of challenge generated by the
serieseither as unresolved issues in the series or as resulting from
the progress of the series itselfand offer recommendations for future
research.
Progress
This short overview paper is not the appropriate place for a detailed
assessment of the ways the eight areas in philosophy and the seven areas
in theology were developed by the authors in the series. (A sample of
these developments can be found in Appendix E.)10 However I will
briefly touch on six areas in which I believe significant accomplish-
ments were made and progress achieved in the series as a whole. Then
I will suggest several ways in which progress has been achieved on the
specific topic of divine action and science.
New Methodology
The new methodology developed for and deployed in the CTNS/VO
series included a) choosing a guiding theme for the entire series rooted
in philosophical theology that could unify the theological interests of all
its participants and bridge between theology and science, b) choosing
participants with cross-disciplinary expertise, c) building in precon-
ference interactions, d) agreeing to reading the conference papers in
advance, and e) thorough postconference revisions of papers in light
of conference discussions.
10
The text is excerpted and edited from the analytic introductions to the five volumes,
four of which I wrote and one (NP) which was written by Nancey Murphy. It goes
without saying that the choice of which to include reflects my own perspective and not
necessarily those of the other editors in the series. More to the point, it was a difficult
task both because I sincerely appreciate all of the chapters in the series and because I
truly value the lasting collegiality, team effort and friendship with the authors.
414 appendix
Landmark Publications
This series includes several pieces that have been extremely influential
in the field. These include the statements by Pope John Paul II: on sci-
ence and religion (Message to George Coyne in PPT), and on evolu-
tion (Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in EMB). It also
includes Ian Barbours 4-fold typology on science and religion in PPT,
preceding its publication in Religion in an Age of Science, which was to
become a standard for the field in the following decade.
laws of nature
ontological indeterminism
objective vs. subjective divine action
direct (basic) vs. indirect divine action
mediated vs. unmediated divine action
compatibilist and incompatibilist views of divine action
Figure 1
On the left half of the figure, nature, viewed through the lens of classical physics,
is interpreted deterministically. This in turn leads to the historical split between
liberal and conservative approaches to special divine action. For liberals, the
notion of subjectively special divine action reduces, in essence, to a verbal rede-
scription of what is in fact ordinary divine action. For conservatives, objectively
special divine action requires interventionism and thus amounts to miracu-
lous divine action (in the Humean sense). Note that determinism, as a philo-
sophical interpretation of classical physics, forces the theological split between
these approaches to divine action. On the right half of the figure, nature, under-
stood through contemporary science, is interpreted indeterministically. Here
we see that, while liberal and conservative approaches to divine action are still
options, a third possibility arises for the first time: NIODA. NIODA combines
the virtues of the liberal approach (non-interventionism) and the conservative
approach (objective divine action) without their corresponding disadvantages.
Note in particular that the indeterministic interpretation of nature allows us
to separate out miraculous objective divine action from non-miraculous
(non-interventionist) objective divine action, a move which has tremendous
theological promise. The challenge is to find one or more areas in contemporary
science that permit such an indeterministic ontology for nature. CTNS/VO
scholars pursued a variety of areas in science in response to this challenge.
when we have one such scientific theory at one level which permits an
indeterministic interpretation, we can claim that the direct, mediated
effects of the objective acts of God occur within that domain of nature
without intervention. The crucial role of science in thus offering the
possibility for non-interventionist objective divine action is portrayed
schematically (Figure 1), given ontological determinism or indetermin-
ism in nature.
418 appendix
Challenges
There are also a number of topics and issues that have emerged in
the discussion which call for continued exploration. They constitute
challenges, problems and insights whose sustained analysis is pivotal
in making further progress. The importance of these topics and issues
has been brought out by our work so far. They include previously
recognized and newly formulated areas on the growing edge of theol-
ogy/science research.
Actually new challenges are to be expected, even celebrated, because
a mark of real progress is that initial problems come to be seen as
partly confusions over terms and partly genuine issues to be addressed.
