the power of god and miracles in process theism

American Academy of Religion

The Power of God and Miracles in Process TheismAuthor(s): James A. KellerSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 105-126Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465155 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 02:36

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Press and American Academy of Religion are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:36:04 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465155?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXIII/1

The Power of God and

Miracles in Process Theism James A. Keller

PROCESS THEISTS TYPICALLY assert that their understanding of the power of God enables them to solve the problem of evil more satisfactorily than classical theists can, given their understanding of God's power.' They claim that according to classical theism, God has the power to intervene decisively at any time and place to bring about any logically possible outcome that God wants; thus, classical theists must admit that God at least permits whatever evils occur. By contrast, process theists deny that God has such power; thus, they do not have to admit that God even permits the evils that occur. The position of classical theists on this issue leaves them with the task of defending the goodness of God; generally, they do so by offering possible explanations of why God does not intervene to prevent at least the more egregious evils that occur.2 The position of process theists, on the other hand, leaves them with the task of explaining God's power in such a way as to make it clear that (1) God does indeed lack the power to intervene to prevent these evils, yet (2) God has a sort of power appropriate

James A. Keller is Professor of Philosophy at Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC 29303-3663. 11 find it convenient to adopt the common practice among process theist to use the term

classical theism to refer to an idea of God which includes the features commonly ascribed to God in many of the most important Western theologians and philosophers since Augustine. (Thomas Aquinas's idea of God is usually taken to be the chief example of classical theism.) While Western theologians and philosophers have exhibited many differences in their ideas of God, there has been fairly widespread agreement on certain features. In this paper the most important such feature is that of omnipotence in the sense of the ability to do anything that is logically possible. For the assumption that God is omnipotent in this sense has underlain most modern discussions of miracles. 2This is typical of theodicies, but it is not the only strategy employed by classical theists.

Some provide an explanation of why humans should not expect generally to be able to explain why God permits the evils that occur, pointing out the great difference in knowledge and power between God and humans. Theists who have adopted this strategy recently include George Mavrodes (92-93), Keith Yandell (238), and Stephen Wykstra (88). Still others attempt to show that no explanation of either sort is necessary. For example, Alvin Plantinga argues that none of the commonly used senses of probability are adequate to generate a problem for the theist.

105



106 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

to a being who is worshipped. While some important work has been done on these latter two issues, there are also significant questions about the nature and extent of God's power which, so far as I know, have been addressed by process theists seldom and only briefly.3

In this paper I want to discuss some of these questions, particu- larly as they pertain to what sort of events God can bring about in the world. I want to show in detail why process theism holds that God cannot unilaterally intervene to prevent various evils, though humans can. This will in turn provide a convenient basis for developing an alternate concept of miracles. However, it will not be part of my purpose to defend the claim that the sort of power which I attribute to God is appropriate to a being who is worshipped.

PERSUASION AND COERCION

In their discussions of God's power, process theists typically distinguish between persuasive and coercive power and assert that God has only the former. God, they say, lacks the power to totally determine the behavior-more precisely, the concrescence-of any entity;4 God can only lure (attempt to persuade) the entity to develop in a certain way. Typically they defend these claims with the further claim that no entity, including God, can totally determine what another entity does. For instance, even if I physically force another person to do something, I do not totally determine that person's response. She may become angry, fearful, despon- dent, resigned, etc.; I do not control any of these aspects of her.

But this reply contains a serious ambiguity, to which David Basinger called attention in a recent book. He grants that in the

3After I drafted this paper, Professor Donald Viney called my attention to a similar analysis of divine power in process theism by David R. Griffin (1981:esp. 112-13). Griffin's account and mine do, however, develop the analysis somewhat differently, and Griffin's account is less fully developed. 4In Whiteheadian terminology, the ultimate non-divine units of reality are termed actual

occasions, which are momentary units of experience whose process of development from inchoate beginnings to fully determinate entities is termed concrescence. The ordinary macroscopic entities of our everyday experience are temporally and spatially organized groups of actual occasions called societies. The behavior of these societies is a consequence of the ways in which their constituent actual occasions concresce (and, therefore, in part a consequence of how earlier actual occasions influence later ones). It is beyond the scope of this paper to give any further explication of these concepts, but one can be found in any stan- dard introduction to Whitehead's thought-e.g., that of John B. Cobb, Jr. The most thorough discussion of these concepts is by William Christian.



Keller: Power of God and Miracles in Process Theism 107

process theist's sense, no person can completely control the development of another. But he also points out that in practical human affairs we are concerned with control not in the sense of total determination but of what I shall call effective determination-e.g., such physical control as compelling another by carrying his body or by imprisoning it. In the realm of inanimate objects, macroscopic entities often effectively determine the behavior of other macroscopic entities-e.g., one billiard ball, by striking another, effectively determines that the other will begin to move with a certain velocity. As these examples suggest, the control exercised in effective determination does not necessarily involve coercion. For the person being carried may desire to be carried, and billiard balls have no desires at all, so they are not moved contrary to their desires.

