![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper attempts to outline the miracle discussions that show up intermittently in the CTNS/VO project. The project's main purpose focuses on how and in what ways God could act in a non-miraculous manner in nature and history rather than through God's miraculous interventionist activities. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to cover the miraculous in light of this project, as special divine action and miracles are conceptually interwoven in the sense that the extraordinary divine actions could be included within the larger range of God's special providence. Thus, several relevant arguments concerning the miraculous in the project need to be addressed.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Research Fund of Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Republic of Korea (20240403-001).
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The CTNS/VO project deals with a variety of topics in various areas of science, philosophy, and theology. Among them, along with discussions of divine action and special providence, various theological subjects are covered, including creation (ex nihilo, continuous, the Anthropic Principle), eschatology, resurrection, theodicy (sin and moral/natural evil), and theological anthropology. For more details on the achievements of this project, see Robert J. Russell, “Challenge and Progress in ‘Theology and Science’: An Overview of the VO/CTNS Series,” in Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action: Twenty Years of Challenge and Progress, eds. Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and William R. Stoeger (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory and Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2008), 7–14, hereafter TY.
2 This article is a revised and shortened version of Chapter 5 of my doctoral dissertation in Donghwi Kim, “Miracles Reconsidered: A Fresh Assessment from Philosophy, Science, and Theology” (PhD diss., Graduate Theological Union, 2023), ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
3 This expression comes from Wesley Wildman, one of the participants in the project. See Wesley J. Wildman, “The Divine Action Project, 1988–2003,” in TY, 133. This article was first published in Theology and Science 2, no.1 (2004): 31–75. In this paper, I will use the word “DAP” and “CTNS/VO project” interchangeably when referring to this research.
4 For an account of the DAP and an appraisal of its achievements, see Russell, “Challenge and Progress,” 3–56. Details of the books and summaries of all the papers collected in them (ninety-one in total) are available online at https://www.ctns.org/publications/books (accessed July 8, 2023).
5 Several promising approaches regarding special divine action have been proposed by various scholars in the CTNS/VO series. These approaches include four types of causation (to borrow Robert Russell’s term, namely, top-down, whole-part, lateral, and bottom-up) as well as two metaphysical systems—namely, process metaphysics and neo-Thomistic metaphysics in the contemporary Catholic tradition. See Russell, “Challenge and Progress,” 20, 35–36. For the purpose of this article, however, these suggested approaches in the DAP are not covered in order to focus more on the miracle discussion. For details on other candidate theories, see the following references instead: Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990), chaps. 8–9; Philip Clayton, “Neuroscience, the Person, and God: An Emergentist Account,” in Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, Theo C. Meyering, and Michael A. Arbib (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1999), 181–214, hereafter, NP; Arthur R. Peacocke, “The Sound of Sheer Silence: How Does God Communicate with Humanity?,” in NP, 215–247; John C. Polkinghorne, “The Metaphysics of Divine Action,” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1995), 147–156, hereafter CC; William R. Stoeger, “Describing God’s Action in the World in Light of Scientific Knowledge of Reality,” in CC, 239–261. For an overview of each approach, see, e.g., Robert J. Russell, Cosmology: From Alpha to Omega: The Creative Mutual Interaction of Theology and Science (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 129–140; and Nicholas Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
6 For more information on launching backgrounds of the DAP, see Russell, “Challenge and Progress,” 3–17; and Wildman, “The Divine Action Project,” 135–138.
7 See Philip Clayton, Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action, ed. Zachary Simpson (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 53–54.
8 Beside these, (i) objective vs. subjective, (ii) direct vs. indirect, and (iii) mediated vs. unmediated divine action can also be considered. For an early version of this engagement to shared meanings was published in the “Introduction” to the second volume of the series, CC, 9–13. A further clarification and important criticisms of the terminology in the CTNS/VO project came in Theology and Science 2, no. 2 (2004), 186–201, with particularly useful insights by Philip Clayton, John Polkinghorne, William Stoeger, and Thomas Tracy. See also Wesley J. Wildman, “Further Reflections on ‘The Divine Action Project’,” Theology and Science 3, no. 1 (2005): 71–83.
9 Natural laws in general, and the laws of physics in particular, are commonly understood by scientists and non-scientists alike in the following two ways: (1) “Necessitarian” view: laws of nature are objective properties of the physical world which determine or constrain the course of events. They are the principles that govern the natural phenomena of the world so that nature obeys the laws of nature; they exist whether or not scientists have yet discovered or described them; (2) “Regularist” (or contingency) view: laws of nature are descriptions of regularities in natural systems or processes, which can be scientifically observed. They are statements of the uniformities or regularities in the world; they are indeed descriptions of the way the world is. For a helpful overview on these various views, see Paul Gwynne, Special Divine Action: Key Issues in the Contemporary Debate (1965–1995) (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1996), 167–187; see also Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 60–72.