When these issues are successfully addressed, this in turn leads to new
insights into the depth and character of the overall problematic and
overview of the ctns/vo series 419
11
For an earlier criticism of the way the concept of divine action was formulated in
terms of direct vs. indirect and mediated from a neo-Thomistic perspective see Stephen
Happel, Divine Providence and Instrumentality: Metaphors for Time in Self-Organizing
Systems and Divine Action, in CC, 416, esp. Section 4.6, 197201.
12
Nicholas Saunders, Divine Action & Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002).
13
Wildmans chapter in that volume was previously published in Wesley J. Wildman,
The Divine Action Project, 19882003, Theology and Science 2.1 (2004): 3175.
overview of the ctns/vo series 421
14
Philip Clayton, Wildmans Kantian Skepticism: A Rubicon for the Divine Action
Debate, Theology and Science 2.2 (2004): 186190.
15
John Polkinghorne, Response to Wesley Wildmans The Divine Action Project,
Theology and Science 2.2 (2004): 190192.
16
William R. Stoeger, S.J., The Divine Action Project: Reflections on the Compati-
bilism/Incompatibilism Divide, Theology and Science 2.2 (2004): 192196.
17
Thomas Tracy, Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action?: Mapping the Options,
Theology and Science 2.2 (2004): 196201.
18
Wesley Wildman, Further Reflections on The Divine Action Project, Theology
and Science 3.1 (2005): 7183.
19
Saunders stipulates a test that any successful theory of non-interventionist objective
divine action must meet, and the test is spelled out in terms of four distinct criteria. In
my opinion, two of the four criteria of the test are mutually contradictory: that there
is genuine openness in nature (i.e., ontological indeterminism) and that the laws of
nature, viewed as ontological realities, determine individual events whether the laws
are stochastic or deterministic. Because of this contradiction, Saunderss test fails to
constitute be a valid test for assessing theories of divine action and Saunderss assess-
ment of the failure of the proposals deployed by scholars in the CTNS/VO series based
on his test should be set aside.
Wildman is also highly critical of the possibility of successful theories of non-inter-
ventionist objective divine action, but in this case his reasons are based on his agreement
with Kant. According to Wildman, Kant showed that we must inevitably understand
nature in terms of causal closure. Thus any theory of objective divine action will always
be interventionist. My response is that quantum mechanics challenges Kants insistence
on causal determinism (in ways similar to how non-Euclidean geometry challenged
his view of Euclidean geometry as a synthetic a priori judgment) and thus, contrary to
Kant, quantum mechanics does allow for the possibility of ontological indeterminism
in nature. For this reason I think Wildmans criticisms of the CTNS/VO proposals
based on his agreement with Kant should also be set aside.
Note: Wildman offers an additional, and I think more serious, criticism of the divine
action project based on what he understands to be the view of God underlying the
proposals on divine action: namely, the problem of theodicy. Whether or not Wildman
correctly represents that underlying view of God, the problem of theodicy is a serious
one for any theory of objective divine action, non-interventionist or not. That is why
it has already been raised and discussed frequently in the five volumes, particularly
by Tracy, Ellis, Murphy and me. That is also why the problem of theodicy, whether
or not it is genuinely exacerbated by the possibility of non-interventionist objective
divine action, is a driving factor in the formulation of an overarching theme for a new
series of CTNS/VO research.
422 appendix
now, but the challenges raised by the other scholars noted here should
be pursued vigorously as part of future CTNS/VO research.20
Eschatology
Perhaps the most promisingand most challengingtheological
response to natural theodicy is to move the conversation from the locus
of creation theology where it is at present to that of redemption. If one
claims that Gods response to suffering in nature is to suffer with nature
and in doing so to redeem nature, as many CTNS/VO scholars have
suggested, this takes us directly to the various forms of the theology of
the cross. Of course this, in turn, takes us to the Resurrection of Jesus
20
I offer an extended analysis and critical assessment of the preceding issues in
Robert John Russell, Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: Theology and Science in Creative
Mutual Interaction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2007), chaps. 46.
