ABSTRACT
In his book Divine Action and Modern Science (2002), Nicholas Saunders reviews the contemporary discussion of divine action and concludes that ‘the prospects for supporting anything like the “traditional understanding” of God’s activity in the world are extremely bleak . . . we simply do not have anything other than bold assertions and a belief that SDA [special divine action, R. B.] takes place’.1 e only comfort he ošers to his readers is taken from the hope that perhaps an understanding ‘of God’s role in guiding and directing nature’ might be possible in the future.2 It is a cold comfort. Saunders develops the question of divine action from the perspective of the sci-
ences. But already within the doctrine of God any attempt to conceptualize the belief in God’s active engagement in creation leads to di›culties, involving assumptions about the relationship between God, whose nature is assumed to be timetranscending, and the time-space continuum of the cosmic process.e notion of timelessness obviously contradicts both the concept of action and the concept of causality, which are the main models for conceiving God’s activity in creation. – e concept of action is anthropomorphic, derived from the experience and the logic of human action. It is tied to the ideas of subjectivity and intentionality, and thus to the theistic view of God as a divine person, who intervenes teleologically in natural and historical processes.