An alternative way of expressing this same point is to say that the universe is such that sometimes one entity can unilaterally determine certain aspects of the behavior of another, given only the context (including the laws of nature) established by other entities in the past of the entity which is being determined. Thus, we can say that one billiard ball unilaterally determines the motion of another and one person unilaterally determines the location of the body of another (by carrying or imprisoning it). But we can speak of unilateral determination only if we assume some physical context (e.g., a level billiards table or a jail cell) and the constancy of laws of nature (e.g., Newton's laws and the impenetrability of matter). Such unilateral determination within the context established by the rest of the past of the entity that is being determined does not involve a unilateral determination of all aspects of that entity (one billiard ball does not determine the color of another, nor does the imprisoner determine the height of the imprisoned); but it does have the effect that that entity displays the aspects in question as part of the total reality which it is. For most everyday human affairs, the ability to unilaterally determine another entity in this sense is all that we care about.

This ambiguity is important in discussions of the problem of evil. For classical theists admit that God has the power to control any development in the universe. This admission is essential to part of the process critique of classical theism: God is responsible for the evils that occur because by not preventing them God at least permits them. But Basinger raises the question of whether process theists must make this same admission. Their denial that God can




totally determine any event in the universe does not answer the question of whether God can effectively determine any event in the universe-in other words, whether God can unilaterally determine certain aspects of the event. And if God can even effectively determine any events, God is responsible for the evil that occurs in them, because God could have prevented them. Thus, it is incum- bent on process theists to speak to the issue of whether God can effectively determine any events as human beings can.

WHY GOD CANNOT EVEN EFFECTIVELY DETERMINE EVENTS

I shall begin my discussion of this issue by defining a technical term: strongly influence. If the past5 of a creature leaves only a very small range of possibilities for what it can become, then I shall say that the past strongly influences it. For each new occasion, God desires for it the best that it can become, but what it can become is limited to that range of possibilities that its past permits. If that range is very restricted, as is typical in the realm of inorganic entities, then the range from which God must select one particular possibility for each of the component actual occasions6 is likewise very restricted. Thus, we can say that the past determines for all practical purposes7 what each occasion will become, and not even God can at that time and in that situation do anything to influence it to become anything different. Sometimes we can usefully identify some part of the past that plays a very significant role in determining how a new occasion or group of occasions develops, and here

5Here Whiteheadians would speak of the past actual world of an occasion, which is the totality of those actual entities that function as causes in the development of the new occasion. In this paper, however, I shall use the non-technical term past. Technically, God is a part of the past of every actual occasion. However, God does not contribute to the narrow- ing of the range of possibilities for what a new actuality can become; rather, God contributes to it a graded set of possibilities for what it can become. Thus, in relation to the function of the past in limiting the range of possibilities of what an occasion can become, God's contribution makes no difference. (These claims about God's contribution are explained and defended later in the paper.) 6Whitehead's technical term for this possibility selected by God as it functions in relation

to the new occasion is the initial aim. 7By "all practical purposes" I mean those aspects of the event that affect human life and

more generally the lives of sentient creatures. Since the problem of evil is defined in relation to humans and other sentient creatures, I shall often (but not always) be concerned only with the aspects of an event that I designate with this phrase.




we may say that the former effectively determines the latter.8 Notice that as I am using these terms, strongly influence is a predicate whose only subject can be the entire past of an entity, whereas effectively determine is a predicate which can be applied only to some entity (or entities) in the past of an entity which is strongly influenced by its past.

At the other extreme from the inorganic realm are certain occasions in a human being. The various occasions in a human differ significantly in the extent to which they are determined by their pasts. Some (e.g., occasions comprising an atom or its parts) are determined as strongly as are occasions in the inorganic realm. There are occasions in the "empty spaces" of cells that are less completely determined by their pasts than are those in the inorganic realm, but the greater novelty achieved in their development usually does not have significant effects on the body outside the cell.9 Certain occasions in the brain, however, have even more freedom, and much of the novelty which they achieve is passed on to the occasions in the brain that comprise the mind, or the "human soul" (as Whitehead termed it). The mind is a particular temporal series of occasions in the brain, each of which has a very high degree of freedom-indeed, the highest of any occasion (other than God) of which we know. These occasions inherit a rich variety of data from other occasions in the brain (which in turn get important data from occasions in the body); they also contribute data to subsequent occasions in the brain (which in turn contribute to subsequent occasions in the body). But most occasions in the body are strongly influenced by their pasts; and the structure of the body is such that occasions in the mind can often effectively determine the development of certain occasions in the body and

81 shall say that an entity effectively determines some event when (i) the occasions that comprise the event are strongly influenced by their pasts, (ii) their pasts include occasions comprising that entity, and (iii) the occasions comprising the event are so related to those comprising the entity that the latter are the factors that determine some significant aspect of the event. For example, when one billiard ball causes a second to move in a certain way by striking it or when one human being causes another to move by carrying him, in each case the former entity has effectively determined the event in question. 9For our present purposes it is not necessary to discuss why these occasions do not have

much effect outside their cells. The basic reason is that each is not part of a personally ordered society by means of which the novelty it achieves is preserved. Thus each novelty is a brief flash, significant for the occasion in which it occurs, but not beyond that. For a more complete account, see David Griffin (1971:48, 51f.).




thereby effectively determine (certain aspects of) the behavior of the body.

Let me summarize this account and point out its implications. The occasions that comprise the soul have significant freedom- i.e., they are not strongly influenced (in my sense) by their pasts. These occasions sometimes effectively determine the behavior of certain occasions in the tissues of the body. Thereby the significantly free decisions of occasions in the mind can effectively determine the overall behavior of the body. And the body in turn can effectively determine what happens to certain other physical objects in the world. It can do this because the occasions in those other objects are also strongly influenced by their pasts, of which the human body in question forms a part that sometimes effectively determines what happens to those objects. Because those objects sometimes include the bodies of other humans, sometimes one person can physically control another.