21
Thomas F. Tracy, Evolution, Divine Action, and the Problem of Evil, in EMB,
51130.
22
Nancey Murphy, Robert John Russell, and William R. Stoeger, S.J., eds., Physics
and Cosmology: Scientific Perspectives on the Problem of Natural Evil, Vol. 1 (Vatican
City State: Vatican Observatory Publications/Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Theology and
the Natural Sciences, 2007).
overview of the ctns/vo series 423
23
Initial research includes the following: John Polkinghorne and Michael Welker,
eds., The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology
(Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000); John Polkinghorne, The God of
Hope and the End of the World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002); Ted
Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker, eds., Resurrection: Theological and
Scientific Assessments (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002);
Robert John Russell, Eschatology and Physical Cosmology: A Preliminary Reflection,
in The Far Future Universe: Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective, George F.R. Ellis,
ed. (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2002), 266315; idem, Cosmology
and Eschatology, in Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, Jerry Walls, ed. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, in press).
424 appendix
Top-down
This refers to Gods action at a higher epistemic and phenomenological
level than the level of the effects. So, for example, in the mind/brain
problem, where language about mental states cannot be entirely reduced
toalthough it is constrained bylanguage about neuroscience, God
might be thought of as acting at the level of mind (e.g., revelation) and
thereby affecting the pattern of neuron firings. (The converse model of
revelationGod affecting neuron firings to bring about mental inspira-
tionwould be a form of bottom-up as discussed below.)
Whole-part
This type of causality or constraint refers to the way the boundary of
a system affects the specific state of the system. One example is the
formation of vortices in a bucket of water being heated. The vortices
form because the shape of the bucket as well as the applied heat bring
about large-scale patterns of movement in the water. Another example
is the universe considered as a whole with the effects played out in local
events in the universe (assuming that the universe can be said to have
a boundary). In these cases, God may be thought of as affecting the
boundary of the system, perhaps the boundary of the universe itself,
and this action leads to specific states within the system/universe which
we call objectively special, indirect divine acts.
Lateral
This refers to effects lying in the same epistemic level (e.g., physics) as
their causes but at the end of a long causal chain. So the butterfly
effect in chaos theory depicts small differences in the initial states of a
chaotic physical system leading to large differences in later states of that
same system. God, then, might act directly to set the initial conditions
and thus bring about bulk states indirectly.
overview of the ctns/vo series 425
Bottom-up
This causality refers to the way the lower levels of organization affect
the way more complex levels behave. Here God might act at the most
elementary domains of an organism to achieve specific results which are
manifest at the level of ordinary human experience. Quantum physics
seems the most promising candidate for further inquiry into divine
action through bottom-up causality.
Actually, most scholars want to combine most, or even all four, types
of causality when it comes to human agency in the world and to Gods
action in human life and history. The challenge, however, is to conceive
of God as acting in the processes of biological evolution or physical
cosmology long before the arrival of any kind of complex biological
organism (let alone humanity). Here bottom-up causality may be the
only approach available.
It should be noted that these four approaches can be appropriated by
scholars from a diversity of philosophical perspectives as can be seen
in the chapters on divine action in the CTNS/VO series. However two
additional approaches to divine action involve more explicit dependence
on a specific overall philosophical system, even while using one or more
of the preceding approaches:
Process Theology
This provides a metaphysical basis for a non-interventionist interpreta-
tion of divine action. Every actual occasion is influenced by God, who
provides the subjective lure, by efficient causality from the past (pre-
hension) and by the innate creativity of the occasion itself (its mental
pole or interiority). Entities at all levels of organization are capable
of experiencing Gods action as the (non-interventionist) subjective lure
without violating the regularities reflected in the laws of science.
