Unlocking Divine Action


Book Description

Provides a sustained account of how the thought of Aquinas may be used in conjunction with contemporary science to deepen our understanding of divine action and address such issues as creation, providence, prayer, and miracles.




Divine Action


Book Description




Divine Action and the Human Mind


Book Description

Challenges theological models of divine action that locate God's activity in human mind. Emphasizes God's relationship with all of nature.




Divine Action and Natural Selection


Book Description

The debate between divine action, or faith, and natural selection, or science, is garnering tremendous interest. This book ventures well beyond the usual, contrasting American Protestant and atheistic points of view, and also includes the perspectives of Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics. It contains arguments from the various proponents of intelligent design, creationism, and Darwinism, and also covers the sensitive issue of how to incorporate evolution into the secondary school biology curriculum. Comprising contributions from prominent, award-winning authors, the book also contains dialogs following each chapter to provide extra stimulus to the readers and a full picture of this ?hot? topic, which delves into the fundamentals of science and religion.




Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature


Book Description

A longstanding question at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology is how God might act, or not, when governing the universe. Many believe that determinism would prevent God from acting at all, since to do so would require violating the laws of nature. However, when a robust view of these laws is coupled with the kind of determinism now used in dynamics, a new model of divine action emerges. This book presents a new approach to divine action beyond the current focus on quantum mechanics and esoteric gaps in the causal order. It bases this approach on two general points. First, that there are laws of nature is not merely a metaphor. Second, laws and physical determinism are now understood in mathematically precise ways that have important implications for metaphysics. The explication of these two claims shows not only that nonviolationist divine action is possible, but there is considerably more freedom available for God to act than current models allow. By bringing a philosophical perspective to an issue often dominated by theologians and scientists, this text redresses an imbalance in the discussion around divine action. It will, therefore, be of keen interest to scholars of Philosophy and Religion, the Philosophy of Science, and Theology.




How God Acts


Book Description

From providence and miracles to resurrection and intercessory prayer, Edwards shows how a basically noninterventionist model of divine action does justice to the universe as we know and also to central convictions of Christian faith about the goodness of God, the promises of God, and the fulfillment of creation. Here is wonderfully lucid theology supporting an excitement of how God is at work in the universe.




God and the Cosmos


Book Description

Theologian Harry Lee Poe and chemist Jimmy H. Davis argue that God's interaction with our world is a possibility affirmed equally by the Bible and the contemporary scientific record. Rather than confirming that the cosmos is closed to the actions of the divine, advancing scientific knowledge seems to indicate that the nature of the universe is actually open to the unique type of divine activity portrayed in the Bible.




Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action


Book Description

Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action is a collection of essays assessing the series of the same name, which advances the engagement of constructive theology with the natural sciences.




Quantum Mechanics


Book Description

Quantum Mechanics, a collection of fifteen essays, explores the creative interaction among quantum physics, philosophy, and theology. This fine collection presents the results of the fifth international research conference co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, Rome, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley. The overarching goal of these conferences is to support the engagement of constructive theology with the natural sciences and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements in ongoing theoretical research in the natural sciences. In the first section of this collection, contributors examine scientific and historical context. Section two features essays covering a wide range of philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics. The final set of essays explores the theological implications of quantum theory. Abner Shimony, Raymond Y. Chiao, Michael Berry, Ernan McMullin, William R. Stoeger, S.J., James T. Cushing, Jeremy Butterfield, Michael Redhead, Chris Clarke, John Polkinghorne, Michael Heller, Philip Clayton, Thomas F. Tracy, George F.R. Ellis, and Robert John Russell all contributed essays to this volume.




Divine Action


Book Description

In Divine Action, Keith Ward, a philosopher, theologian, and scholar, examines the role of Divine operation and Divine providence in a world of scientific law and intelligibility. Defending the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, Ward is equally concerned with the "big questions" in science and religion-those concerning existence, purpose, and inner process. He reflects on the recent resurgence of naturalism in philosophy alongside an analysis of freedom and necessity, the origins of suffering, constraints of creation, prayer as participation in Divine action, miracles as epiphanies of the spirit, Divine nature and human nature, and redemption. With rigorous scientific research and scholarship and attention to faith traditions in addition to Christianity, Keith Ward presents an intellectual counterpoint to today's antispirituality arguments. In studying what is involved in the idea of creation and particular Divine actions, he offers a rationale for Divine operation as a continuous conversation in the natural world. Book jacket.