Because the occasions that comprise the human mind have significant freedom, there is a wide range of possibilities for what each one can become. Thus there is a correspondingly wide range from which God selects that possibility which God provides as the initial aim for each occasion. Because its past does not strongly influence it, nothing-including God-can effectively determine it (as opposed to effectively determining the body of which it is a part). Nevertheless, the extent to which it adopts God's initial aim as its own aim (what Whitehead calls the subjective aim), by which it governs its concrescence, matters greatly. But there is no way by which God can force the occasion to adopt the initial aim as its subjective aim. Indeed that is true for any occasion, but if the range of possible aims is small (as in occasions in the inorganic realm), it does not matter for practical purposes which of the possible aims the occasion follows.

Notice that we humans can coerce other humans because our conscious states can effectively determine what happens in certain parts of our bodies and thereby indirectly effectively determine what happens to other relatively nearby bodies. But there is no part of the world that God can effectively determine. We can express the contrast in this way: there is a part of the universe (my body, or part of it) that is strongly influenced by its past and that is significantly underdetermined in some situations by that part of its past other than my mind; thus, my body (or part of it) is so structured as to be effectively determined in some situations by my




mind. But there is no part of the universe that is strongly influenced by its past and that is significantly underdetermined by that part of its past other than God; thus there is no part of the universe that is so structured as to be effectively determined by God. All parts of our world are such that either they are strongly influenced by their past other than God or they have significant freedom. In neither case can God effectively determine them in the way that one creature can effectively determine another.'0

The claims in the previous paragraph about God's relation to the universe and about what God cannot do are crucial for the argument of this paper, so I want to say something more in their explanation and defense. The range of possibilities for what a new occasion can become depends on the actualities in its past. If they limit the possibilities to a very narrow range, then the new occasions can have no significant freedom. Conversely, if an occasion is to have significant freedom, its past cannot strongly influence it, and nothing in its past can effectively determine it. But what about those occasions that are strongly influenced by their pasts? Could God be the part of such an entity's past that effectively determined it? I claim that God could not be. Let us see why.

Each finite (non-divine) actual occasion includes only part of its past in the determinate actuality that it becomes; thus by its "decisions" (what it includes and excludes), it becomes an occasion that provides certain data and not others for subsequent occasions. The data it provides help set the limits of the possibilities for what a new occasion in its immediate future can become. Unlike finite occasions, however, God includes the entire past and simply evaluates it; the actuality that God becomes excludes none of the past and thus does not impose any further limitations on the range of possibilities for a subsequent new occasion. But a (finite) actual occasion does not include all of its past; by its "decisions" it excludes parts of its past. Therefore, subsequent occasions must concresce in relation to (what is for them) an immediate past from which that excluded material is absent. Ways of development of these new occasions which that excluded material would have

1OI do not want to seem to suggest that all occasions which are not strongly influenced by their past actual worlds have the degree of freedom that occasions in the human mind pos- sess. Different occasions exhibit different degrees of freedom. But intermediate cases also offer no opportunity for God to effectively determine the occasion, for the extent to which the occasion is not strongly influenced by its past is the extent to which it can be free.




made possible are thus absolutely beyond the range of possibilities for the new occasions.

, For example, when the occasions in the human heart concresce in such a way as to preclude the continued beating of the heart for several minutes, it is no longer possible for occasions in the brain to concresce in such a way as to carry on the life of the person; therefore, the person dies, and other people can no longer have an ongoing relationship with that person. By their (presumably strongly influenced) "decisions," occasions in the heart cut off possibilities for occasions in the brain; and the latter's "decisions," which are thus effectively determined by the earlier "decisions" of occasions in the heart, cut off possibilities for the occasions comprising other people.

But because God includes all the past, God's decisions do not cut off any possibilities; instead, God's decisions are evaluations of what past entities have become and of what new entities could become.11 These do influence new occasions as they begin to concresce, but they do not cut off possibilities for what the new occasions can become. In short, God's decisions order possibilities within the range established by the past but do not further limit that range or exclude any possibilities from it. However, the decisions of finite occasions do exclude some possibilities from the range of possibilities for a new occasion. Subsequent occasions have no access through those earlier occasions to the possibilities they excluded.

One might, however, wonder whether God's evaluation of past actualities and of possibilities for new occasions could also affect the concrescence of a new occasion, indeed perhaps affect it so greatly that there results something like "effective determination" of the new occasion. A question along this line was raised by Lad

11 Students of Whitehead who remember his statement that "decision" means cutting off possibilities may well wonder whether the statement in the text is compatible with White- head's statement. I believe it is. For Whitehead's statement referred to the cutting off of possibilities for what the concrescing entity could become. And God's decisions do constitute God as an entity who, among other things, desires certain outcomes and has aversion to others. Thus they constitute God in one way rather than another, and in this sense they cut off possibilities for what God could have become. (God could have become an entity that desired different outcomes.) But the particular way in which God constituted Godself does not cut off possibilities for what some subsequent finite occasion could become, for God did not eliminate any such possibilities in God's concrescence. The statement in the text referred to the effect of God's decisions on the range of possibilities for subsequent occasions, not to the effect of God's decision on God's self-constitution.




