Emergence and Divine Action. Testing some Criteria for P... - Dr Ignacio Silva - SRF Online Oct 2024

Emergence and Divine Action. Testing some Criteria for Providence in the World
Dr Ignacio Silva

ABSTRACT: In light of several proposals to answer the question about special divine action or special providence, Arthur Peacocke suggested that God’s action should not be conceived as an intervention, even if that intervention was to be thought of within the indeterministic character of quantum mechanics, as Robert Russell would suggest. Instead, Peacocke held to a nonenergetic non-material transfer of information at the boundaries of the world-as-a-whole. In this way, God could influence the development of the history of creation as a whole and of humanity in particular. In this talk I will assess this proposal against some criteria or desiderata I find in the history of debates about divine providential action from the middle ages to the twentieth century, namely, divine omnipotence, divine providence, the autonomy of nature, and the success of natural human reason.

Ignacio Silva holds a DPhil in Theology and an MSt in Science and Religion from the University of Oxford (UK). He also has a License degree in Philosophy from the Universidad Católica Argentina. He is the author of “Indeterminismo en la Naturaleza y Mecánica Cuántica: Wener Heisenberg y Tomás de Aquino” (Eunsa 2011), editor of “Latin American Perspectives on Science and Religion” (Pickering&Chatto 2014), and author of numerous journal articles in his field. He was Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College and the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion (University of Oxford), with projects on special divine action, and on science, philosophy and theology in Latin America. He joined the Instituto de Filosofía in 2018, where he continues his research on human and divine providence. Dr Silva is member of the International Society for Science and Religion, and member of the scientific and advisory boards of several international academic journals, such as Scientia et Fides, Studium. Filosofía y Teología, Quaerentibus. Teología y Ciencias, y TheoLogica.

Recorded at 'Peacocke @ 100 - Science, Causality and God: Divine Action in a Scientific Age' an online conference from the Science and Religion Forum - 28th - 29th October 2024

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