God

1
Gods Action in the World
1d Miracles
2
Introduction

• Modern thinking about the Action of God in the
  world must involve a dialogue between theology
  and science.
• What we believe about God is the proper concern
  of theology. If God is the Creator and Sustainer
  of the world, it is reasonable to look at what we
  know about the world and to ask what, if
  anything, this says about God.

3
Approaches to knowing about God

• Christian theology has often distinguished
  between Special and General Revelation.
• Special Revelation refers to what we can know
  about God from Scripture in particular.
• General Revelation refers to what we can know
  about God from what he has created.

4
Doctrine of God

• As a result of theological deliberations,
  thinkers arrived at a doctrine of God. This
  represents, at any one time, the best attempt
  using the language available to describe what God
  is like and what He might do in relation to the
  world in general and humanity in particular.
• All attempts to speak of God are inevitably
  provisional and subject to change. We have a
  best available model of God in our doctrinal
  formulations at any one time.

5
A contribution from science ?

• If theology makes assertions about God and his
  relationship to everything, it could well be the
  case that what we discover about the world that
  God has supposedly made, can and should inform
  our understanding about God.
• In particular we must ask the question How does
  God relate to the world and does He act in the
  world in any way other than to keep it in being?

6
A link between science and theology

• Science involves the making of hypotheses,
  theories and models of reality. These are tested
  and rejected, retained and modified, in
  conformity with reality as it is.
• In theology, models of God should conform to the
  reality of God. Models of God can be revised too.
  How we test them is of course more difficult
  than it is in science.
• Both disciplines make models and both respect the
  control of reality on them.

7
THEOLOGY
Good fit?
Model of God
Reality of God
IF WE BELIEVE THAT GOD CREATED THE WORLD, THEN
WE CAN ASK ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD
AND THE WORLD.
SCIENCE
Model of the world
Reality of the world
Good fit?
8
Back to the doctrine of God - 1

• Christian theology wants to affirm two things of
  God, namely
• God is transcendent
• God is immanent
• In other words there is an simultaneous
  affirmation of Gods otherness and difference
  from His Creation alongside an affirmation of His
  closeness to all that He has made and keeps in
  being.

9
Back to the doctrine of God - 2

• In theory, therefore, it is possible for
  theologians to speak of an all-powerful God who
  could run the universe and interact with it in
  whatever way he chooses.
• In practice the key question is how does God act,
  and in particular, does God ever do anything
  which is different from the normal regular
  behaviour of the universe that we observe?

10
Key questions

• Is it the case that the universe always behaves
  in a regular way?
• Are there any sufficiently well documented
  exceptions to this apparently law like behaviour?
• If there are exceptions, do they have religious
  significance? What do they tell us about God?
• Is it a problem for science if God occasionally
  intervenes?

11
Some theoretical models of God and the world
God created the universe and sustains it moment
by moment. The universe is observed to usually
run in a law-like manner. This is understood to
be Gods way of creating a stable environment in
which creatures can develop and live. God may
choose to work in unusual ways if there are good
reasons to do so.
THEISM
12
Some theoretical models of God and the world
There is no God. The universe is observed to run
in a law-like manner. Miracles are impossible.
ATHEISM
13
Some theoretical models of God and the world
God made the universe which He chooses to
leave to run according to the laws of nature He
put within it and which we observe. We should
therefore not expect anything miraculous
DEISM
14
Some theoretical models of God and the world
The universe is in God but not to be identified
with God. The universe is observed to run in a
law-like manner. In theory God could choose to
act in unusual ways.
PANENTHEISM
15
Choosing between worldviews

• A choice of this kind will not rest on one single
  factor or issue. Most of us arrive at conclusions
  in the light of many things, not least our own
  personal journey.
• There will be theological considerations
  independent of scientific questions.
• There will be concerns about which best fits with
  what we understand science to be saying.

16
A key empirical issue

• Let us restrict the use of the term miracle to
  something similar to that used in the classical
  discussion by David Hume, namely A miracle is a
  violation of the laws of nature.
• Is it the case that there have been any instances
  of such violations?
• If there have been this is presumably bad news
  for Atheism and Deism.
• Is it necessarily a problem for science?