Sessions in a comment on an earlier version of this paper. Ses- sions suggested that God might effectively determine some creature by strongly affecting it rather than by cutting off possibilities. He defined affecting roughly as "altering the 'strength,' or effective push/pull, of each possibility within" an entity's range. He gave no example, but I suppose that a human analogy might be my affecting my wife's decision on some matter by telling her that it is very important to me that she decide one way rather than any other. I would not be restricting the range of possibilities open to her, but I would be increasing the strength of one possibility in that range because she loves me and cares about my feelings. Sessions's question, as I understand it, is why couldn't God do this as well?

This is an intriguing question. I think the answer is that God's desires that creatures do certain things do vary in intensity and that creatures feel both God's desire and its intensity, but that these facts do not allow God to do anything like effectively determine any creature. Why not? Each new actual occasion begins with a phase in which it collects data from its past; among those data are God's desire for what it will become. It feels that desire (the initial aim) and the intensity with which God desires it. Thus, God does unilaterally determine how strongly the initial aim is desired by the new occasion in its first phase. But God cannot unilaterally determine how important this element is in the occasion. To return to the analogy used above, I may tell my wife that her deciding a certain way is very important to me. This may be overheard by my worst enemy and by someone who barely knows me. It may influence my wife to want to decide as I wish and my worst enemy to want my wife to decide other than as I wish, while it may be immediately dismissed by the other person as irrelevant to his desires and actions.

More generally, if entity B strongly desires that entity A do some particular thing, the part that that desire can play in determining how A develops depends not just on the strength of B's desire but also on the role that element plays in. A, and B cannot unilaterally determine that. For that role depends on how the new occasion constitutes itself in its process of concrescence; if the occasion has significant freedom, the role of any particular element in its concrescence is greatly underdetermined by its entire past, including God. We can contrast this with limiting the range of possibilities. When one entity C limits the range of possibilities of another entity D, then C has unilaterally determined that D abso-




lutely cannot do some things. Thus, God's desires can play a significant direct role in what a new occasion becomes only if the new occasion "decides" to conform to those desires; God cannot unilaterally determine this, and therefore I claim that God cannot do anything analogous to effectively determining an event.12

Then what can God do? The fundamental activity of God in the universe is to lure each occasion as it begins its concrescence. God does this by forming a desire regarding what a new occasion will become. It is metaphysically necessary that a new occasion feel this desire and the particular intensity with which God feels it. The occasion then freely determines whether it will conform to God's desire. As we have seen, the pasts of occasions in the inorganic realm leave those occasions with a very small range of possibilities for what they can become. Therefore, what each one becomes is controlled for all practical purposes by its past. But for occasions with significant freedom, their past leaves a significant range of possibilities; therefore, the particular one that God provides represents a significant decision on God's part because of its role in luring the occasion in one direction rather than another. (I term God's decision "significant," because the alternatives among which God chooses differ importantly from each other, unlike the alternatives for an occasion in the inorganic realm.) Of course, the occasion may not develop in the way God desires. But if it does, God will have influenced the occasion to become one concrete actuality rather than another. (Its becoming one concrete actuality rather than another will, in turn, constitute a condition that will exclude certain possibilities, rather than others, for subsequent occasions.)

This fundamental activity of God enables God to set the laws of nature of each cosmic epoch. Recall that I said that there is little range of possibility for what an occasion in an inorganic entity can become. For all practical purposes in any specific situation, the range is negligible. Nevertheless, God does play an important role in preserving the laws of nature by luring each occasion to concresce in the way that will most fully conform to the existing law;

12The discussion in this paragraph suggests another interesting possibility that I can only mention here. Just as people can become more sensitive or less sensitive to the desires of others, perhaps individuals can become more sensitive or less sensitive to God's desires. Process theism would say that they indeed can. Their past patterns of response to God may create habits that tend to increase or decrease the extent to which God's desires are important to them.




apart from this activity of God there would be a gradual drift toward chaos. Suppose, however, that God wished to change the patterns exemplified (laws of nature followed) by occasions in the inorganic realm. If God were persistently to lure all such occasions toward some new pattern of interrelations, gradually they would tend to adopt that new pattern. God could do this by using a mul- tiplicity of intermediate forms, each only slightly different from those adjacent to it, such that those at one end were within the range of possibilities for occasions exemplifying the old pattern and those at the other end were within the range of possibilities for occasions exemplifying the new pattern. No specific occasion would have to adopt God's new lure precisely, but there would tend to be some change in the one direction consistently presented by God. As occasions adopted new intermediate forms, they would exercise efficient causality on subsequent occasions, contributing to the likelihood that the new occasions would concresce in ways that would conform to God's purposes.

