Special Divine Acts: Three Pseudo-Problems and a Blind Alley

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (4):61--81 (2015)
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Abstract

Traditionally, special divine acts have been understood as involving intervention in the course of nature, so as to cause events that nature would not, or could not, otherwise produce. The concept of divine intervention has come under heavy fire in recent times, however. This has caused many philosophers and theologians either to abandon the possibility of special divine acts or to attempt to show how such acts need not be understood as interventions in natural processes. This paper argues that three objections typically raised against special divine acts conceived as interventions in the natural order are pseudo-problems and pose no reason to abandon the traditional conception of such acts. Further, it argues that attempted noninterventionist accounts constitute a blind alley of investigation, inasmuch as they fail to provide a secure foundation for a robust account of the possibility of special divine acts.

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Robert A. Larmer
University of New Brunswick

Citations of this work

Epistemic Deism and Probabilistic Theism.Darek Łukasiewicz - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10 (1):129-140.

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References found in this work

The metaphysics of divine action.John Polkinghorne - 2009 - In Fount LeRon Shults, Nancey C. Murphy & Robert John Russell (eds.), Philosophy, science and divine action. Boston: Brill. pp. 147-156.
Gaps for God?Willem B. Drees - 1995 - In R. J. Russell, N. Murphy & A. R. Peacocke (eds.), Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Vatican Observatory Publications. pp. 223-237.
Miracles and physical impossibility.Robert Young - 1972 - Sophia 11 (3):29 - 35.

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