A Deistic Discussion of Murphy and Tracy’s Accounts of God’s Limited Activity in the Natural World

• Authors: Leland R. Harper
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Seemingly, in an attempt to appease both the micro-physicists and the classical theists, Nancey Murphy and Thomas Tracy have each developed accounts of God which allow for Him to act, in an otherwise causally closed natural world, through various micro-processes at the subatomic level. I argue that not only do each of these views skew the accounts of both micro-physics and theism just enough to preclude the appeasement of either group but that both accounts can aptly be classified as, what I term, epistemic deism. I go on to argue that epistemic deism is a weak brand of deism that ultimately provides us with little to no answers to any of serious questions discussed within the philosophy or religion.

Keywords

EN

causation; deism; epistemic; God; metaphysical; religion; subatomic; theism

• Publisher: Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie
• Journal: Forum Philosophicum
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 93–107

Dates

delivered

2013-09-03

accepted

2013-11-18

Contributors

author

Leland R. Harper

References

• Larmer, Robert, “Divine Agency and the Principle of the Conservation of Energy.” Zygon 44, no. 3 (2009): 543–557.
• Murphy, Nancey. “Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan’s Ass and Schrödinger’s Cat.” In Chaos And Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke, 325–357. Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.
• Russell, Robert John, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke, eds. Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.
• Tracy, Thomas F. “Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps.” In Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke, 289–325. Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

Identifiers

DOI

10.5840/forphil20131816

URI

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=93997875&lang=pl&site=ehost-live

URI

http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2013_0018_0001_0093_0107&onlyautologin=true