Abrahamic religions 12, 56, 179, 237 body-soul dualism, see dualism
absolute space 6 Bohmian interpretation, see
acts of God, see divine action; problem interpretations of quantum mechanics
of divine action Bohr interpretation, see interpretations
action theory, see philosophy of action of quantum mechanics
active information, see information bottom-up accounts of divine action,
actual occasion 3901 see quantum divine action
aesthetics 305 bottom-up causality, see causation,
agency, see divine action; human agency bottom-up
all-that-is, see system-of systems boundary condition 656, 117, 315
amplification 37, 2569, see also brain, see divine action in human
quantum effects, amplification of brains
animals 1523 Buddhism 146, see also philosophy,
anthropic principle 137, 162, 3278 Eastern; thought, Eastern
see also Christian Anthropic Principle; Buridans ass 283
design; fine-tuning butterfly effect 28, see also chaotic
anthropology, see dualism, systems
anthropological
anti-reductionism 212, 23, 30, 72, Catholic Church and science 4089
309 causal closure 230, see also causal
causal 30, 59 openness; determinism
epistemological 29, 58 causal determinism, see determinism
methodological 29 causal efficacy, see causation
ontological 30 causal gap, see gap, causal
see also reductionism; top-down causal integrity of nature, see integrity
causation of nature
arguments for the existence of God, causal joint 81, 1012, 133
see design; teleological argument causal nonreductionism, see
Aristotelian thought 1, 5, 1468, anti-reductionism
15053, 1634, 169, 173, 2745, causal openness 252, 260
see also hylomorphism causal power of creatures 260, 288,
artificial intelligence 31 see also integrity of creatures
artificial neural network 31, 45 causal reduction / reductionism, see
atomism 5, 18, 218 reductionism
attractor, see strange attractor causal role of mental states, see mental
autocatalysis, see Zhabotinsky reaction causation
causal underdetermination, see
Baldwin effect 21, 445, 322 indeterminacy
Bells inequalities 37980 causation
Bells theorem 2178, 3656, 3968 Aristotelian account of 146, 1503
Bnard phenomenon 612, 656 bottom-up / part-whole 30, 38, 60,
biology 102, 279, 425
evolutionary, see evolution, theory of concept of 4, 1667, 2757
developmental 234 downward see top-down causation
molecular 17 divine, see divine action
teleology in, see teleology efficient 153, 165, 1667
block universe, see special relativity final 10, 153, 157, 202
430 subject index
deterministic laws, see laws of nature as sustenance 79, 122, 130, 234, 236,
developmental biology, see biology, 260, 279, 284, 3201
developmental as sustenance at quantum level
difference vs. sameness 5, 7 35760, 3735
directionality and teleology 1702, 176, 1814
in biology 256 see teleology
see also teleology and theodicy, see theodicy
discernment 331 typology of 141, 1846, 238 n. 14,
dissipative systems 62 352, 417
divine action 14, 34, 97, 1113, as ubiquitous 279, 2816, 295,
1178, 173, 175, 183, 200, 227, 3756
375 via chance 374
bottom-up 13, 38, 265, 35360, via chaotic systems, see divine action
see also quantum divine action via chaos
and chance 2401, 371 via downward / top-down causation,
compatibilist 41920 see top-down divine action
as conservation 234, 378 via information transfer 37, 44, 267
