Self-organizing systems, which are complex, dynamic, and self-regulating, abound in the world. These include interstellar systems, environmental systems on earth, biological systems including sentience-bearing ones (bodies), and sociocultural systems, which include religious systems. Anthropologist of religion Roy A. Rappaport (1979, 151) recognizes that cultural systems are layered, hierarchically structured feedback loops that regulate the relationship of parts of the system to regulators as well as relations between regulators. (Note that structural hierarchy need not involve “social stratification” (Rappaport 1979, 151)). Rappaport (1979, 155–57) credits religion with performing higher order regulation for a cultural system in its provision of general and paramount values. All self-organizing systems attempt to maintain equilibrium, which in the case of sociocultural systems always involves some contestation, often involving opposing—though potentially complementary—attractors. However, when their natural-social environment changes greatly, they can undergo substantial disequilibrium. The rise of modern science has caused substantial disequilibrium for the classical world religions. Our scientific knowledge of nature provides no evidence for supernatural or animistic intentional agency that supersedes, interferes with, or manipulates natural processes to cause particular outcomes. Thus a scientifically informed religious system must engage in some significant reinterpretation of scripture and tradition to achieve equilibrium and coherently engage the world. This article draws upon the cases of medieval Confucianism (Ruism) and Judaism, both of which faced substantial disequilibrium but overcame it. I cover attempts by scholars of the religion and science dialogue to reconcile divine particular causation with scientific knowledge and judge them a failure. I then detail affordances offered by classical religions without such supernaturalism or quasi-supernaturalism. Finally, I explore a model representing one possibility for reinterpreting the divine as understood in classical religious scriptures and traditions.
Self-Organizing Systems
The trajectory of our universe has been one of increasing complexity, with self-organizing systems playing a central role. In situations far from equilibrium, given the availability of sufficient energy, less complex components can self-organize as a more complex entity, allowing a new equilibrium. Complex systems possess properties greater than the sum of the properties of the parts. This process plays out with galaxies and stars (Smolin 1997, 116–38), with the third generation of stars since the Big Bang involving heavier atomic elements that make possible the formation of planets. In turn, some planets have allowed for the emergence of biological systems, of life. (A lowball round-figure estimate of how many “Goldilocks” planets amenable to life exist in the universe is a staggering one billion.) Biological systems are autopoietic, being both self-organizing and able to reproduce themselves. Moreover, various biologists credit to living organisms in relation to their environments telos or ends, goals, purpose, and functions, as with “teleodynamics” (Deacon 2012) or “teleonomy” (Corning et al. 2023). Furthermore, some biological systems have achieved the complex property of sentience, awareness, consciousness, and attendant meaning. Many, perhaps all, animals with nervous systems possess a basic or core consciousness, while most do not have self-consciousness in the sense of being able to objectify themselves (though the number found with the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror or show other signs of self-consciousness continues to grow, now including some birds as well as some mammals). Obviously, humans exhibit the most complex manifestations of self-consciousness. Excluding the possibility of life on other planets more complex than human life, the human mindbody (a term coined by religionist William Poteat (1985)) constitutes the most complex reality in the universe. Today’s knowledge of self-organizing systems and growing complexity—including the affordances available for biological organisms in a joint project with their environment (Gibson 1979) and mutual adaptation of organism and environment (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, 85–194)—finds some resonances in the classical religions, insofar as they are world affirming. Theologically speaking, this trajectory of increasing complexity offers support for religious convictions that divine reason, intelligence, intentionality, or at least directionality in some way lie behind the becoming of the universe. Granted, atheists offer counter arguments that attribute increasing complexity to pure chance or brute fact.