10 See Niels Henrik Gregersen, “Divine Action, Compatibilism, and Coherence Theory: A Response to Russell, Clayton, and Murphy,” Theology and Science 4, no. 3 (2006): 215–217. For a helpful discussion on this concept, see Chris Doran, “The Quest for the Causal Joint,” The Journal of Faith and Science Exchange 4 (2000): 161–170.
11 See Robert J. Russell, “An Appreciative Response to Niels Henrik Gregersen’s JKR Research Conference Lecture,” Theology and Science 4, no. 2 (2006): 130.
12 Miracles are often (though not always) understood as interventionist SDAs. Of course, in principle, miracles can also be placed in the category of non-interventionist SDA. In the DAP, very few hold this position, one of which is Denis Edwards. See Denis Edwards, How God Acts: Creation, Redemption, and Special Divine Action (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), esp. chaps. 5–6.
13 Plenty of contemporary scholars agree with this Augustinian view on miracles that depends upon humans’ provisional understanding of nature. For St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE), miracles are not against nature, but against the order of nature known to us. See Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1063; XXI.8. Modern theologians, such as Wolfhart Pannenberg and Christopher Knight, would be notable cases on this understanding. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Concept of Miracle,” Zygon 37, no. 3 (2002): 760; and Christopher C. Knight, The God of Nature: Incarnation and Contemporary Science (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 35–36; cf. 93–95. Among DAP members who agree with this Augustinian view would be the Jesuit scholar William Stoeger. Stoeger’s argument and my criticism of it will be given in the section 3.2.
14 This summary is inspired by Gregersen, “Divine Action, Compatibilism, and Coherence Theory,” 218.
15 William P. Alston, “Divine Action, Human Freedom, and the Laws of Nature,” in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 2nd ed., eds. Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and C. J. Isham (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1996), 198, hereafter QCLN.
16 Concerns about such divine intervention were discussed extensively throughout the project. For example: Alston, “Divine Action, Human Freedom, and the Laws of Nature,” in QCLN, 186–187; Michael A. Arbib, “Towards a Neuroscience of the Person,” in NP, 100; Paul C. W. Davies, “Teleology Without Teleology: Purpose through Emergent Complexity,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert J. Russell, William R. Stoeger, and Francisco J. Ayala (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1998), 152, hereafter EMB; George F. R. Ellis, “Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action: The Nexus of Interaction,” in CC, 382–384; Ted Peters, “Resurrection of the Very Embodied Soul?,” in NP, 324–325; John C. Polkinghorne, “The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics,” in QCLN, 433; Robert J. Russell, “Special Providence and Genetic Mutation,” in EMB, 199, 216; Stoeger, “Describing God’s Action in the World,” 244, 248–249, 260; Thomas F. Tracy, “Creation, Providence, and Quantum Chance,” in Quantum Mechanics: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert J. Russell, Philip Clayton, Kirk Wegter-McNelly, and John Polkinghorne (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2001), 237, 242, hereafter QM. These references are indebted to Arthur R. Peacocke, “Some Reflections on ‘Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action’,” in TY, 202–03n2.
17 The following quotes are listed in order: Philip Clayton, “Wildman’s Kantian Skepticism: A Rubicon for the Divine Action Debate,” Theology and Science 2, no. 2 (2004): 187; Robert J. Russell, “Divine Action and Quantum Mechanics: A Fresh Assessment,” in QM, 295; Thomas F. Tracy, “Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action? Mapping the Options,” Theology and Science 2, no. 2 (2004): 197. Note, however, that this does not mean that these DAP members do not use the term “miracle.”
18 Davies, “Teleology Without Teleology,” 152.
19 Peacocke, “The Sound of Sheer Silence,” 234. David Jenkins (though he was not a DAP member) similarly mentions that “a God who uses the openness of his created universe … to insert additional causal events from time to time into that universe to produce particular events … would be a meddling demigod, a moral monster, and a contradiction of himself [sic].” David Jenkins, God, Miracle, and the Church of England (London: SCM, 1987), 63; quoted in Robert A. Larmer, “Defending Special Divine Acts,” in Philosophical Essays on Divine Causation, ed. Gregory E. Ganssle (New York: Routledge, 2021), 188.