The rate of change in the direction God wishes would necessarily be slow (for at each point God could desire the new occasion to exemplify a pattern only very slightly different from that of the previous occasion) and would not be predictable with certainty (for even these occasions have a very small amount of self-determination), but eventually most of the occasions would exemplify the new pattern. Moreover, it is hard to see how God could bring about this change on anything other than a universal scale. For if God were to attempt to bring about a different pattern in one localized region, occasions outside it would continually be influencing occasions within it to conform to the pattern that they exemplify, and vice versa; therefore, there would be a constant tendency for any localized differences to be eliminated. But the technique out- lined in this paragraph does indicate a way in which God could bring about a new order of nature, though God's only direct activity would have been luring (but never coercing) certain occasions.13

13The idea that God sets the fundamental laws of nature for each cosmic epoch has been held by many (probably all) process thinkers-e.g., Charles Hartshorne (135). But Barry L. Whitney (99-114 and 171-73) asks whether this idea is consistent with the claim that God acts only persuasively. He points out that some of Hartshorne's language (as well as that of other process thinkers) seems to imply coercion (what I have termed effective determination) by God; moreover, he wonders how God could set these laws without acting coercively. In the text I have proposed a way by which God could do this. Of course, the occasions that




MIRACLES AND THE POWER OF GOD

The foregoing discussion provides an account of the things that God can and cannot do, according to process theists. It answers (negatively) Basinger's question whether God can effectively determine events. It also provides a basis for understanding why process theists deny that God can work miracles (in the sense of that concept typical today) and a basis for constructing an alternative concept of miracles, one consistent with process theism. In modern discussions miracles typically have been understood to be something like temporary suspensions of laws of nature accom- plished by divine power. There are, in turn, various ways in which this is explained, depending on the extent to which God is understood to be immanent in the workings of nature.14 But however this is understood, modern discussions generally assume something like the following account. Creatures interact with each other in certain ways that laws of nature describe. In the inorganic realm, these ways manifest regularity that is either total (if the laws are deterministic) or nearly total (if the laws are statistical). A miracle is an occurrence willed and caused by God in which the course of nature does not conform to the laws of nature which,

God lures (and thereby persuades) to concresce in a way that exemplifies a new pattern do effectively determine subsequent occasions to adopt this pattern; thus, one could say that God indirectly exerts a coercive power in determining the laws of nature. This would be a way to understand the language suggesting coercion by God that Whitney points out, though I am not claiming to be exegeting that language. Moreover, if God persuades a human being to act coercively in some situation, one might also say that God has indirectly acted coercively in that situation. However, neither of these senses implies that God can directly act coercively in local situations, as a local agent can. For God's activity in setting the laws of nature is a gradual and universal activity. And the indirect coercion that God can exercise through humans is uncertain because it depends on the acceptance of God's influence by a being with significant freedom, whereas a human's acting coercively depends only on parts of his body that do not have this sort of significant freedom. 14For example, the power possessed by creatures to have effects on other creatures might

be understood to be simply regularities in what God does in preserving creatures in exist- ence; then a miracle would be simply an event in which God did not operate in accordance with the typical regularity for that sort of event. Or creatures might be understood to be more independent of God, so that they have their own real powers to have effects on other creatures; then a miracle would be an event in which God exerts his power directly in a way that overcomes the net effect produced by the powers of creatures and thereby brings about a different effect. On this account, it is not even correct to say that a law of nature has been suspended any more than we say that the law of gravity has been suspended when a human being picks up a heavy object. What has happened is simply that a superior force has been exerted on the object, though to an observer who did not see the being exerting the superior force it might appear that a law of nature had been suspended or violated.




apart from God's intervention, describe events of the sort in question.15

This modern concept of miracle was developed in the context of an understanding of God's power like that in classical theism, according to which God has the power to intervene at any time to cause any event to occur as God wishes.16 Of course, it may be inconsistent with God's purposes or with God's goodness to intervene in certain events in certain ways, but it was assumed that God nevertheless has the power to intervene to unilaterally determine any logically possible behavior of any entity (in our earlier terminology, to effectively determine it). Thus, God was believed to have the power, e.g., to stop a falling rock in mid-fall and to cause it to rise without the intervention of any creaturely agency, instantly to stop the earth in its rotation on its axis, to heal illnesses instantly, etc.

But process theism denies that God has the power to do such things. The creaturely processes in question are comprised of occasions that are strongly influenced by their pasts other than God. Thus, God cannot unilaterally intervene and bring about the results mentioned. Only a local agent that is part of the pasts of the relevant occasions could effectively determine them in such ways. A human being (or some other animal) could catch the rock and hurl it upwards; perhaps some large asteroid could collide with the earth and cause it to stop rotating; and some drug might heal the illness quickly, though not instantly. I think we know too

15This is a distinctively modem account, which depends on modern scientific ideas of nature. Interestingly enough, though it was events narrated in the Bible that provided much of the stimulus for modern discussions, in biblical days there was no concept equivalent to our modern concept of "miracle." Then the closest concepts were concepts like "sign," "wonder," and "mighty deed" (in Greek, semeia, teras, and dynamis, respectively). These terms were used to designate an event in which God is manifest in a striking way, but there was not necessarily any implication that the event exceeds the ordinary powers of nature. Thus Bernard W. Anderson writes: "In the biblical sense ... a miracle is an unusual, marvel- ous event which testifies to God's active presence in the world. This does not mean, however, that the miracle is a disruption of the natural order, which, according to modern understanding, is governed by the law of cause and effect" (348). 16Some qualification is needed here. It must be logically possible for God to cause the

event to occur as God wishes it to. Because of this qualification, some classical theists would contend that God does not have the power to cause someone to do something freely, for (they allege) it is logically impossible to cause someone to do something freely. But such theists would generally also hold that God has the power to cause someone (or at least to cause her body) to do something, though the person would not be free if she did it as a consequence of being thus caused. I am willing to grant these points, but for my purposes nothing hinges on whether they are correct or not.




little about the possible effects of the mind on the body (as they are popularly termed) to gauge the extent to which certain ways of thinking may also have healing effects on the body (though probably not instantly). These considerations suggest that God could do something to increase the likelihood of some of the events mentioned-e.g., lure humans or other animals to take certain actions (catch and hurl the rock, administer the medicine, perhaps think the appropriate thoughts). But there is nothing God could do to guarantee (i.e., effectively determine) that the humans or the animals would act in accordance with the lures being presented.

