Does anything ever happen by chance? Nancey Murphy 2

For Isaac Newton and other architects of the modern scientific worldview, the "laws of nature" were a direct expression of God's will -- God's 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 beginning -- and lays down the laws governing all changes after that -- then 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 God's 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. . . . It is an ironic bit of history: the laws that once served as an account of God's universal governance of nature have become a competing force, constraining the action of their very creator. Nancey Murphy, "Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan's Ass and Schrödinger's Cat," pp. 325 - 357 in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur R. Peacocke. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1997. Quote is from p. 325.

Murphy goes on to say, and I agree, that any description of how God acts must include not just unfolding rules, created in the beginning, along with (presumably) the elements, but must allow for God to act specially. One reason for this, she says, is that we get to know a person by observing their actions. God's actions tell us about Him. Another is to allow for answers to supplicating in prayer. If God never does things specially, why should prayer be encouraged in the New Testament? Third, says Murphy, if God doesn't act specially in some circumstances, then God is responsible for all evil, too, because it must be the unfolding of the way He made things. There must also, she says, be room in such a description for extraordinary acts. (She avoids using "miracle" for these, but, to many of us, that is what she means.)

My previous post on Murphy and chance is here.

Thanks for reading.

Does anything ever happen by chance? Nancey Murphy

A long time ago now, Julana commented on one of my posts, asking if anything ever really happened by chance. That is a deeply profound question. One reason it is so profound is because it can be re-phrased as "How does God act? Does He control everything?"

Nancey Murphy has answered the last part of the previous question, as follows:

To say that each sub-atomic event is solely an act of God would be a version of occasionalism, with all the attendant theological difficulties mentioned above: it exacerbates the problem of evil; it also comes close to pantheism, and conflicts with what I take to be an important aspect of the doctrine of creation -- that what God creates has a measure of independent existence relative to God, notwithstanding the fact that God keeps all things in existence. To put the point another way, if God were completely in control of each event, there would be no-thing for God to keep in existence. To create something, even so lowly a thing as an electron, is to grant it some measure of independence and a nature of its own, including inherent powers to do some things rather than others. "Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan's Ass and Schrödinger's Cat," pp. 325 - 357 in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur R. Peacocke. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1997. Quote is from pp. 340-41. (The hyphen in "nothing" was in the original, as was the emphasis on that word.)

Wow! Electrons with independence?

Thanks, Julana. To see my last post on this subject, go here.

Thanks, readers. I expect to post more on Murphy's view of these matters later.