Divine Action and Modern Science considers the relationship between the natural sciences and the concept of
God acting in the world. Nicholas Saunders examines the Biblical motivations for asserting a continuing notion
of divine action and identifies several different theological approaches to the problem. He considers their theoretical
relationships with the laws of nature, indeterminism, and probabilistic causation. His book then embarks on a radical
critique of current attempts to reconcile special divine action with quantum theory, chaos theory and quantum chaos.
As well as considering the implications of these problems for common interpretations of divine action, Saunders
also surveys and codifies the many different theological, philosophical and scientific responses to divine action.
The conclusion reached is that we are still far from a satisfactory account of how God might act in a manner that
is consonant with modern science despite the copious recent scholarship in this area.
A key intervention in contemporary 'science and religion' studies
A book that will move forward debates about the relationship between scientific reason and divine action
Winner of the prestigious Biennial Prize of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology
Table of Contents
1. Motivations
2. Theological approaches to divine action
3. The laws of nature and miracles
4. Determinism and SDA
5. Divine action and quantum theory
6. Does God cheat at dice?
7. Chaos theory and divine action
8. Whole-part models of SDA
9. Is SDA really tenable?