a) Agential Models of Gods Interaction With the World
Agential models deal explicitly with contemporary science
and its philosophical implications to explore the concept of God as interacting
with, but not intervening in, the world. They, in turn, include three distinct
approaches, each of which has been widely developed in the theology and science
literature: top-down causality, whole-part constraints, and bottom-up
causality. However, most scholars insist that a combination of these approaches
will be needed eventually for an adequate account of non-interventionist divine
action.
i) Top-down causality. This approach focuses on the
possibility of top-down causal relations between properties and processes at
higher and lower levels of complexity: the term top-down means that processes
at the higher levels effect those of lower levels. Peacocke explores models
involving top-down causality in light of Big Bang cosmology: God acts on the
world-as-a-whole in order to bring about special events in nature and
history, including revelation. Murphy, Clayton, Peacocke and Theo Meyering discuss divine action and the
neurosciences in light of the mind/brain problem (i.e., is the mind, which
emerges from the brain, capable of effecting the brain?), relying on
supervenience and holist epistemology.(See the miniscience section below on cosmology and the neurosciences below).
The challenge to this approach is to show how Gods action through top-down
causality can bring about actual changes in the processes at lower levels if
they are governed by classical physics.
Note: Supervenience can be thought of as a more
technically-detailed form of top-down causality. Its roots lie in philosophical
ethics where it describes the multiplicity of relations between moral and
nonmoral properties. We will return to this approach below.
ii) Whole-part constraints. This approach stays
within one level of complexity. Whole-part constraints refers to the effects
of the system as a whole on its parts (though these effects are transmitted
entirely by efficient causes; compare with quantum whole-part causality
below). A helpful example is the Bérnard phenomenon in fluids where, beyond a
critical point, individual molecules move in hexagonal cells caused by the
fluid being bounded by its container and by the effects of the container being
conveyed by inter-molecular collisions throughout the fluid. Whole-part models
typically draw on recent developments in non-linear, non-equilibrium
thermodynamics as applied to systems open to their surrounding environment.
Peacocke has used this approach to point to novelty emerging in the world.
Whole-part themes become one way of viewing God as bringing about special
events through Gods interaction with the whole of which these events are a
part. The
challenge again is that thermodynamics is part of classical physics and thus
fully deterministic, making Gods non-interventionist action problematic.
Science minisummary: thermodynamics.In the 19th century, thermodynamics, the study of heat transformation and
exchange, was concerned with closed systems (i.e., systems which do not
exchange matter or energy with their environment). In such systems although the
total amount of energy E is always conserved (the first law, ΔE=0), the
amount of available energy inevitably decreases to zero (the second law);
equivalently, the entropy S of the system, defined as the amount of unusable
energy, increases to a maximum: ΔS>=0.
During the 20th century, the field was broadened to include open systems (i.e.,
systems which exchanged matter and/or energy with their environment). These
first included non-linear systems in which effects on the system were highly
amplified, and then non-linear systems far from equilibrium in which
spontaneous fluctuations were even more fully amplified. Such systems
demonstrated the surprising phenomena of order out of chaos, to use Ilya
Prigogines famous phrase: they could spontaneously move to greater forms of
organization, driven always by the internal production and dissipation of
entropy (i.e., dissipative systems), and though, of course, the total entropy
of the open system plus its environment obeyed the second law.Two final points: 1) Whether entropy applies to the universe as a closed
system is subject to intense debate, as we will see below. 2) Although most
physicists reduce thermodynamics to dynamics, thus explaining (away) times
(thermodynamic) arrow, Prigogine and others insist it should be the converse.
In any case, non-linear, non-equilibrium thermodynamics points to at least one
form of novelty and apparent openness in nature, although it still comes (pace
Prigogine) under the rubric of deterministic classical dynamics, and, like
chaos theory (below), rendering its portrait of novelty in terms of epistemic
ignorance.
Others have drawn on chaos theory and complexity in
discussing divine action.Polkinghorne has been particularly committed to arguing that chaotic phenomena
point to the fundamental openness of nature, and that such openness could lead
to a non-interventionist understanding of divine action.These suggestions have been picked up by Edwardsand developed in detail by Gregersen,but the appeal to chaos theory, at least in its present form, is open to severe
criticisms similar to those regarding thermodynamics --- namely that it is
still a part of classical physics.
Science minisummary: chaos theory.Over the past three decades, the study of chaotic systems has dramatically
expanded from physics to include all the natural and even social sciences.
Chaotic phenomena now include such physical and biological systems as the
weather, water dripping from a faucet, bands in the rings of Saturn,
oscillations in the populations of organisms, and the fluctuations of
populations in complex ecosystems. In physics, though, chaotic systems are
classical in scale and thus subsumable in principle under classical mechanics
with its deterministic laws of motion. Still even for the simplest systems,
minute uncertainties in the initial conditions and the effect of countless
interactions with other systems in nature, together with unusual
characteristics in the underlying mathematics (e.g., strange attractors) make
complete predictability impossible even in principle. Surprisingly, then, chaos
breaks the long-standing philosophical link between determinism and
predictability. Still since it is describable by deterministic equations, chaos
theory supports a strictly deterministic philosophy of nature, although within
subtle epistemic limits.
It is possible, however, as Polkinghorne suggests, that
chaotic systems may one day be more accurately described by more complex
theories, sometimes referred to as holistic chaos. The current deterministic
laws would then be seen as simple approximations to holistic chaos through what
Polkinghorne calls downward emergence. Finally, the new theories of holistic
chaos would, hopefully, suggest an indeterministic interpretation.It is also possible that a satisfying connection will be found between chaos at
the present, classical level, and quantum mechanics(sometimes referred to as quantum chaology), suggesting that the uncertainty
in the initial conditions that, together with coupling to the environment,
drive chaotic behavior is at least partially due to quantum indeterminism.
iii). Bottom-up causality. In this approach, God acts
at a lower level of complexity to influence the processes and properties at a
higher level, either acting as one among other factors or as fully determining
them. This approach requires that the lower level be ontologically
indeterministic for God to act in that level without intervening in its
processes.