Implicating the basic action of a sentient organism orienting itself to its environment, religions have attempted to orient humans to the largest environment they can imagine. As mentioned previously, Rappaport (1979, 155–57) credits religion with performing higher order regulation for a cultural system. A general orientation to the larger environment, cemented with pertinent rituals, accords with such regulation. Religions thus promote social bonding and cooperation. Traditionally, they have identified supernatural, divine, or extraordinary agents, forces, or realms as part of and/or the source of the larger environment. Religious cognition and ritual enable humans to make sense of and adapt to human life-worlds. Generally, they are adaptive and rational, though often inaccurate in terms of modern scientific knowledge.
Given temporal change, religious traditions, as with all sociocultural traditions, continually face situations not exactly like previous ones. So, they cannot remain unchanged through time. Reinterpretation of scripture, understood as the text(s) with the highest official authority, is then an ongoing process among the classical religions, often happening unselfconsciously. Many classical traditions have a secondary canonical or official textual component, such as the Talmud in Judaism, the hadith in Islam, or the ecumenical councils in Christianity (see Lior 2020, 97–98 for a related assessment). As suggested, these religious traditions always involve some contestation among differing interpretations as they strive for optimal sense-making and integration. As self-organizing systems, they seek an adequate degree of equilibrium or stability, parallel to homeostasis for biological organisms, for bodies. Or, to put it negatively, religions try to avoid or overcome disequilibrium.
The Challenge of Modern Science
The advance of the natural sciences since the Enlightenment has engendered disequilibrium among the classical world religions, to put it mildly (not to mention among some Indigenous religions in cultures with some familiarity with scientific knowledge). This has led to significant self-conscious reinterpretation of scripture, whether to accommodate the consensuses of science or to harden positions in fundamentalist opposition (though fundamentalists may mistakenly claim to just maintain traditional interpretations).
Mainline Christianity generally accepts scientific evidence that goes against traditional interpretations of scripture and tradition much more than does evangelicalism, as with the origins of the universe and humans. Nevertheless, I contend that mainline, moderate, or liberal reinterpretations of scripture on the whole have not gone far enough to restore equilibrium, to achieve adequate coherence or integration, in light of the conclusions and cultural influence of modern science. Our scientific knowledge of nature provides no evidence for supernatural or animistic intentional agency or magic that supersedes, interferes with, or manipulates natural processes to cause a desired outcome. I do not claim that science disproves supernatural or quasi-supernatural causation (the latter presuming God causes particular outcomes by manipulating “natural” causation, as any given natural process allows God to choose from several possible actions and outcomes). Rather, I point to the absence of evidence for preferring it to simpler natural explanations. (Here I am not addressing supernatural causation for the existence and nature of the universe.) In the case of supernatural intervention, almost everyone agrees that, if it exists, it is the exception rather than the rule. So logically, Occam’s razor bids us to prefer natural explanations, unless one can show why they are inadequate in certain cases. Occam’s razor also cuts at the theory of manipulation, given its complexity and the lack of evidence for it.
I indicated that modern science has caused disequilibrium both for liberal and conservative versions of the classical religions. I will now address the extent to which mainline Christianity accepts supernatural intervention or quasi-supernatural divine causation (even as it has accommodated much of modern scientific knowledge). I want to emphasize that the significant disequilibrium caused by modern science relative to particular divine causation is not only, or even primarily, a matter of conscious or explicit cultural beliefs people could articulate, which would cause conscious cognitive dissonance if they did articulate and compare them. Rather, it has more to do with tacit or implicit ways of life and worldviews. At this juncture in world history, most people in the West and beyond live in a disenchanted world. We generally accept what established scientific theories tell us about the physical makeup of the universe, human and animal bodies, and DNA. We generally recognize that scientific knowledge has enabled flight, space exploration, exploration of the deepest parts of oceans and ever deeper parts of the Earth, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, computers, and artificial intelligence. Stephen Bullivant (2022, 120–21) argues that the internet has increased secularization in American culture (Duncan 2024, 194), a conclusion that does not bode well for supernatural or quasi-supernatural particular causation. When it comes to climate and weather, sickness and health and medicine, or human individual or social decisions, people normally do not attribute what happens to God or some other supernatural force or being. Yes, many people will pray or otherwise invoke supernatural power when a loved one receives a diagnosis of a terminal illness. But in an overwhelming majority of such cases, the sick person dies. Some people do believe that what most would attribute to coincidence in a disenchanted world was manipulated by God or perhaps a guardian angel. And some people do hold various paranormal beliefs. Yet, these supernatural or quasi-supernatural beliefs and behaviors are idiosyncratic; they are not part of a way of life or worldview that many people share. The difference between now and prior to the scientific revolution is that earlier folks shared a supernatural worldview supported and reinforced from many cultural directions.