as cooperation 284 via laws of nature 1234, 231,
direct 1258, 2345, 23940, 245, 3201, 374
248, 24950 via quantum events, see quantum
evidence for 260, 2967, 339, 3447, divine action
3534, 355 via secondary causes 101112,
in evolution, see evolution, divine 1225, 12830, 2359
action in; evolution and design; via whole-part constraint,
teleological argument see top-down divine action
extraordinary 13, 271, 288, 307, see also creation
32839, 338, 382 divine action project 23, 13, 54, 191
and free will, see free will n. 1, 211, 212, 351, 405
as governance 2345, 284, 383 overview of 40726
immanent 86, 268, 329 divine action via chaos 41, 292, 333
incompatibilist 41920 criticisms of 2658
indirect 1258, 2345, 23945, 245, divine action terminology 4158
248, 320 divine concurrence 36, 284
interventionist 17, 36, 37, 55, 1234, divine creativity, see creation
231, 260, 263, 333, 354 divine determinism 5, 378
in human brains 378, 56, 2934, divine foreknowledge 37, 2467, 300,
331, 342 381
medieval conceptions of 1, 10, 263 divine hiddenness 37, 138, 2902, 296,
and metaphysics 1445, 1612, 334, 383
1656, 1702, 177, 1846, 264 divine immanence 14, 86, 268, 329
non-interventionist 9, 556, see also divine intervention, see divine action
NIODA divine knowledge 37, 1089, 236, 246,
non-interventionist objectively special 300, 3801
(NIODA), see NIODA divine love 41, 11920
ordinary 13, 31928 divine purpose, see end; teleology
panentheistic 2213 divine providence, see general
personal 1369, 227, 260, 3601 providence; special providence
and prayer 2701, 297 divine sovereignty, see God, sovereignty
as primary cause 12, 1012, 112, of
1202, 12835 divine transcendence 14, 46
problem of, see problem of divine DNA 19, 33, 70
action and divine action 269
special 12, 127, 130, 1315, 2323, expression of 21
237, 248, 2701, 362, 375 as information 33
subjectively special 131, 237 doctrine of creation, see creation
432 subject index
indeterminism 249, 356, 362, 3645, law-like regularities 37, 2734, 27780,
398 28692, 335
in chaotic systems 1078 laws of nature 14, 124, 183, 2367,
in quantum events, see quantum 241, 2634, 2734, 373
indeterminacy as constituted by divine action 123,
see also determinism 28992
information 41, 78 character of 124, 210
active 106, 108 as designed by God 143
communication of 24, 324, 402, 43 holistic 10001
flow of 6870, 84, 87 ontological status of 124, 2778, 420
as negative of entropy 689 statistical 300
processing of 32 levels of complexity, see hierarchy of
theory of 10, 32 complexity
types of 689 levels of description, see hierarchy of
initial condition, see boundary condition sciences
interpretation, biblical 228 levels of emergent systems, see hierarchy
interpretations of quantum mechanics of complex systems
14, 27, 1034, 1912, 197210, 2504, Logos 41, 84, see also Christ; Jesus;
327, 3637, 3956 Wisdom; Word
Bohmian 989, 217, 2523, 365,
366, 398 many-particle problem 4023
Bohrs 252, 364, 398 many-worlds interpretation,
Copenhagen, see Copenhagen see interpretations of quantum
interpretation mechanics
Einsteinian 252, 3645 matter
Heisenbergs 3645 concept of 4, 12, 2745
hidden variables 252, 365 self-organization of 114, see also
indeterministic 251 self-organization
many-worlds 99, 20105, 2534, 365 meaning 187, 228, 332
interventionism, see divine action see also purpose; teleology