Because process theists deny that God has the power to do things that involve temporary suspensions of laws of nature, they deny that God can do miracles in the sense defined above. Since this has been virtually the only sense discussed in the Western philosophical tradition during the last few hundred years, they have generally not discussed miracles. Why then am I interested in developing a concept of miracles in process theism? The primary reason is that philosophically inclined process theists are not the only sort of people who use religious language. Philosophically inclined process theists have attempted to articulate an alternative to classical theism. But if they are also Christian theists, they probably will want to use that alternative theism to interpret the Chris- tian tradition, as Aquinas did with his Aristotelian theism. And one part of that tradition is talk about miracles. So a question arises, how might Christian process theists interpret this talk? I want to suggest a way. Therefore, I shall delineate the concept of a type of event in process theism that has sufficient analogies to other concepts of miracle that process theists could reasonably use it in interpreting traditional references to miracles.

The concept that I shall delineate is analogous to the supernaturalistic concept of miracles in that both refer to an event in which God is supposed to be involved in a special way, but my concept differs from the supernaturalistic one in how it understands that "specialness." It does not involve the suspension of any laws of nature; therefore, it will not allow a process Christian to affirm the literal correctness of all the details of certain events in the Bible and elsewhere that have been termed miracles. But it will allow the process Christian to affirm that God has been involved in certain events in a special way and that those events involve an especially clear manifestation of God and God's will. Since it does this, I believe that it could provide a useful basis for process theists to




interpret miracles in the Christian tradition rather than just ignor- ing or demythologizing them. (However, even if it could do this, process theists may continue not to use the term "miracle" at all in relation to contemporary events. For they may judge that the term is so deeply tied to the context of traditional supernaturalistic theism that their attempt to use it in another sense in relation to contemporary events is more likely to mislead than to be helpful.)

Let us begin the delineation of a process concept of miracles by recalling my earlier claim that God can do things to increase the likelihood of certain events, though God cannot unilaterally determine that certain events will occur. The events in question include events whose pasts permit alternatives sufficiently different for the difference to be important to humans. In relation to such events it is possible to distinguish the degrees to which they conform to and manifest God's will. Virtually all events of this sort that concern humans are events in which human decisions and human actions play a significant role-i.e., events in the lives of individuals and in history (as opposed to events in inanimate nature). Some of these events conform closely to God's will, for in them the relevant occasions adopt as their subjective aim the initial aim furnished them by God. But others of these events do not conform closely to God's will, for the relevant occasions adopt subjective aims quite at vari- ance with the initial aims provided by God. In the former sort of events, we can say that the outcome of the events-the significance of the events for human affairs-manifests God's will for those particular events. But we could not make this claim for events in the inorganic realm, for in those events whether or not the occasions conform to God's will makes no practical difference for that particular event because the range of possible outcomes from which God selects one is negligibly small. (As we saw, whether or not such occasions conform makes a difference only in relation to the long- run task of establishing and maintaining particular laws of nature for the universe.)

In other words, if we restrict our attention to a level of analysis concerned with the practical significance of events for human beings (and perhaps other sentient creatures), we can say that there are some events that conform to God's will but which might not have done so. These are events in which the decisions of significantly free occasions were important in determining the out-




come.'7 If occasions with significant freedom do play a role and if the occasions do conform to God's will, then God's will is mani- fested in the bearing of the event on human concerns. Among the events that include occasions with significant freedom that concresce in accordance with God's will for them, some will have a significance for human affairs that seem to some people to be a striking example of what they understand to be God's will for human affairs. Process theists may term such events miracles, not in the sense of events in which some law of nature is suspended but in the sense of a striking event in which God's active presence in the world is (believed to be) manifest.18

171f no occasions with significant freedom play such a role, God's will is done in the sense that the event conforms to patterns of natural law that God wished, but not necessarily in the sense that the way the event affected human beings (and other sentient beings) accorded with the sort of things God wanted for those beings. Thus a falling vase qua unsupported heavy object near the surface of the earth manifests God's will in falling in accordance with the law of gravitation, but it is not necessarily God's will that this specific vase, which was knocked off the table by a minor earthquake, fall and break. Moreover, because God can offer as initial aims only possibilities within the range permitted by the pasts of the occasions in question, it may very well be that each of the occasions in the vase conforms to God's will for that occasion, yet that the vase nonetheless breaks, an event that God does not will nor permit nor even foresee when the laws of nature were instituted. (To say that God permits it implies that God could have prevented the event by not permitting it, an implication that process theists deny; and God could foresee the event only if the universe were deterministic, a condition that process theism denies.) Therefore, in process theism events that do not conform to God's will are not always the result of a failure of some occasions to adopt as their subjective aim the initial aim that God offers; there was no such failure in the vase example.

