ABSTRACT
Providence and Science in a World of Contingency presents the fundamental notions of the debate surrounding providence and science, such as general divine action, special divine action, and explores the basic features of contingency, indeterminism, chance, and randomness. I will address how these concepts are used to argue for the notion of divine providence. I will exemplify the main ideas guiding the debate by focusing on Robert Russell’s model of quantum divine action, and also referring to John Polkinghorne’s ideas on chaos theory and divine action, and Jeffrey Koperski’s considerations of the laws of nature in relation to God’s providential action in the world, to show, then, why I think that the debate is ill-formulated. I will, thus, examine the philosophical and theological assumptions on causality and God that inform current discussions on divine providence: that the notion of causality used is identified with determinism, a move that implies understanding divine causality as natural causality, locating God’s causation among created causes, a wholly undesirable conclusion.