While secondary, explicit cognitive dissonance does play a role among different subcultural systems and the individuals who constitute the parts of those systems, Christian fundamentalist or near-fundamentalist traditions (as well as such traditions in Islam and ultra-orthodox Judaism) either refuse scientific evidence because of the absolute, unquestioned authority of scripture, as they interpret it, or accept alternative “science” that harmonizes with their interpretation. The latter approach brings disequilibrium in directly disputing scientific conclusions from expert professionals accredited with authority by the wider society. Given that conservative believers typically have some awareness of scientific consensuses concerning the origin of the universe and of humans and other species, to deny this evidence expends energy and causes some conscious cognitive dissonance. More in the tacit realm, either of these approaches causes some disequilibrium in that many uncontroversial beliefs and technologies in medicine and related fields rely upon the truth of evolution. My sense is that over the long term, due to tacit and explicit sociocultural cognitive dissonance and disequilibrium, the classical world religions will need to establish equilibrium with a scientific worldview in order to survive.
I grant that religious (and other cultural) systems can exert significant effort to maintain challenged practices and beliefs. Both Michael Polanyi and anthropologist of religion E. E. Evans-Pritchard make that case well. Polanyi cites Evans-Pritchard’s research on the Azande’s system of beliefs and ritual practices using the poison benge to yield oracles read by witch-doctors to determine whose witchcraft caused an adverse event. While Westerners would readily credit evidence refuting the accuracy of the poison oracles, Polanyi notes that “Evans-Pritchard lists no less than eight secondary elaborations to refute such self-contradictions.” Refutations include “that the wrong kind of poison had been gathered, or a breach of taboo committed, or that the owners of the forest where the poisonous creeper grows had been angered and avenged themselves by spoiling the poison” (Polanyi 1958, 287; Evans-Pritchard 1937). Polanyi (1958, 150–71) documents how problems with scientific theories can develop over time, unsolvable within a current theory, yet evoking ad hoc attempts to hold on to said theory, before a “heuristic” leap traverses a “logical gap” and initiates a successful new theory—contrary to a popular model of scientific practice as having no preconceptions and doubting everything. (Thomas Kuhn (1962) later coined the term paradigm shift for this phenomenon). Given religious systems’ regulatory role in cultural systems per Rappaport and their invocation of values as in some sense sacred or “particularly esteemed” (Nakamura 1997, 10; cited by Lior 2020, 97), religions often resist change more than other cultural systems. Yet, the history of religions admits much change in religious systems when facing significant shifts in a society’s natural and social world. (With the growth of Christianity and social and political changes, traditional Zande ritual practice is not nearly as robust as it once was.)
A Historical Parallel
Religions face particular pressures to change when the life-world they encounter becomes larger through the influx of other cultures, including other religious systems, and/or significant growth in knowledge about the natural world. Possible outcomes include the eventual death of the religion, a doubling down via a hardening of stance and attempts to lessen engagement with threatening subcultures with alternative practices, or an accommodation of new knowledge and practices. Such attempted accommodations can be relatively liberal or relatively conservative. Given that cultural systems, including religious ones, strive to return to stability when faced with disequilibrium, if a relatively conservative attempt can accommodate the new, it is more likely to achieve a new equilibrium. Before tackling possible accommodations of religions confronting a modern scientific worldview, I will consider two historical examples where religious systems became perturbed and destabilized, losing equilibrium in a Kuhnian or Polanyian period of crisis.