irreducibility, see anti-reductionism measurement, see quantum
measurement
jaw structure 61 measurement problem 213, 2512,
Jesus 1189, see also Christ; Logos; 2546, 325, 3678, 36872, 3956
Wisdom; Word and irreversibility 36971
and indeterminism 3713
kenosis 489, 331, 3445, 386, 390 mechanics
kinesis vs. stasis 5, 13, 42 classical 18, 363, 399400, see also
knowledge physics, Newtonian
aesthetic 305 statistical 18
of God 194, 300 see also quantum mechanics
limitations of 175 mental causation 323, 325
middle 246 mental properties
philosophical 305 and downward causation 756,
scientific 1167, 215, 230, 305 3234
theological 1134, 305 as efficacious 75, see also mental
see also divine knowledge; divine causation
foreknowledge; epistemology; as emergent 756
philosophy of science as nonreducible 75
as supervenient 667, 75
language 171 n. 32 metaphysical ambiguity 17881, 187
causal 299300 metaphysics 10, 11, 12, 51, 97101,
irreducibility of 30913 1702, 179, 186, 192, 198201, 203,
religious 112 211, 230, 2645, 2749, 366, 419
subject index 435
Aristotelian, see Aristotelian thought; morality 35, 37, 346, see also ethics
hylomorphism mysticism 175, 179, 2159, 331
comparative 1789 and quantum mechanics 2159
dual-aspect monism 1078
Eastern 218, see also philosophy narrative, biblical 2278
emergentist monist 5779 natural evil, see evil
Neo-Thomist 390 natural law, see laws of nature
Newtonian 2745 natural regularities, see law-like
and physics 21013 regularities; laws of nature
Platonic 5 natural rights, see integrity of creatures
process, see process thought natural sciences, see hierarchy of
relation to epistemology 989 sciences
role in theology-science relations natural selection 18, 2021, 24, see also
34 selection
and teleology, see teleology and natural theology, see theology, natural
metaphysics nature of God, see God
see also atomism; mechanism; nature / natural world
naturalism; pantheism; integrity of 356, 48, 338
panentheism; physicalism; vitalism as purposive 1503; see also
methodology teleology
scientific 1567, 230 neo-Darwinian evolution see evolution,
theological 1923 theory of; modern synthesis
mind neo-Thomist metaphysics, see
as cause, see mental causation metaphysics
as emergent 76, 324 Newtonian determinism, see
mind-body / brain relation 56, 68, determinism
737, 867, 195, 100, 195, 221 Newtonian mechanics, see mechanics,
as analogous to divine action 867, classical
195, 221 NIODA (non-interventionist objective
in hierarchy of complexity 737 divine action) 160, 249, 3523, 367,
mind-body problem, see dualism; 375, 3835, 4168
physicalism; monism, dual-aspect objectively special 8, 12, 238, 279,
miracle 79, 81, 127, 141, 2312, 260, 384
327, 3324, 3357 criteria of assessment for 4201
see also divine action; special, non-local hidden variables, see hidden
extraordinary variables
models of Gods relation to nature nonlinearity 26, 289
17, 3442, 47 nonlocality 100, 210, 252, 352, 358
as designer 35, see also design n. 16, 377, 380, 393, 395, 398, 403
as designer of self-organizing nonreductionism, see anti-reductionism
processes 356, 42, 46 nonreductive physicalism, see
as determiner of indeterminacies physicalism
36, see also quantum divine action non-western religions 14, see also
as embodied in world 39 Buddhism; mysticism; philosophy,
models in science and religion 8 Eastern