A number of scholars have focused on quantum mechanics as
indicative of an indeterministic ontology at the subatomic level, and from there
have discussed a non-interventionist view of objective, special divine action.
A number of important but technical distinctions about divine action in this
context (and others) surface in the literature:i) If specific quantum events occur without a sufficient natural cause, one can
think of God as acting to bring them about, either by acting in, through and
together with the processes of nature (i.e., mediated divine action) or
unilaterally (i.e., unmediated divine action). ii) God may be thought of as
acting directly at the quantum level (i.e., these acts of God are basic acts),
but the objective, special events we attribute to God at the macroscopic
level are in this interpretation the indirect result of them as they
percolate up the levels of complexity and size. iii) This approach to
divine action does not imply a God of the gaps,nor that God is reduced to a natural cause; moreover, Gods actions, though
objective, would be hidden from scientific methods.iv) Finally, one may argue that God acts with nature in every quantum event or
only in some.
These arguments prove particularly fruitful in discussing
Gods action in evolution, where genetic mutations are at their core a quantum process
(see Part 2, C, 2 below). Those who have explored this approach to
non-interventionist special divine action include Karl Heimand William Pollardin the 1950s, Mary Hesseand Donald MacKayin the 1970s, and recently and in detail by Nancey Murphy,Tom Tracy, George
Ellis, Mark W.
Worthing,Christopher F. Mooney,Phil Clayton and me.It has been criticized by a number of scholars including Peacocke,Polkinghorne, and
Saunders. The
challenge here includes the fact that quantum physics can be given a compelling
interpretation in terms of ontological determinism (eg., David Bohm), making
the case for indeterminism far from settled. In addition, quantum physics
raises tremendously complex, and as yet unsettled, philosophical and technical
problems including: the measurement problem / collapse of the wave-function
(how and when does a quantum event occur and lead to macroscopic effects?)
and non-locality / non-separability (why do once interacting, now vastly
separated, particles continue to act in some ways as though they remained part
of a single system?) and the challenge to classical ontology and critical
realism (how does one speak of the ontology of quantum processes?). Future
research in theology and science should address these questions with rigorous
detail if progress is to be achieved in the problem of divine action in light
of science.
Science minisummary: Quantum mechanics.The empirical basis for quantum physics lies in such phenomena as blackbody
radiation, the photoelectric effect, the specific heats of solids, the
stability of the structure and the emission spectrum of atoms, all of which
remained unexplainable in terms of classical physics. In 1901, Max Planck
solved the blackbody problem by proposing that energy is quantized: it is
available in discrete, not continuous, amounts. The quantization of light as
photons by Einstein in 1905 explained the photoelectric effect as well as the
specific heat two years later. In 1913 Niels Bohr predicted the emission
spectrum for hydrogen with a simple planetary model of the atom in which the
angular momentum of the orbiting electron, and thus the size of its orbits, are
quantized. In 1924, Louis de Broglie attributed wave-like behavior to particles
as the converse of energy quantization. Based on this idea, Erwin Schrödinger
developed the wave equation which has proved to be foundational for quantum
mechanics, Werner Heisenberg announced the uncertainty principle (and an
alternative, but mathematically, equivalent formulation to that of
Schrödinger), Wolfgang Pauli discovered the exclusion principle; by the end of
the decade (nonrelativistic) quantum mechanics was basically complete.
Conceptual problems: Still, almost a century later, major
conceptual problems persist in interpreting quantum mechanics:
---the Schrödinger equation propagates continuously in time
but collapses discontinuously in a process not described by the Schrödinger
equation when a particle interacts with a classical system (often called the
measurement problem);
---the Schrödinger equation describes the propagation of the
wave function ψ but this is a complex variablewhose squared value ψ2 represents information about the quantum
system;
---a composite quantum system displays a holistic character
entirely unlike classical composite systems (what can be called whole-part
causality as distinct from whole-part constraints): once interacting, now
vastly separated, particles continue to act in some ways as though they
remained part of a single system, as underscored by the EPR paradox in the
1930s and Bells theorem in the 1960s and now referred to as non-locality and
non-separability;
---chance in quantum mechanics (i.e., quantum statistics)
is not only strikingly different from classical chance (as in the familiar
bell curve), it actually gives rise, in a bottom-up way, to the basic
features of the classical world, including the impenetrability of matter.
Philosophical issues:
Quantum mechanics can be interpreted philosophically in a variety of conflicting
ways, and so far we know of no experimental basis for choosing definitively
between them. These include ontological indeterminism (Heisenberg), ontological
determinism (Einstein, David Bohm --- as stressed recently by Jim Cushing), or
many worlds (Everett); as involving consciousness (Von Neumann, Eugene Wigner,
Roger Penrose), non-standard logic (Gribb), or consistent histories (Bob
Griffiths, Chris Clarke).It is particularly important to note that Bohms approach assumes an
underlying, deterministic ontology; the implications of his approach for a
philosohy of nature and for theology have received some attention.It is also important to recognize that all of these interpretations challenge
classical ontology, with its core concepts of waves, particles and locality, as
well as a critical realist philosophy of nature. In any case, quantum
mechanics, at least compared to the other sciences surveyed here, can plausibly
be said to offer the strongest reasons for expecting that the ontology of nature
at the lowest levels at least is indeterministic.
Contributed by: Dr. Robert Russell
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