Yair Lior offers an intriguing analysis of how Confucianism and rabbinical Judaism responded to respective situations far from equilibrium. For Confucianism, the challenge came from Buddhism, while for Judaism it came from “Greek philosophy, especially Aristotelianism and Neoplatonized forms of Aristotelianism” (Lior 2020, 93). Though these traditions and their challenges were tremendously different in their details, both challengers represented a more rationalized, universalistic, and spiritually individualistic tradition that had appeal to a rising and well-educated middle class (Lior 2020, 99–102). Interestingly for our purposes, these challenges came along with advances in science, natural philosophy, medicine, and technology (Lior 2020, 100). This instability led to intense factionalism among a variety of progressive and conservative camps, which itself was a process of self-organization and adaptation. These camps gradually coalesced around two attractors: a “progressive” one that questioned the validity of some of the Five Classics of Confucianism and parts of the Jewish Talmud, and a “conservative” one that accommodated much from the foreign traditions in interpretation of both the Classics and the Talmud and in new authoritative texts. The progressives thus show a willingness to discard parts of the canonical tradition and add new parts not relying upon earlier layers. Thereby, the new supersedes the old. On the other side, the conservatives preserve older layers and traditions and supplement them with new textual layers and ritual practices. The more conservative camps, which we know as Neo-Confucianism and Kabbalah, prevailed, Lior tells us (2020, 112–27). This is not surprising, as a conservative reorganization is less energy demanding and requires less structural change than a progressive one. In some contexts, however, a conservative reorganization may not suffice to overcome the destabilization of challenges to the system, while a more progressive reorganization might succeed—especially if the conservative attractor is more radical than the larger culture and lessens the complexity of the tradition. Lior concludes that in these two historical cases, this self-organizing process led to “a new phase of homeostasis” (2020, 127), resulting in “greater complexity” and contributing to “long-term resilience” (2020, 92; see also, 129–30). Even as complex self-organized systems first arise in situations far from equilibrium, existing systems can achieve greater complexity in such situations.1
Regaining Equilibrium without Divine Intervention or Manipulation
With the Enlightenment and the emergence of modern science, disequilibrium developed among more liberal European and North American Christianity and Judaism and philosophical theism influenced by those Western monotheisms concerning supernatural intentional agency. That widespread doubt eventually spread to encompass supernatural creation of the cosmos, the Earth, and species. But throughout, disequilibrium persisted regarding supernatural causation that supersedes, interferes with, or manipulates natural processes to cause a desired outcome in the world. These intentional supernatural or quasi-supernatural actions can be divided into three types:
miracles in the sense of violations or the superseding of natural law in the perceptual world. Even evangelicalism tended to consign miracles so defined to the Apostolic Age.
God “working behind the scenes,” so to speak, manipulating things to bring about a favored outcome but without violations of natural law, or at least not noticeable ones. This option usually avails to explain isolated and more personal happenings. Today, some engaged in the religion and science dialogue posit that nature always involves some manipulative action—I unpack more of what I mean by this later—by God as not bound by fixed natural law.
God directly communicating information, or at least the divine presence, to people. With the failure of the Enlightenment quest for certainty, or at least an immediate divine connection, through rational means, the quest moved to the realm of feeling or the subconscious, or the subliminal for liberal theism, as with Romantic idealism—the strongest currents originating and spreading from Germany—and process theology.