modern synthesis 1922
molecular biology 17 occasionalism 235, 271, 282, 2978
monism Ockhams razor / Ockhamist
dual-aspect 1078 minimalism 165, 167, 176
emergentist 57, 5779 omnipotence, see God
vs. pluralism 176 omnipresence, see God
Spinozistic 2145, 2212 omniscience, see God
moral insight 332 ontological determinism, see
moral responsibility 2912, 323 determinism
436 subject index
Barbour, Ian G. 7, 8, 300, 309, 356, Darwin, Charles 17, 18, 20, 22, 35,
365, 367, 372, 385, 389, 390, 414 142, 155, 164
Barth, Karl 51 Davidson, Donald 66
Bartholomew, David J. 300, 301 Davies, Paul 35, 159 n. 24, 171, 184,
Behe, Michael 197 241, 277, 278, 356, 415
Bell, John 252 Dawkins, Richard 148 n. 18, 155, 181,
Bhavaviveka 174, 188 182, 187, 188
Birch, Charles 42, 160 n. 25, 185, 390, de Chardin, Teilhard 159, 423
415, 419 de Laplace, Pierre Simon 229
Bohm, David 98, 216, 217, 221, 222, de Molina, Luis 246
223, 252, 253, 255, 352, 365, 366, 380 Deleuze, Gilles 7
n. 68, 394, 395, 396, 398, 399, 400, Dembski, William 197
401, 402, 403 Democritus 163, 164, 168
Bohr, Niels 252, 255, 364, 366, 398, Dennett, Daniel 322 n. 39, 324
401, 403 Depew, David 18
Boltzmann, Ludwig 18 Derrida, Jacques 7
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 355 Descartes, Ren 207 n. 23, 274, 275,
Brillouin, Leon 40, 108 276
Brown, David 92 Dewitt, Bryce 201, 203
Bultmann, Rudolf 141, 230 dEspagnat, Bernard 212, 214, 215,
Buridan, Jean 283 221, 222, 223
Butterfield, Jeremy 199, 368, 379, 396, Dobzhansky, Theodosius 18
414 Domb, Cyril 197
Drees, Willem B. 65
Cain, Steven 76 Dretske, Fred 63, 64
Calvin, John 243
Campbell, Donald 61, 64, 68, 386 Eccles, John C. 326
Campbell, Neil 309, 386 Eddington, Athur 385
Capra, Fritjof 197, 215, 216 Edwards, Denis 6, 330, 390, 414, 415,
Catterson, Troy 185 n. 35 419
Chiao, Raymond Y. 197, 379, 380, 395, Einstein, Albert 6, 252, 364, 365, 393,
414 408
Christ, Jesus 118, 119, 136, 260, 269, Elijah 9, 53, 54, 92, 94, 95
291, 296, 302, 303, 331, 334, 337, 338, Ellis, George R. 8, 13, 38, 115 n. 4,
392, 393, 423 137, 209, 224, 257, 359, 363, 372
442 name index
n. 51, 382, 385, 386, 388, 389, 390, Kppers, Bernd-Olaf 65, 307, 309, 340,
414, 415 414
Everett, Hugh 201, 202, 365, 366, 396
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste 18, 21
Faraday, Michael 393 Lakatos, Imre 24, 268 n. 8
Farrer, Austin 81, 101, 102 Laplace, Pierre-Simon 229
Feynman, Richard P. 163 n. 28 Levinas, Immanuel 7
Folse, Henry Jr. 392 Levy, Edwin 149 n. 16
Fox, George 337 Lewontin, Richard 20, 21
Locke, John 141
Galileo 408 Loyola, Ignatius of 127
Garrison, J. C. 395
Gilkey, Langdon 229 n. 3, 415 MacKay, Donald 300, 301
Gleick, James 30 Margenau, Henry 365
Goodwin, Brian 23 Marshall, John 78 n. 64
Goswami, Amit 222 Mary 127, 131
Gould, Stephen Jay 20, 21 Maxwell, Grover 18
Greenstein, George 402, 403 Mayr, Ernst 19, 21
Gregersen, Niels Henrik 63, 72, 73 McMullin, Ernan 83 n. 73
n. 50, 76 n. 60 Misner, Charles 363
Griffin, David Ray 46, 50 Moltmann, Jrgen 6, 14, 392, 415, 419
Monod, Jacques 156, 157, 158, 181,
Happel, Stephen 112, 114, 118 n. 8 182, 187, 188, 189
Hartsthorne, Charles 8, 43, 47, 50, 392 Morrison, M. A. 325
Haught, John F. 42, 390, 415, 419 Murphy, Nancey 8, 12, 13, 37, 67, 115
Hawking, Stephen 39 n. 4, 171, 306, 307, 308, 319, 327, 329,