20 Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp, The Predicament of Belief: Science, Philosophy, Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 52. Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp call this the “not-even-once” principle: “A benevolent God could not intervene even once without incurring the responsibility to intervene in every case where doing so would prevent an instance of innocent suffering.” Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp, “Divine Action and the ‘Argument from Neglect,’” in Physics and Cosmology: Scientific Perspective on the Problem of Natural Evil, eds. Nancey C. Murphy, Robert J. Russell, and William R. Stoeger (Vatican City State; Berkeley: Vatican Observatory; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2007), 183, emphasis in original; hereafter PC. In fact, their argument came in response to Wildman’s “argument from neglect.” The argument simply goes something like this: There are many instances of suffering in which God does not intervene, but if such intervening actions one would expect from a loving and personal God do not occur, it can be concluded that there is no such God; or that God is unable or unwilling to intervene in the natural order of things; or at least such a God represents a nonpersonal God who is a malicious or amoral being. For more on this important debate within the DAP, see Wesley J. Wildman, “Incongruous Goodness, Perilous Beauty, Disconcerting Truth: Ultimate Reality and Suffering in Nature,” in PC, 267–294; and Clayton and Knapp, “Divine Action and the ‘Argument from Neglect,’” 179–194.
21 Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 48.
22 In my judgment, the supposed reason why the miracle claims have received surprisingly little attention in this project is that the CTNS/VO project’s primary task was to align divine action theology with the known laws of science. Thus, studying God’s miraculous action might have been a separate subject, at least insofar as they are understood in the interventionist manner.
23 Wildman, “The Divine Action Project,” 141–142.
24 Ibid., 140.
25 Tracy, “Creation, Providence, and Quantum Chance,” 241n11.
26 Ibid., 241–242. Cf. Thomas F. Tracy, “Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps,” in CC, 313–314, 314n51.
27 See J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 27–28. Cf. Colin J. Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist’s Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories (London: Continuum, 2003).
28 I would claim that the ancient Israelites may well have discerned/recognized that some exceptional phenomena such as parting of the sea were understood in any remarkable sense as contrary to the normal course of nature. Those exceptional phenomena, no matter how they are described/understood in the Hebrew Scriptures—whether as “wonders” or as “miracles,” must have been regarded as extraordinary events whether they are observed from a modern or ancient biblical standpoint. This observation is indebted to Michael P. Levine, “Miracles,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed July 8, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/miracles/.
29 Russell, Cosmology, 125; cf. 128–129.
30 Russell, “Special Providence and Genetic Mutation,” 195n7. Note that according to my research, Russell’s NIODA approach by no means rules out miracles. Rather, he understands it from a more eschatological standpoint: miracles “go beyond the usual NT meaning of miracle to include the transformation of the laws and fundamental processes of nature (i.e., the coming of the eschatological New Creation).” Robert J. Russell, “What We’ve Learned from Quantum Mechanics About Noninterventionist Objective Divine Action in Nature—and Its Remaining Challenges,” in God’s Providence and Randomness in Nature: Scientific and Theological Perspectives, eds. Robert J. Russell and Joshua M. Moritz (West Conshohocken: Templeton Press, 2019), 150. In his most recent work, Russell still seems to maintain this view. See idem, “Non-interventionist Objective Divine Action and Quantum Mechanics,” in Miracles: An Exercise in Comparative Philosophy of Religion, eds. Karen R. Zwier, David L. Weddle, and Timothy D. Knepper (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2022), 228–229.
31 Peacocke, “Some Reflections on ‘Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action’,” 202.
32 Joshua M. Moritz, Science and Religion: Beyond Warfare and Toward Understanding (Winona: Anselm Academic, 2016), 217, emphasis added.
33 Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 21. “The Oxford Special Divine Action Project,” conducted by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion in UK, is also understood miracles as a part included in the category of SDA, although they are often distinct from SDA. “In this context, questions about SDA often focus on the possibility or impossibility of extraordinary events that surpass the productive power of nature and are termed ‘miracles’. Nevertheless, … it is common practice to take account of distinct modes of SDA, especially grace, inspiration, miracles, and providence,” https://sda.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/sda/#!/about (accessed July 8, 2023).
34 However, in my opinion, I think that most, if not all, of the CTNS/VO participants talk about the universal immanence of God, but few of them are panentheists.
35 Niels Henrik Gregersen, “Special Divine Action and the Quilt of Laws: Why the Distinction between Special and General Divine Action Cannot Be Maintained,” in TY, 192, emphasis in original. Early on, this idea that the distinction between “general” and “particular” providence is collapsed is preceded by the nineteenth century liberal theology. German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), reducing special revelation to natural revelation, claims that special providence can be seen as the result of general providence in specific cases explained by natural laws. See Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H. R. Macintosh and J. S. Stewart, trans. D. M. Baillie et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928 [1830]). In this way, events in the physical world may be the result of the normal workings of natural laws, but they may also be understood as expressing God’s special purposes for the religious communities whose destiny is particularly affected by these events.
