| Description |
1 online resource |
| Series |
Oxford theology and religion monographs |
|
Oxford theology and religion monographs.
|
| Contents |
Intro -- Series page -- Series page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication page -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Abbreviated Works -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- The Doctrine of Providence -- Actionistic and Prudential-Ordinative Providence -- The Divine Action Debate -- New Perspectives from Aquinas -- Reframing Providence -- Overview -- Part I. Framing Providence-Actionistic Providence -- 1. The Divine Action Debate -- 1.1 The Historical Roots of the Divine Action Debate -- 1.2 The Theological Pushback on Divine Action in Nature -- 1.3 The Concept of Special Divine Action -- 2. The Divine Action Project (1988-2003) -- 2.1 A New Framework as Alleged Breakthrough -- 2.2 Non-Interventionism and the Laws of Nature -- 2.3 The NIODA Models -- 3. The Reason for the Deadlock -- 3.1 Theo-Physical Incompatibilism -- 3.2 The Incompatibilist Premise -- 3.3 Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Objections -- Summary of Part I -- Part II. Reframing Providence-Prudential-Ordinative Providence -- 4. Towards a Prudential-Ordinative Understanding of Providence -- 4.1 Prudence and Providence -- 4.2 Against a Common Misconception -- 4.3 The Concept of Secondary Causation -- 5. Divine Providence, Natural Contingency, and the Doctrine of Transcendence -- 5.1 Revisiting the Role of Contingency and Necessity in Providence -- 5.2 The Doctrine of Divine Transcendence -- 5.3 Towards a New Appreciation of Contingency -- 6. The Teleological Nature of Providence and the Teleological Natures of Creatures -- 6.1 Teleology Revisited -- 6.2 A Fresh Assessment of the Theory of Appetency -- 6.3 Divine Government through Immanent Natural Teleology -- Summary of Part II -- Part III. An Application-Revisiting An Evolution Debate -- 7. Replaying the Tape of Life -- 7.1 The 'Gospel of (Evolutionary) Contingency' |
|
7.2 The 'Gospel of (Human Life's) Inevitability' -- 7.3 The 'Secularisation of Providence' -- 8. Evaluating the Theological Responses -- 8.1 The Limitations of NIODA as a Response to Evolutionary Contingency -- 8.2 The Fruitfulness of the New Perspectives from Aquinas -- 8.3 The Directionality of Biological Evolution -- Summary of Part III -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index |
| Summary |
The doctrine of providence, which states that God guides his creation, has been widely conceived in action terms in recent theological scholarship. A telling example is the so-called divine action debate, which is largely based on two principles: (i) providence is best conceptualised in terms of divine action; and (ii) divine action is best modelled on human action. By examining this debate, and especially the Divine Action Project (1988-2003), which led to the 'scientific turn' of the debate, this book argues that theo-physical incompatibilism, as a corollary of this 'framing' of providence, can be identified as a main reason for the current deadlock in divine action theories--namely, the assumption that just as human (libertarian) free action presupposes causal indeterminism, so, too, does divine action in the world presuppose causal indeterminism. Instead of recalibrating the much-discussed non-interventionist objective divine action (NIODA) approaches, this book advocates a 'reframing' of providence in terms of the virtue of prudence. To this end, this book examines the 'prudential-ordinative' theory of Thomas Aquinas and contrasts it with the prevalent 'actionistic', or action-based, model of providence. In this process, the book discusses, among other topics, the doctrine of divine transcendence, primary and secondary causation, natural necessity and contingency, and teleology as essential features of this 'prudential-ordinative' theory. How these two approaches fare when applied to the question of biological evolution is the subject of the final part of this book, which revisits the controversy between Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris over what would happen if one were to rerun the tape of life |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 10, 2023) |
| Subject |
Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274.
|
| SUBJECT |
Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274 fast |
| Subject |
Providence and government of God -- Christianity -- History of doctrines
|
|
Religion & beliefs.
|
|
Religion.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780192882141 |
|
0192882147 |
|
9780192882134 |
|
0192882139 |
|
9780191976636 |
|
0191976636 |
|
