Class notes on God as a causal agent

(Originally written March 26, 2007 in Book 25)

Class Notes

Objections to God as a direct causal agent

1. Laws of nature cannot be violated; miracles are a violation
2. If miracles can occur, God would be changeable
3. Miracles are correctives to our understanding of the laws of nature, not violations of the laws
4. Miracles are not rationally believed in
5. Providence violates the the simplicity of God
6. God is eternal, how can an infinite God contain a finite attribute?
7. If God has to intervene in what he created to fix it it implies a defect in his creation
8. Miracles can be explained by natural occurrences; we just don't understand them
9. Miracles are always a result of natural causes
10. How can a non-physical being directly cause a physical change
11. If God is directly intervening in the world, and there is evil in the world, then God is not good.
12. Anomalies in nature do not prove direct intervention
13. Miracles intervene in human freedom
14. Every actualization of a potential through an immediate contingent cause; therefore, a remote cause is not necessary
15. If God governed directly it would destroy the perfection of the causal order
16. If God is outside of time but his causal action would have to be inside of time

Divine Providence and Miracles

Is God a direct causal agent in the world?

Views of God's interaction:

Classical theology
Deist
Neo-Thomism (primary cause working through secondary causes)
Kenotic God (limiting his power willingly)
Existential theology
Linguistic theology
Process theology

Neo-Thomism and Divine Providence

God as an end for everything

Action <- Man <- God

Miracles

- an effect in the physical world that surpasses all known human powers and beyond natural powers

Objection to miracles

- Principle of uniformity

Spinoza:
1. Miracles are a violation of natural laws
2. Natural laws are immutable
3. It is impossible for immutable laws to be violated
4. Therefore, miracles are impossible

Hume, Kant and Flew all argued agains miracles based on the principle of uniformity

God can't do anything against nature

Evidence for miracles is scarce and unpredictable by nature

God cannot violate the law of nature because the law of nature stems from God. So any violation of the law of nature is a violation of God's personal nature.

What is a secondary cause?

Could quantum mechanics explain God's intervening in human/natural affairs?

God effects the secondary cause (quantum mechanics) in effecting the probability at the molecular level.

Problems with this is that new technology is discovered accounting for previously unexplainable events.

Antony Flew

Science:
- Laws from observation
- Limited to this method by definition

Unexplained events are either miracles (outside of science) or anomaly (inside of science)

No unexplained event can ever be considered a miracle. At worst it is a not yet explained anomaly.

Are miracles possible?
Are miracles knowable?
Are miracles recognizable?

Hume critiqued miracles on the basis of whether they are knowable. Flew critiqued miracles on rather they are recognizable.

Superseding Miracles - where the laws of nature are superseded, direct action by God

Constellation Miracle - no law of nature is violated, but many circumstances come together in such away that they could have occurred by accident is less probable than it occurring by divine intervention

Reasonable presumption - reasonableness of a presumption

Worldview

If you do not have a worldview favorable to theism then you will not be convinced of miracles existing.

Circumstances, reasonable presumption and whether or not divine agency is the best explanation for the event all play a part in regarding something as a miracle.