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Summary

In the science–theology dialogue, a ‘causal joint’ understanding of ‘special’ divine action has until recently been predominant. However, the distinction between ‘general’ and ‘special’ modes of divine action has recently been questioned in what Sarah Lane Ritchie has called a ‘theological turn’ in understandings of divine action. In the author’s own contribution to this turn, criticism of causal joint theorists’ implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumption of a temporal God is criticized, as is the failure to apply apophatic perspectives to the notion of God’s ‘personal’ nature. In addition, an argument from human providential action is seen as significant for developing a ‘fixed instructions’ model of divine action, in which teleology is regarded as important (though not in a way that challenges scientific perspectives). What is effectively a ‘single act’ model of divine action is thus defended, but of a different kind to that which is usually understood when this term is used.

Is the human mind uniquely nonphysical or even spiritual, such that divine intentions can meet physical realities? As scholars in science and religion have spent decades attempting to identify a 'causal joint' between God and the natural world, human consciousness has been often privileged as just such a locus of divine-human interaction. However, this intuitively dualistic move is both out of step with contemporary science and theologically insufficient. By discarding the God-nature model implied by contemporary noninterventionist divine action theories, one is freed up to explore theological and metaphysical alternatives for understanding divine action in the mind. Sarah Lane Ritchie suggests that a theologically robust theistic naturalism offers a more compelling vision of divine action in the mind. By affirming that to be fully natural is to be involved with God's active presence, one may affirm divine action not only in the human mind, but throughout the natural world.

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10 - Revelation and Divine Action

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Divine Action and the Human Mind

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2 results

10 - Revelation and Divine Action

Summary

Divine Action and the Human Mind