I concede that traditionally one major motivation for performing religious rituals has been to influence particular outcomes in the world. For us embodied creatures, hope for such outcomes can be adaptive in lessening anxiety and enabling confidence. For Christianity, the relevant theological concept is “special providence.” The Divine Action Project, a multi-year effort that included luminaries of the religion–science dialogue, labeled such purported causation as Special Divine Action (though leaving miracles in their own category due to their manifest violation of natural law and the overriding of General Divine Action associated with natural law) (Ritchie 2019, 7–9; Wildman 2004). For his part, William James (1902, 520–23) in The Varieties of Religious Experience supports “crass” or “piecemeal” theism, which supposedly allows us to experience God and lets the divine have particular effects on the world in a manner not contradictory to the processes of nature discernible by science. For James, this meant the divine could influence humans by providing renewing energies and possibly information through the subliminal. (Such a take on subliminal or subconscious processes does not seem as viable today as during James’s era.)
Indeed, the desire for the supernatural or divine to directly affect particular outcomes in human life still presents a strong attraction that works against achieving equilibrium in mainline Christianity and liberal theism influenced by mainline Christianity. From my experience with mainline denominations, the curriculum, commentaries, liturgy, and preaching in mainline churches tend not to confront issues relating to particular divine causation, leaving unaddressed and uninterpreted what traditionally has been understood to entail such causation. While such nonaction may avoid increasing disequilibrium in the short term, it hinders overcoming disequilibrium in the long run. By contrast, Reform, Conservative,2 and liberal Orthodox Jews have had different experiences with curriculum, commentaries, liturgy, and preaching in their synagogues and denominations and tend to doubt these three types of purported attempts by the divine to influence particular events. Surely, the memory of the Holocaust looms large in this disparity.
Given the attractions of practices that invoke hope of divine particular causation, I concede that forms of the classical world religions that do not offer this may ultimately die. On the other hand, mainline and more liberal forms of the classical world religions that choose to leave unchallenged particular divine causation may well die if equilibrium relative to scientific worldviews and ways of life is not restored. In the long term, more fundamentalist versions of Christianity may die also, given 1) their blatant contradictions with respect to scientific consensuses, which takes a lot of energy and 2) the lessening or loss of the theological or religious meaning of stories and other scriptural genres, which ironically they mean to protect. That is, their hardline interpretations—disconnected from historical traditions of interpretation—emphasize the alleged historical truth of miracles and other stories and of cosmological accounts contradicted by science at the expense of the religious meaning. Such interpretation manifests the phenomenon identified by Polanyi (1966, 18; see also 1958, 56; 1969, 146) of losing the wider embodied meaning by focusing on particulars.
I note that historically, not all the classical religions have emphasized particular divine causation. From ancient times, Confucianism, or Ruism, has instead emphasized human efforts to bring individuals and society into conformity with the cosmic order of Tian and shied away from direct divine causation in the perceptual world.
Failed Attempts to Retain Particular Divine Causation
Some scholars engaged in the science and religion dialogue propound ways God might determine particular events and outcomes, supposedly without violating natural laws or regularities. I argue that these attempts to achieve equilibrium by attempting to reconcile scientific knowledge with particular causation fail. Some approaches to special divine action involve a “causal joint” in the sense that one can specify where or how God might act in underdetermined ways in the natural world (or at least underdetermined in terms of known natural laws). Nicholas Saunders (2002, see especially, 214–16) proclaims a “crisis” in the field of religion and science, with such approaches as both scientifically dubious and theologically deficient in terms of strong special providence (Ritchie 2019, 4, 11–12). I include under causal-joint theories the idea of “higher laws” of nature, whereby God acts in ways undetermined by lower laws (even though one of the scholars who employs this idea assails the causal-joint premise).