17
Are miracles a problem for science?

• Some say yes and some say no!
• There are scientists who have very different
  worldviews.
• An atheist who is also a scientist has no place
  for miracles. They are not expected.
• A theist who is a scientist can accommodate
  miracles, indeed often expects them. Laws of
  nature express how God normally runs the show,
  but do not forbid God from doing things
  differently.

18
Are miracles a problem for theology?

• Some say yes, others no!
• Theologians who happily accept miracles still
  face the question of why God chooses to do the
  miracles He does and not others, which He could
  presumably have done.
• This is a major reason why some theologians would
  prefer God not to do specific miracles at all,
  even to the point of denying the traditional
  understanding of the incarnation and resurrection
  of Jesus in the Christian tradition.

19
Historical Developments

• Isaac Newton was not a Newtonian!

Newtons physics rapidly led to a view of the
universe as a mechanism which could in principle
be fully understood as running according to the
discovered Laws of Nature. Newton himself
believed that it was God who directly mediated
the force of gravity. Not only this, but God
occasionally needed to modify the system, intrude
into human affairs using such things as comets
and epidemics and do miracles as well!
20
Historical Developments

• In succeeding years a view began to emerge which
  effectively removed God from the everyday
  management of His world. Newtons belief in
  Divine Action began to be replaced by a view that
  the universe, even if it was a Creation of the
  Divine Being, was essentially autonomous in its
  functioning. God became, to all intents, the God
  of Deism. It would be a short step to Naturalism
  - atheism in other words - where God no longer
  had a role to play in our understanding of the
  day to day operation of the world.

21
Historical Developments
Hume wrote that it was unreasonable to believe in
miracles.
Laplace reckoned that in principle the world was
completely determined by Newtonian mechanics.

• Darwins work provided an account which removed
  the need for divine design of individual
  creatures.

22
God of the Gaps

• It would be easy to see this historical trend as
  slowly removing God from the scene. Scientific
  accounts rely on the sorts of causal explanations
  that have no room for talk about God. If God is
  seen as competing for the same explanatory
  territory as science, the success of the latter
  looks like it squeezes God into the gaps - gaps
  in our understanding that, once filled, make God
  redundant.

23
God of the Gaps - 2

• As Chris Southgate has written, It was seen how
  difficult it was to sustain descriptions of the
  physical world in which God acted as a cause
  complementing physical causes - filling the gap
  left by scientific narratives.
• But God-of-the-gaps thinking can lead to bad
  theology. It removes God from the picture to be
  replaced by the presumption of naturalism.

24
Conceptualising the options
God is banished.
1. Atheism
God is before - the First Cause only.
2. Deism
3. Different levels of cause
God is behind - operating at another level
behind the observed system of causation.
4. God and an open system
God is acting through the system in gaps left in
quantum systems and chaotic systems.
God can and maybe does act at many levels
before, behind and through the system, but can
also change the normal way the system operates.
5. God is not limited
25
The question of miracles

• There are a number of reasons why the term
  miracle should not be restricted to David Humes
  well known definition
• Miracles are violations of the laws of nature
• In Biblical language what we translate as miracle
  has a wider sense which could include, in our
  modern jargon, violations of laws of nature but
  can also refer to events which do not violate
  anything but which are unusual events pointing to
  the work of God.

26
Humes argument - 1

• The essence of Humes argument as to why we
  should remain incredulous of claims to the
  miraculous reduces to this
• a We have uniform experience that the laws of
  nature are not violated.
• b no testimony is sufficient to establish a
  miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind,
  that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than
  the fact, which it endeavours to establish.

