ABSTRACT
In Chapter 10, Robert A. Larmer takes up a defense of what he calls special divine acts. A special divine act is localized and interventionist. In other words, God brings about an event in a particular time and place that would not otherwise occur. The possibility and reality of special divine acts has been challenged on the grounds that divine intervention in the course of nature is open to serious, perhaps insuperable, scientific and theological objections. This view has led many philosophers and theologians to insist that, although God is to be conceived as the author and upholder of history, He should not be conceived as acting within history. Some philosophers and theologians, as a result, have attempted to provide non-interventionist accounts of special divine acts. Larmer introduces and responds to a variety of these non-interventionist accounts of divine activity. Each of these, he argues, is unsuccessful. Furthermore, he engages the arguments often raised against divine intervention. He shows that these objections to divine action are only apparent as opposed to substantive.