Hegel, G. W. F. 154, 159, 178 334, 338, 341, 342, 343, 344, 346, 347,
Heidegger, Martin 7 348, 356 n. 12, 361 n. 26, 362 n. 27,
Heisenberg, Werner 98, 202, 206, 251 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 388, 389, 390,
n. 35, 364, 365 n. 35 409, 415
Heller, Michael 212, 408, 412, 414, 415
Hempel, Carl 277 Nagarjuna 188
Heraclitus 6 Neville, Robert Cummings 184, 185
Hick, John 290, 292 Newton, Isaac 6, 13, 18, 205, 229, 263,
Hitler, Adolf 13, 298, 335 274, 275, 276, 277, 286, 398, 399, 408
Hobbes, Thomas 275 Niebuhr, H. Richard 228, 238
Hoyle, Fred 322
Huchingson, James 43 Ockham, William of 165, 167
Hume, David 60 Oyama, Susan 33
Huxley, Julian 19
Pailin, David 91 n. 85
Isham, Chris J. 356, 368, 380, 414, 415 Paley, William 142, 155, 166, 168
Pannenberg, Wolfhart 14, 338, 390,
Jones, William 392 393
Joseph 299, 300 Parmenides 6
Paul, the Apostle 271
Kant, Immanuel 6, 51, 98, 144 n. 7, Pauli, Wolfgang 100
171, 178, 203, 207, 210, 421 n. 19 Peacocke, Arthur 7, 9, 11, 38, 39,
Kaufman, Gordon 230 40, 41, 101, 106 n. 14, 128 n. 25, 160
Kaufman, Stuart 22, 24, 26 n. 25, 184, 185
Kellert, Stephen 28 Peirce, C. S. 144 n. 7
Kierkegaard, Sren 7, 178 Penrose, Oliver 341
Kim, Jaegwon 67, 75, 76 Penrose, Roger 204, 324
Kuhn, Thomas 24 Peters, Ted 387 n. 87, 390, 415, 419
name index 443
Plato 5, 6, 41, 51, 152, 173, 222, 277, Stapp, Henry P. 203, 217, 365, 392
278 Stebbins, Ledyard 20
Polanyi, Michael 65 Stengers, Isabelle 62
Polkinghorne, John C. 7, 9, 10, 41, 84 Stoeger, William 8, 10, 12, 36, 197,
n. 75, 185, 196, 212, 250 n. 32, 255, 212, 278, 318, 335 n. 83, 337, 408,
265, 266, 267, 268, 270, 284, 293, 301, 414, 415
302, 307, 346, 375, 380, 388, 389, 390, Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt 160 n. 25
393, 414, 415, 419, 421 Swinburne, Richard 92, 94
Pollard, William G. 250 n. 31, 300, Szilard, Leo 40, 108
307, 382
Pope John Paul II 408, 414 Taylor, John V. 267
Popper, Karl 64 Taylor, Richard 276 n. 21
Postle, Dennis 216 Thaetetus 5
Prigogene, Ilya 22, 62 Thomas, Owen 123 n. 17, 182 n. 34,
Puddefoot, John 68, 69 195, 390
Tracy, Thomas F. 8, 12, 38, 63, 64, 115
Quick, Oliver 56, 57 n. 4, 197, 307, 319, 342, 344, 346, 347,
382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 388, 389, 414,
Rae, Alastair 258 415, 422
Ramanuja 188
Rahner, Karl 159 van Inwagen, Peter 240
Redhead, Michael 380 n. 68 von Neumann, John 203, 365
Ricoeur, Paul 7 von Weizscker, Carl Friedrich 203
Rorty, Richard 144 n. 7
Ruse, Michael 354 n. 6, 387 n. 88 Wallace, Alfred Russel 142
Russell, Robert John 2, 8, 13, 14, 38, Weber, Bruce 18
128 n. 24, 184, 185, 197, 207, 212, Wheeler, John A. 202
250 n. 30, 256, 257, 258, 302, 307, Whitehead, Alfred North 8, 42, 43, 50,
316, 319, 414, 415, 419, 420 148, 154, 164, 166, 167, 173, 183, 184,
185, 233, 390, 391, 392
Sankara 188 Wicken, Jeffery 22
Saunders, Nicholas 356 n. 11, 420, Wigner, Eugene 203, 204, 365, 396
421 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 178
Saunders, Peter 23 Wilber, Ken 217
Schleiermacher, Friedrich 230 Wildman, Wesley 8, 10, 11, 420, 421
Sejnowski, T. J. 73 n. 51 Wilson, E. O. 19
Shannon, C. E. 68 Wimsatt, William C. 59 n. 10
Sharpe, Kevin 216 Wright, G. Ernest 229 n. 3
Shimony, Abner 212, 224, 365, 391,
392, 414 York, Carl 358 n. 16
Socrates 178
Spinoza, Baruch 215, 223, 275 Zajonc, Arthur 402, 403