Divine Action, Design, and Natural Theology

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Spatial Order ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Theology Proper

This chapter reviews the debate about intelligent design as it emerged within biology. Then it treats the argument from design as represented by various features of the universe, like temporal and spatial order. The chapter argues that divine agency and divine action inform this debate by highlighting the identity of the agent who is the designer, by exposing how far one can specify the intentions and purposes of God in arguments from design, and by bringing to light two radically different ways of construing the place of natural theology in theology proper. It suggests further work is needed on this issue.

Charles Darwin and Intelligent Design

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Denis O. Lamoureux ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Design In Nature

Many assume that Charles Darwin rejected outright the notion of intelligent design. As a consequence, the term "Darwinism" has evolved to become conflated with a dysteleological interpretation of evolution. The primary historical literature reveals that Darwin's conceptualization of design was cast within the categories of William Paley's natural theology, featuring static and perfect adaptability. Once Darwin discovered the mechanism of natural selection and the dynamic process of biological evolution, he rejected the "old argument from design in Nature" proposed by Paley. However, he was never able to ignore the powerful experience of the creation's revelatory activity. Darwin's encounter with the beauty and complexity of the world affirms a Biblical understanding of intelligent design and argues for the reality of a non-verbal revelation through nature. In a postmodern culture with epistemological fourmulations adrift, natural revelation provides a mooring for human felicity.

Hume's Logical Objection to the Argument From Design Based on the Uniqueness of the Universe

1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Dennis Temple
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Simple Version ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
The Universe

Arguments from design in Hume's day were often cast as arguments from analogy. For instance, a very simple version might read like this: ‘The universe resembles a machine; machines are the products of intelligent design; therefore, the universe is (probably) the product of intelligent design.’ Design arguments (usually of a more sophisticated sort) were put forward by some of the greatest scientists of the time, including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. Such arguments were generally thought to be on a par with the conclusions of physics: Hume raised a number of well-known objections to such design arguments. I am going to discuss one of these objections, the claim that the uniqueness of the universe is, in itself, a bar to our drawing any conclusion about its cause or origin. This objection is raised by Hume at the end of ‘Of a Particular Providence’ and in Part II of the Dialogues.

The Uses of Natural Theology in Seventeenth-Century England

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Mandelbrote
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Spiritual Phenomena ◽  
The Universe

ArgumentThis essay describes two styles of natural theology that emerged in England out of a debate over the correct interpretation of divine evidences in nature during the seventeenth century. The first style was exemplified in the work of John Wilkins and Robert Boyle. It stressed the lawful operation of the universe under a providential order. The second, embodied in the writings of the Cambridge Platonists, was more open to evidence for the wondrousness of nature provided by the marvelous and by spiritual phenomena. Initially appearing to be alternative and complementary arguments for orthodoxy, these two approaches to natural theology underwent different transformations during the ensuing decades. In the process, a natural theology predicated on the intellectual demonstration of divine power through the argument from design came to predominate over alternative strategies that placed greater emphasis on the wondrousness of nature.

John Ray, physico-theology and afterwards

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
John Ray ◽  
The Way

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”). Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).

Divine Agency and Contemporary Neo-Thomism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Divine Action ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Divine Agency

In this chapter, the author explores the severe criticism directed at those who would talk of God as a being, or a person, and therefore also as an agent. The author engages the work of Thomist philosophers of religion Brian Davies and Herbert McCabe, and concentrates on their claims about divine agency and divine action. He argues that their criticisms against conceiving God as an agent fail for a variety of reasons. He further argues that these Thomists lose the concept of divine agency in their philosophical work, despite the fact that they need it to sustain their theological commitments. Finally, he argues that they are also guilty of confusion and equivocation in their account of the relation between divine agency and free human acts.

SPACE-TIME VARIATION OF COUPLING CONSTANTS AND FUNDAMENTAL MASSES

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (18n19) ◽  
pp. 3342-3353 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. V. FLAMBAUM ◽  
J. C. BERENGUT
Keyword(s):  
Structure Constant ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Coupling Constants ◽  
Fine Structure Constant ◽  
Fundamental Constants ◽  
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis ◽  
Temporal And Spatial Variation ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Universe

We review recent works discussing the effects of variation of fundamental "constants" on a variety of physical systems. These are motivated by theories unifying gravity with other interactions that suggest the possibility of temporal and spatial variation of the fundamental constants in an expanding Universe. The effects of any potential variation of the fine-structure constant and fundamental masses could be seen in phenomena covering the lifespan of the Universe, from Big Bang nucleosynthesis to quasar absorption spectra to modern atomic clocks. We review recent attempts to find such variations and discuss some of the most promising new systems where huge enhancements of the effects may occur.

Thomas Hobbes and the Divine Politics of Anarchy

2020 ◽  
pp. 129-156
Author(s):  
William Bain
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Human Action ◽  
International Order ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Central Claim

This chapter presents Thomas Hobbes as a theorist of imposed order. The central claim is that Hobbes’s conception of political order, an artificial arrangement arising from will and consent, reflects the intellectual commitments of nominalist theology. Uncovering the theological presuppositions of his thought opens space for an understanding of international order that is quite different from what the ‘Hobbesian’ tradition portrays as a domain of endemic violence. Hobbes is correctly imagined as a theorist of interstate society. The chapter examines the unity of philosophy and theology in Hobbes’s thought, focusing on a recurring analogy between divine action and human action. Human beings make and unmake their world, including the commonwealth, as God created the universe. Modern theorists reproduce these theological ideas when they invoke Hobbes to illustrate the character and consequences of anarchy. Hobbes, conceived as a theorist of imposed order, exemplifies what has become the dominant discourse of international order. The implication is that modern theories of international order might not be as uniquely modern or purely secular as contemporary theorists typically assume.

Karl Barth's ecclesiology reconsidered

2004 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas M. Healy
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Universe

The essay begins by noting some of the things Karl Barth might have said to defend himself against Stanley Hauerwas's criticisms, in the otherwise largely appreciative discussion in With the Grain of the Universe, of Barth's anthropology and pneumatology and the consequent problems in his ecclesiology. I then discuss some issues that Barth himself might have wanted to raise with regard to Hauerwas's own ecclesiology, especially in reference to its comparative lack of emphasis upon divine action and the difference that makes to an account of the church's witness. I argue that Barth and Hauerwas differ to some degree in their understanding of the gospel and of Christianity, with Hauerwas emphasizing rather more than Barth the necessity and centrality of the church's work in the economy of salvation. Barth, on the other hand, sees the need rather more than Hauerwas of situating the church's activity within a well-rounded account of the work of the Word and the Spirit. I offer some concluding remarks to suggest that this particular aspect of Barth's ecclesiology is worth preserving as an effective way of responding to modernity.

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