ABSTRACT
In Chapter 15, Gregory E. Ganssle takes up the divine pairing problem. Jaegwon Kim introduced the pairing problem as a challenge to substance dualism. This challenge is to the coherence of a non-physical mind standing in causal relations. The particular issue he raises is that it seems to be impossible for an immaterial cause to pick out a specific effect. After presenting Kim’s explanation of the problem, Ganssle discusses various responses to the problem as it applies to non-physical human minds. Then, he develops Evan Fales’s version of the problem with respect to the divine mind. Ganssle argues that there are plausible accounts of agency and intentionality that can serve to solve the pairing problem for human minds. To apply these solutions to the case of divine causation, he draws upon the unique mode of divine knowledge as well. He then concludes that the pairing problem does not count as a serious challenge to God’s casual activity in the world.
