Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature

Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature 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 also that there is considerably more freedom available for God to act than that which current models allow. By bringing a philosophical perspective to an issue often dominated by theologians and scientists, this book 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. Jeffrey Koperski is Professor of Philosophy at Saginaw Valley State University, USA. He is an editorial board member for Philosophy Compass and has published articles in journals such as Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Zygon. He is the author of The Physics of Theism (2015). Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature Jeffrey Koperski First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Jeffrey Koperski The right of Jeffrey Koperski to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www. taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-13900-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02911-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Dictionary of Christianity and Science: The Definitive Reference for the Intersection of Christian Faith and Contemporary Science, edited by Paul Copan et al, 1:186–88. Grand Rapids. Reprinted by permission of Zondervan. To my mother, Karen, whose hopes for my lucrative career in engineering were dashed by philosophy. To my sister, Ruth (a.k.a., Danielle), who started me thinking about such things a few decades ago. And to my brother, Chick, who would have loved this book. Contents 1 Philosophy and divine action 1 2 Mapping the terrain 11 3 Nonviolation, quantum mechanics, and chaos 39 4 A brief history of the laws of nature 69 5 Philosophy of science and the laws of nature 86 6 Determinisms 109 7 Neoclassical special divine action 129 8 Four objections 149 Index 159 1 Philosophy and divine action Deists believe in God but not “organized religion.” God created the universe, but that exhausts the deistic job description. Theists – organized or not – believe that God also continuously upholds the universe in existence. Whatever else God might do goes by the name special divine action. This might refer in part to miracles, although what a miracle is precisely is a matter of some debate. The term is typically used for God’s activity within nature, regardless of whether anyone knows about it. For the most part, the question of special divine action has been the pur- view of theologians. There has long been a division between those who believe that God sometimes breaks the laws of nature and those who deny it. Most laypersons and even scholars are initially puzzled by this second camp. “Why can’t God break the laws of nature?” As we will see in Chap- ter 2, some theologians believe that God cannot; others believe that God will not – or at least not often. Some in this debate not only have backgrounds in theology but were once well-credentialed scientists: John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, and Robert Russell are prominent among them. I have observed over the years, however, that many of the arguments in the literature are, properly speak- ing, neither issues in theology nor issues in science; rather, they are mat- ters of philosophy. A few philosophers of religion have made important contributions to the question of divine action, but there is one corner of analytic philosophy that has largely remained silent: the philosophy of science. This book is a step toward breaking this silence, bringing something of an outsider’s perspective to the debate. This is sometimes useful. Rob- ert Griffiths was a condensed matter physicist who turned his attention to quantum mechanics only after being asked to teach a course in it. He went on to found one of the standard interpretations of quantum mechanics: the consistent histories approach. Philosopher of science John Earman wrote a short book on David Hume’s argument against miracles some years ago, refuting Hume through the rigorous application of Bayesian probability theory (2000). (As one might imagine, Hume scholars were not altogether pleased by this intrusion.) My hope is that bringing philosophy of science to bear on the question of divine action will suggest new ways of approaching 2 Philosophy and divine action the main arguments.1 At the very least, I intend to present material that one will not generally find outside philosophy of science journals. Some will not find this perspective helpful. Others will be puzzled by my conclusions, especially those that do not fit well with current trends in theology. Such is the messiness of interdisciplinary work. Among the theologians mentioned in the next two chapters, there is broad agreement on two doctrines: The first is nonviolation: if God acts within nature postcreation, this action ought not violate the laws of nature. The second is determinism: if nature were deterministic, special divine action would entail the breaking of natural laws. Without some sort of openness or plasticity within the natural realm, there is nothing God can do that would not thereby count as a violation. Many believe that the second issue has been resolved by quantum mechanics, which is normally thought to be indeterministic. In other words, nature is not deterministic, and so the second of these two doctrines is no longer a worry. Philosophers of science reading this literature will have two questions: The first is, what do theologians mean by “laws of nature”? There are a variety of ways in which one might understand natural laws, ranging from those with no metaphysical significance to others that determine every physical event. What, precisely, a “violation of law” amounts to changes depend- ing on which interpretation one holds. This relationship between laws and violations need be made explicit to even know whether there is a problem of divine action to be resolved. The second question has to do with physical determinism. For most philosophers and theologians, determinism is an obstacle to be overcome. Determinism of this sort, with its roots in the seventeenth-century thought of Spinoza and Leibniz, would preclude moral responsibility. In short, you aren’t responsible for your actions if you literally do not have any choice in the matter. This attitude is in contrast with physicists who work hard to uphold determinism in the face of prima facie violations. They typically take breakdowns in determinism to indicate an error of some kind, with the (possible) exception of quantum mechanics. These differing attitudes between philosophers and theologians on one hand and physicists on the other are due to an important conceptual shift. What “determinism” now means in mathematical physics is only distantly related to its philosophical counterpart. Sorting this out is important since current models of divine action pre- suppose indeterminism of some sort. For many of those models, physical determinism in a world of robust laws would prevent special divine action. “Not to worry,” we are told, “since quantum mechanics is famously indeterministic.” Well, maybe. Deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics continue to gain adherents, especially Everettian many-worlds. By the end of this century, physicists and philosophers of physics might no longer consider quantum mechanics to be the realm of ontological randomness. Philosophy and divine action 3 For most science-and-religion scholars working on divine action, the return of deterministic physics would be bad news indeed. Indeterminism opens a range of possibilities that would otherwise have been closed in the deterministic world of classical mechanics (or so it is commonly thought).2 Consider a parallel argument regarding free will, understood as libertarian freedom.3 In a deterministic world, there is no free will. One’s “choices” are as much the product of the laws of nature as is the trajectory of a tennis ball. Libertarians rejoice, then, that quantum mechanics has refuted physical determinism. Free will is at least possible, although indeterminism alone is not sufficient for freedom.

Load more