Divine Intervention and the New Physics

Abstract

Traditional understandings of the Christian faith have included the notion that God acts within history at certain times and places in a way, or to a degree, that God does not at other moments. Never without controversy, this notion of particular divine action is still the subject of debate. This article focuses on one aspect of the contemporary discussion -namely the implications for particular divine action which arise from certain recent developments in the field of physics. Although the notions of general providence and miracle are not necessarily threatened, and may even be aided, by a strict determinism, the category of special providence seems to require some degree of indeterminism in the world. If non-miraculous, particular divine action is not to be restricted to the human arena alone, the search for signs of ontological indeterminism at subhuman levels of reality which complement human freedom is a laudable venture. A number of scientific developments in physics during the twentieth century prove to be encouraging in this respect; at least, they call into question the rigid determinism that was associated with classical, Newtonian mechanics.