ABSTRACT
Christian theology cannot evade the question of divine action. It speaks of God using the personal language of “Father201D; and not the impersonal language of “Force.” However stretched and analogical such linguistic usage may be, it would hardly be appropriate if divine agency were so general and unfocused that God could ever be said to do anything in particular. Someone like Maurice Wiles, 1 who wishes to speak solely of God’s one great act of holding the physical world in being and who, whilst acknowledging that act to be complex, does not want to speak of specific, identifiable acts of God within it, cannot repudiate the charge of deism. The motivation for this detached, single-action view of divine agency appears to be twofold.
