Abstract
A form of special divine action often considered central to the everyday experience of Christianity is that of a personal interaction with God. For example, in The Second Person Perspective in Aquinas’s Ethics, Andrew Pinsent characterises this interaction in terms of mutually empathic relations that serve to “infuse” virtues and other attributes into a person. Such interaction requires that causal relations exist between a necessary being and the contingent universe. This paper addresses a central problem of special divine action: that the empirically identifiable causes of physical events are modally ill-suited for (and epistemically distinct from) the action of an eternal, non-composite, necessary being. Accounts of what brings about physical events are standardly empirical accounts, grounded upon experience of the world.
Highlights
I have intended to perturb the reader with the title of this article, who, I anticipate, is likely to be disinclined to take seriously even the most reputable claims of the occurrence of divine action, let alone a claim as startling as the one to be made in this essay, namely that the action of God theistically taken is empirically testable
The question of the knowability of divine action always concerns at least two relations: the relation of God to the universe, and some further relation by which we might attain knowledge of the former relation
To satisfy the concerns of those sceptical about the reality of divine action, the hypothesis to be offered here (a) employs only a causal mode acceptable to science, and (b) avoids modal inconsistency by resting upon a foundation both general enough to be indifferent to the modality of its terms, and amenable to empirical verification
Summary
I have intended to perturb the reader with the title of this article, who, I anticipate, is likely to be disinclined to take seriously even the most reputable claims of the occurrence of divine action, let alone a claim as startling as the one to be made in this essay, namely that the action of God theistically taken (a being outside of time and who does not move from potency to act) is empirically testable The argument for this claim is concerned with the nature of relations. To satisfy the concerns of those sceptical about the reality of divine action, the hypothesis to be offered here (a) employs only a causal mode acceptable to science, and (b) avoids modal inconsistency by resting upon a foundation both general enough to be indifferent to the modality of its terms, and amenable to empirical verification This foundation I derive principally from the work of John Poinsot in the 17th century, and partly from Ralph Austin Powell, in my view his most major 20th century discoverer.. Even though this may be put some readers off, I have done so deliberately, as a result of forming the following stance on this matter: Contemporary academic ( analytic) philosophy loses out on a great deal by emphasizing detailed analysis and rigour at the expense of (a) systematic thought
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