Other approaches reject the causal-joint paradigm. Sara Lane Ritchie declares a “theological turn” to “theistic naturalism” as an alternative to causal-joint theories. These alternative approaches embrace the proposition that the regularities of natural process are descriptive rather than prescriptive and ontological (Ritchie 2019, 10–11, 25–27; 2017, 361–62, 366–68), thus there is “wiggle room” whereby God engages both in general providence to the extent that regularity or similarity pertains and in special providence to the extent that God makes the best choice among possible options. I use the term manipulate to describe these open choices and actions by God without the common connotation of unscrupulousness. The theological turn also endorses a corollary of compatibilism against incompatibilism. With the incompatibilism of causal-joint theories, God cannot act through fixed, determinative natural laws (other than by sustaining these laws) but rather only through indeterminacies in natural processes. Compatibilism here means that God is always fully acting in the world through fully natural processes (Ritchie 2019, 24–27). The specifics of divine action with so-called “theistic naturalisms” remain a mystery to us. Thus, such models can find theological support through faith but not scientific support. Before getting into particular models and critiques, I will issue a general caveat: given the ubiquity of particular divine causation, in contrast to limited particular power in causal-joint theories, the theological turn aggravates the problem of horrific evil—that is, terribly traumatic events that happen to individuals and occurrences of mass death, maiming, and destruction. These theistic naturalisms may posit strong providential action, but strong results are not evident in the world. Therefore, the crisis Saunders finds in the field of science and religion relative to special divine action persists.
Causal-Joint Theories
One approach utilizes quantum physics in a very “behind the scenes” way. It posits that God determines the quantum actions of particular subatomic particles either for all quantum activity (Murphy 1995, noted by Barbour 2000, 171) or in certain cases (Ellis 2009; Russell 2009; Tracy 1995), as with the energy levels of electrons and radioactive decay, and that these in turn produce macro effects resulting in specific events. As these quantum actions always adhere to overall probabilistic outcomes, God violates no natural laws. However, given that overall probabilistic quantum outcomes cannot vary, it seems likely that micro events in a system will “even out,” so to speak, and rarely, if ever, influence macro events. Moreover, if God uses this method, it does not appear to be particularly effective in preventing cases of horrific evil. Given that my ontology of self-organizing systems—along with the ontologies of many other liberal scholars—advocates some indeterminacy and openness in nature and culture, rejection of the ultimately indeterminate nature of particular quantum events reduces the likelihood of indeterminacy elsewhere in the universe, including in our embodied decisions and actions. In the nature of the case, this theory of divine particular causation is transempirical, strictly a matter of faith. In itself, that may not be a problem. However, given the weaknesses I have listed, I believe it amounts to a faith in the highly improbable.
God’s establishment of natural laws and processes, traditionally referred to as general providence in Christian theology or General Divine Action in the previously mentioned project, perforce does not involve violation of these natural structures. But can God’s causative acts on the whole universe traditionally associated with general providence end up foreordaining particular events and thus involve some special providence or particular causation? Arthur Peacocke, as he develops his notion of divine “top-down causation” (1993) or “whole-part influence” (2014), maintains that God, in establishing boundary conditions with respect to the whole universe, not only determines general laws or patterns but causes some specific events. Given the long stretch of evolution of galaxies and life, this seems unlikely given some indeterminism in the universe, especially in terms of particular decisions and events in the realm of sentient individuals, their societies, and their interactions. Peacocke does uphold indeterminism and human free will. He also highlights information humans might derive from God’s action in setting boundary conditions. However, the only way I can imagine this happening is through attempts to garner information about general providence and to imitate God in particular embodied situations. This would constitute an application of the idea of general providence and, at most, a very indirect version of special providence. Additionally, this model of special providence does not appear particularly effective at preventing cases of horrific evil.
Unlike Peacocke, John Polkinghorne (2000, 123–25, 148) champions direct action by God through “active information” given to individual human beings, supposedly without any input of energy—rather, this is “pure information input.” This giving of pure information contrasts with our acts that “involve a mixture of energetic and informational causalities, corresponding to the embodied status of creatures” (Polkinghorne 2000, 124). Nonetheless, it seems the reception of information by an embodied human would involve energy. Furthermore, would not the reception of information from God involve energy different from (and from a different source) than information in the world of matter and energy? It seems that the source of the energy expended on receiving divine information would be untraceable. Therefore, I think Polkinghorne’s concept involves the supersession or violation of natural laws or processes. A number of modern theologians, often influenced by Romantic idealism, claim some type of divine revelation in or to human awareness on a prereflective or affective level. Paul Tillich, the most eminent twentieth-century representative of that tradition, posits an awareness in all humans of being-itself, or the power of being, without particular information. It seems, however, that for revelation to register in our awareness, the same issues arise as with Polkinghorne: this registration would involve an unnatural energy. Also, like previously cited attempts, such revelation does not appear particularly effective in preventing cases of horrific evil.