This rather begs the question - what if there are
exceptions?
Does he simply refuse to believe any report with
evidence of miracles?
27
Humes argument -2

• C.S. Lewis is worth quoting here
• Now we must of course agree with Hume that if
  there is absolutely uniform experience against
  miracles, if in other words they have never
  happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately
  we know the experience against them to be uniform
  only if we know that all the reports of them are
  false. And we can know all the reports to be
  false only if we know already that miracles have
  never occurred. In fact we are arguing in a
  circle. (Miracles, 1947, 123)

28
Humes false premise

• Science has moved on since Humes day and few
  today accept that our current understanding of
  the laws of nature is unchangeable. Moreover,
  even a strongly determined natural order does not
  necessarily allow for totally comprehensive
  scientific explanations. In the light of what we
  know of unpredictability at the quantum level and
  unpredictability in non-linear dynamic systems,
  it seems even more unlikely that we can speak
  with any confidence of violations of laws of
  nature.

29
A theological definition of miracles

• Southgate offers the following as a possible
  definition of miracle
• an extremely unusual event, unfamiliar in terms
  of naturalistic explanation, which a worshipping
  community takes to be specially revelatory, by
  dint of the blessing it conveys, of the divine
  grace.

30
Introducing John Polkinghorne and Arthur
Peacocke
Dr. Polkinghorne is the former Professor of
Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University. He
then became an Anglican minister. He has written
widely on science and religion and received the
2002 Templeton Prize.

Dr. Peacocke began his life as an academic
scientist at Birmingham University. He later
served as Dean at Clare College, Cambridge. Like
John Polkinghorne he is an ordained Anglican
minister and well know writer. He was also
awarded the Templeton Prize in 2001.
31
Polkinghorne and Peacocke on Miracles
These are two of the Big Names in the field of
science and religion.
John Polkinghorne has a more positive view as to
the possibility of miracles.

• Arthur Peacocke tends to be far more cautious
  about whether miracles happen.

32
The Resurrection and Virgin Birth of Jesus

• Note that the term Virgin Birth is probably less
  helpful than the more informative term virginal
  conception.
• Historically these are two pivotal miracles in
  the Christian understanding of who Jesus is. The
  creeds affirm that Jesus was born of a virgin
  mother having been conceived by the Holy Spirit
  and that he was raised from the dead three days
  after being crucified.
• Polkinghorne and Peacocke have somewhat different
  understandings of these doctrines.

33
Polkinghorneon Virginal Conception

• Polkinghorne defends an essentially traditional
  view the dual origin of the X and Y chromosomes
  ... seems a possible physical expression of the
  belief, in the words of the Nicene Creed, that
  Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit became
  incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made man.

34
Peacocke onVirginal Conception

• Peacocke really does not wish to accept the
  virginal conception of Jesus. For him, the notion
  of God supplying the Y chromosomes is strange. He
  wishes to separate stories of virginal
  conception from the doctrine of the incarnation.

35
Polkinghorneon Resurrection

• Polkinghornes view is more traditional than
  Peacockes. He writes, The empty tomb is of
  great importance with its proclamation that the
  risen Lords glorified body is the transmutation
  of his dead body.

36
Peacocke onResurrection

• Peacocke is reluctant to accept either that the
  tomb was empty or that the resurrected Jesus
  needed the atoms of his previous body. He is not
  convinced of the theological need for an empty
  tomb. It is our bodily pattern that is
  important, not the bits we are made of. Jesus
  resurrection body was of a different order -
  transmuted in God.

37
A footnote on Peacocke is he saying God cannot
or does not do miracles?

• Consider these extracts from Peacockes Theology
  for a Scientific Age (1993, p183)
• ...we cannot rule out the possibility that God
  might intervene... to bring about events for
  which there can never be a naturalistic
  explanation ... such direct intervention is
  (not) normally compatible with and coherent with
  other well-founded affirmations concerning the
  nature of God and of Gods relation to the world.
  The historical evidence that such an intervention
  has happened will therefore have to be especially
  strong and the event in question of a kind that
  renders it uniquely revelatory in its particular
  context of Gods purposes ... there are in the
  end very few events that pass through this seive.

38
More on Polkinghorne and Peacocke

• You can find out more about these two key
  thinkers on the Counterbalance website which has
  biographical information about both and video
  clips where they talk about their beliefs about
  various issues in science and religion.
• http//www.counterbalance.net