36 See Russell, “Challenge and Progress,” 23.
37 Arthur R. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine, and Human (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 183.
38 Arthur R. Peacocke, All That Is: A Naturalistic Faith for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Philip Clayton (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 9.
39 See Russell, “Challenge and Progress,” 23.
40 Tracy, “Creation, Providence, and Quantum Chance,” 238. In his own chart, Wildman classifies Tracy as a scholar belonging to the “traditional personalist theism” and positions him in the category of “Miracle Theism,” which is located in the incompatibilist view of “God Acts Miraculously Disregarding Natural Laws.” See Wildman, “The Divine Action Project,” 176.
41 Tracy, “Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps,” 319, emphasis in original.
42 Tracy, “Creation, Providence, and Quantum Chance,” 250, emphasis in original.
43 Ibid., 250n30.
44 Robert J. Russell and Kirk Wegter-McNelly, “Science,” in The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. Gareth Jones (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 520.
45 John C. Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 92. Cf. idem, Theology in the Context of Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 136.
46 John C. Polkinghorne, Quarks, Chaos & Christianity: Questions to Science and Religion (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 82.
47 William R. Stoeger, “Conceiving Divine Action in a Dynamic Universe,” in TY, 237.
48 Ibid. Cf. idem, “Contemporary Physics and the Ontological Status of the Laws of Nature,” in QCLN, 207–231.
49 William R. Stoeger, “Epistemological and Ontological Issues Arising from Quantum Theory,” in QM, 95.
50 See Stoeger, “Conceiving Divine Action,” 237–238.
51 Stoeger, “Describing God’s Action in the World,” 249–250, 250n20.
52 See William R. Stoeger, “The Divine Action Project: Reflections on the Compatibilism/Incompatibilism Divide,” Theology and Science 2, no. 2 (2004): 194.
53 Augustine, City of God, XXI.8.2 (cf. endnote #13).
54 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 4th rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 176–177.
55 Ellis, “Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action,” 383n81.
56 Peacocke, “Some Reflections on ‘Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action’,” 203, emphasis in original.
57 Tracy, “Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps,” 311.
58 Thomas F. Tracy, “Evolution, Divine Action, and the Problem of Evil,” in EMB, 518.
59 Ibid., 518–519, emphasis added.
60 Thomas F. Tracy, “The Lawfulness of Nature and the Problem of Evil,” in PC, 173.
61 Ibid., 174.
62 Ellis, “Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action,” 383.
63 Ibid., 384.
64 Ibid., 385.
65 This observation is indebted to Richard Swinburne, Is There a God?, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 101.
66 Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, for instance, notes, “God will intervene (if that’s the right word) when he [sic] has a good reason for doing so; but why suppose we human beings would be in a position to know when he does and when he doesn’t? Perhaps we are in a position like the Biblical Job; what happened to him was a result of mysterious transactions among beings some of whom were wholly unknown to him.” Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 101. Theologian Atle Ottesen Søvik similarly observes that the reason “why God sometimes helps and heals people and other times does not” is that “God can intervene sometimes without disturbing the independent system too much, but not at other times. Since the world is so complex, we can never know when God can intervene.” Atle Ottesen Søvik, The Problem of Evil and the Power of God (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 263 (citing Keith Ward’s argument).
67 Russell, for instance, argues that “the problem of theodicy is a serious one for any theory of objective divine action, non-interventionist or not. That is why … the problem of theodicy, whether or not it is genuinely exacerbated by the possibility of non-interventionist objective divine action, is a driving factor in the formulation of an overarching theme for a new series of CTNS/VO research.” Russell, “Challenge and Progress,” 25n19.
68 A few cases of unavoidable exceptional action I am carefully proposing could be the following situations:
Situations where dramatic help is needed in a certain religious context (e.g., medical assistance is scarcely available and miraculous healing is the only hope for those suffering.).
Situations where communication channels are lacking to convey God’s redemptive love, and miraculous actions are the only means for spreading the divine purpose (e.g., missionary works in certain remote and/or restricted areas).
Situations where the spirit realm is genuine to people, and so-called “power encounters,” including healings and confronting spirit possession, have been reported. Miracles display divine power there.
Other situations where miraculous actions are required because of a greater plan of God’s that people do not know about (given human’s cognitive limitations).
69 Thomas Dixon and Adam R. Shapiro, Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 58.
70 As noted throughout the paper, this supposed capricious activity of God was the very problem behind why not a few participants of the CTNS/VO project were doubtful about the “actual” possibility of miracles.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Donghwi Kim
Donghwi Kim, PhD, is the book review editor of Theology and Science and Assistant Professor in the Department of Systematic Theology at Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary (Seoul, South Korea).