At this point my account has certain similarities to aspects of the theodicies of some classical theists, who argue that an orderly world is necessary for the moral development of creatures with free will. Therefore, God wills to create an orderly world, but God does not will all the specific events that happen because entities conform to these laws. But the important difference between such accounts and mine is that they claim that God can intervene at any time to suspend temporarily or to change permanently any of these laws of nature, whereas process theists claim that God cannot temporarily suspend any law of nature and can change a law of nature only gradually, not instantly. Thus, God's allowing the same laws of nature to hold at any moment is for them a matter of God's will-a choice God makes-but for process theists it is something beyond God's control and not a matter of will. 18Though this sense of miracle is different from that employed in modern discussions, it is

not totally unprecedented. Indeed, it has important similarities to biblical concepts used to refer to events that are today commonly called biblical miracles. (See note 15 for these concepts.) But though there is a similarity between the process concept of a miracle and certain biblical concepts, our modern idea of natural laws has created a cultural context for our concept that is very different from the context in biblical days. Moreover, I do not mean to suggest that process theists would accept the claim that all the accounts in the Bible of events that are typically considered as miracles, if understood as literally accurate descriptions, represent events that could possibly happen in our cosmic epoch. Though the suspension of a law of nature in our modern sense is not essential to the biblical concepts




The foregoing may seem ambiguous on whether a miracle is defined by objective conditions (what God has willed and caused) or subjective conditions (whether people take it that God is manifest in the event), but it is no more ambiguous than the traditional concept. On either concept, people will call the event a miracle only if it seems to them to be a striking manifestation of God (or God's will) for human affairs, but in calling the event a miracle they are claiming that God played a special role in the event. If God did not play such a role, then people would be wrong in calling the event a miracle. If an event occurs in which God plays the requisite role but no one notices it, then no one will call it a miracle, though it is one. Thus, an event's status as a miracle depends on its satisfying only the objective conditions. But an event's being recognized as a miracle and the significance of a miracle for the religious life depend on its being noticed, so in the foregoing paragraph I spoke of those events which satisfy the objective conditions and in which it seems to people that God's will is strikingly manifest.

On this account, the concept of a miracle and its relation to a law of nature is different from that given by classical theism. For process theists understand each "law of nature" to be a description of the average behavior of entities of the type with which the law deals. For example, the laws of nature concerning electrons are descriptions of the average behavior of electrons. The behavior of an individual electron is a function of the way its constituent occasions concresce; the concrescence of each of them depends on data from its past, on direct influence from God, and on its own "decisions." Mutatis mutandis, the same is true of every kind of entity described by laws of nature. But the amount by which any particular entity can differ from the average for entities of that kind depends on the kind of entity it is; this amount is determined by the constraints imposed by the pasts of the occasions comprising that entity. The amount by which the behavior of any electron can differ from the average for an electron is much less than the amount by which the behavior of a human can differ from the average for a human. Thus, the laws that describe the behavior of

mentioned, some of the biblical events (as described) would involve suspension of laws of nature as we understand them. Such suspension would not be possible on the process view. Thus, my comments concern the similarity of certain concepts, not judgments about the possibility of certain events to which they may be used to refer.




many kinds of entities (e.g., those treated by classical physics) appear to us to be deterministic-i.e., to have no deviations from the average-while the behavior of other kinds of entities does not seem to be describable by deterministic laws. (If process metaphysics is correct in holding that every occasion has some "self- determination," no law of nature describes exactly the behavior of all entities of a given type; however, some entities may deviate so little as to be indetectible by us.)

The amount by which God can influence an entity to deviate from the average behavior for that kind of entity depends on the kind of entity it is. For God can offer as an initial aim only some possibility within the range of possibilities established by the past of that entity; thus God cannot even attempt to lure the occasions comprising an entity to adopt a possibility beyond those possible for entities of that type. Therefore, in process theism, unlike classical theism, God cannot cause entities to do things that exceed their normal powers. Indeed, in classical theism there is no limit on what God can cause to occur at a given time (except that it must be logically possible for God to cause the event); in process theism there are in addition important metaphysical limits.

This much can be said on general metaphysical grounds, but there is no way to say on general metaphysical grounds what the precise limits are for any particular kind of entity. For instance, can God so lure a person that she so strongly desires to get well that her desires are powerful enough to cause her body to reject a cancer? The extent to which one's mental attitudes can affect a disease is an empirical, not a metaphysical, question. God can also lure a person so that he comes to new insights or makes strong moral efforts. But how new can the insights be and how great can the moral efforts be? These too are empirical rather than metaphysical questions. But situations in which God lures people and they adopt God's lure are not helpfully characterized in terms of the natural/miraculous disjunction understood as an exclusive disjunction. After all, presumably if God had not provided the appropriate lure, the person would not have acted in that way. But if the person had not responded positively to God's lure, it would not have been efficacious.

Indeed, in process theism the distinction between natural events and supernatural events itself becomes a matter of degree rather than a difference in kind. This would contrast with the typical modern way of drawing this distinction, which makes the dis-




tinction a difference in kind, for the modern way presupposes that creatures (non-divine actualities) can do only certain things apart from special divine intervention and that sometimes God specially intervenes so that they behave in ways exceeding their normal powers. But in process thought God is one factor- but only one factor-of many in terms of which each occasion becomes. In some occasions God plays a very minor role; in others God plays a much larger role. These latter are occasions with significant freedom that conform to God's will for them. When they conform to God's will, what they become and their effect on future occasions is to a significant degree due to God's activity, but it is also within the range of outcomes that lie within statistical laws of nature. Thus, the event is not purely natural (for God's influence plays a significant part), but it is also not purely miraculous (for the outcome is within the range of natural law). And since the outcome is within the range of natural law, a naturalist could simply ignore or deny any contribution made by God to the outcome.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

It is interesting to note the extent to which the implications of this account of a process view of God's power and miracles conform to features of our experience admitted even by most classical theists. One widely admitted feature of our world is that living things appeared slowly as the outcome of a long course of evolution. This is precisely what one would expect from the standpoint of process thought but is difficult to explain from the standpoint of classical theism. For the latter tends to see mankind as the center of God's interest in this world; if God's purpose does center on human beings and if God had the power to create mankind instantly and directly, the long slow course of evolution is puz- zling, to say the least.19 A second feature is the absence of contemporary, well-attested, clear actions by God that involve the suspension of laws of nature. Again this is what one would expect on process assumptions, according to which no actions of God involve suspensions of laws of nature, but it is not what one would expect on classical assumptions. Of course, classical Christians may assert that some such events were recounted in the Bible, but

19I developed this point somewhat in an earlier article (Keller).




they are hard-pressed to find similar events today. They may, however, attempt to explain why God does not act thus today. A third feature is the way God deals with evil in human beings and human affairs. Typically, Christian theists of all sorts admit that God does this slowly and uses human beings to do it. God does not make human beings perfect overnight, nor does God defeat or punish evildoers instantly. Again, classical believers may say that God will act more powerfully and more decisively in the future (at the end of the age), but for now they admit that God works this way. These observations do not prove that process theists are correct, for classical theists have a story to tell about why God is now oper- ating in the way it appears that God is. My point is only that process theists at least do not have to tell a story to explain why the way things appear is not a reliable indication of the power God has. With regard to the matters discussed in this paragraph at least, the classical theist must hold his position despite certain features of the world, not because of them.

One other implication of this account concerns the sort of events in which one would expect to find miracles. My proposed process concept confines events in which God is involved in a special way to those events in which significantly free occasions played a major role-i.e., to those events in which human choices and actions played a major role. Many Christians today, apart from any theological predelictions, tend to see the special activity of God.as confined to-or at least as concentrated in- such events. The classical view gives no particular reason to expect such a pattern.

At the beginning of this paper, I remarked that in addition to clarifying their idea of God's power, process theists would also have to show that such power is appropriate in a being who is worshipped; I also indicated that it was not part of my purpose to show this. Without contradicting this statement, in closing I would like to suggest what would be involved in such a showing. I think that two things must be included: (1) showing that God's power is in some recognizable sense perfect (for God is widely thought of as perfect) and (2) showing that God has the power to perform certain religiously essential activities, perhaps such activities as (a) creating and sustaining the universe, (b) saving human beings, and (c) overcoming evil. To do (2) requires developing an account of how process theists understand each of these three activities and of how God accomplishes each of them. To do




(1) requires explicating the idea of perfect power implicit in process theism; probably one major part of such an explication would be that it is the maximum power possible for any one entity-a condition that God does meet, according to process theism.20

REFERENCES

Anderson, Bernard "Signs and Wonders." In Interpreter's Dictionary of W. the Bible, IV:348-51. Ed. by George Buttrick et al.

1962 New York: Abingdon Press.

Basinger, David Divine Power in Process Theism: A Philosophical Cri- 1988 tique. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Christian, William An Interpretation of Whitehead's Metaphysics. New 1959 Haven: Yale University Press.

Cobb, John B., Jr. A Christian Natural Theology, Based on the Thought 1965 of Alfred North Whitehead. Philadelphia: Westmin-

ster Press.

Griffin, David "The Possibility of Subjective Immortality in White- 1971 head's Philosophy." University of Dayton Review,

8:43-56. 1981 "Creation out of Chaos and the Problem of Evil."

In Encountering Evil, 101-119. Ed. by Stephen T. Davis. Atlanta: John Knox Press.

Hartshorne The Divine Relativity. New Haven: Yale University Charles Press.

1948

Keller, James A. "The Basingers on Divine Omnipotence: A Further 1982 Point." Process Studies, XII, 1:23-25.

20Earlier versions of this paper were read, in whole or in part, at the 1989 meetings of the Society for Philosophy of Religion and the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. I wish to thank the respondents at those meetings-Professor Lad Sessions and Professor Donald Sherburne--for comments that helped me improve this paper. I wish also to thank Professor Donald Viney and Professor Lewis Ford for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.




Mavrodes, George Belief in God. New York: Random House. 1970

Plantinga, Alvin "The Probabilistic Argument from Evil." Philosoph- 1979 ical Studies, 35:1-53.

Sessions, W. Lad Comments on "The Power of God and Miracles in 1989 Process Theism," delivered on April 2 at the 1989

meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Religion.

Whitney, Barry L. Evil and the Process God. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mel- 1985 len Press.

Wykstra, Stephen "The Humean Obstacle to Evidentialist Arguments J. from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of 'Appear-

1984 ance.' " International Journal for Philosophy of Reli- gion, XVI, 2:73-93.

Yandell, Keith Christianity and Philosophy. Grand Rapids, MI: 1984 William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.



the power of god and miracles in process theism

Documents