Process theology claims a unique version of special providence. For Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychism, the basic constituents of reality are “unit occasions of experience” that synthesize past occasions of experience of oneself and others in a “concrescence.” God influences every momentary occasion of experience by providing it with God’s preference among the possibilities available to it, a preference termed God’s “initial aim” (Whitehead [1929] 1978). For process thought, unit occasions are very brief, a fraction of a second. Thus, it appears that the specifics of each occasion must remain subconscious and inaccessible, thus transempirical, to our perceptions and reflections. The process view that time exists as discontinuous quanta creates another problem, given the lack of evidence so far against the appearance of time as continuous. Like previous models, God’s provision of initial aims does not appear to be particularly effective in preventing cases of horrific evil.
Another approach to special divine providential action posits unknown laws of nature, with results that appear miraculous but actually break no laws. This approach goes back to St. Augustine (1950, 776–78), while Polkinghorne represents the most prominent contemporary proponent of an unknown regime of nature (for example, Polkinghorne 2000, 127–28). From an Eastern Orthodox perspective, Christopher C. Knight (2007, 39) labels these as “higher laws” (Ritchie 2019, 278–79). An obvious weakness of this proposition is the unknown and possibly unknowable nature of such laws. This approach asks us to accept this possibility without evidence. Ritchie (2019, 181, 183) offers petitionary or intercessory prayer followed by a dramatic healing as an example of a possible higher natural law. Actually, meta-studies provide evidence on petitionary prayer—that is, evidence against, as they conclude from experiments with strong double-blind safeguards that it has no effect (Hodge 2007; Masters et al. 2006). We might take as a “higher” test case the plausibility of Jesus’s resurrection as falling under such higher laws. Living a sinless life in complete harmony with the will of God might seemingly activate a higher law. Yet, I submit the implausibility of any natural law that results in the rising of a transformed body in place of the original body that had died. Also counting against an unknown regime is the seeming inability of such laws to prevent horrific evil.
A somewhat related argument posits the changing of nature and natural laws in response to some unprecedented event, such as the death and resurrection of Jesus. Some patristic theologians write of higher laws becoming operative at particular crucial times (Knight for his part advocates relevant “fixed instructions” created eternally) (Ritchie 2019, 280–85; Knight 2007, 29, 39, 116; 2016, 581), while Polkinghorne (2000, 90–91, 94) envisions this happening only with an ultimate fulfillment constituting an “eschatological panentheism.” Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong (2011, 90–102), however, asserts that this change already began with the incarnation of Jesus Christ and Pentecost and will continue to gradually progress (Ritchie 2019, 317–18). No evidence exists, though, that any laws of nature have changed in the past two thousand years.
The Theological Turn
Ritchie elaborates upon three types of theological naturalism: 1) Thomistic double agency of primary and secondary causation, 2) Knight’s Eastern Orthodox “panentheistic naturalism,” and 3) the respective “pneumatological naturalisms” of James K. A. Smith and Yong. Thomistic double agency maintains that two levels of causation, the divine and the natural, are both fully effective and not in contradiction. Ritchie (2019, 248) cautions that double causation could fall into deism “if too eager to affirm the integrity of secondary causes.” However, I judge her warning of falling into “theological determinism” to represent the greater danger. Telling is Ritchie’s (2019, 249) quotation from contemporary Thomist Ignacio Silva (2015, 280): “[T]he key feature of this doctrine is that everything the secondary cause is and does is caused by God.” The clear hierarchy of primary and secondary pushes in a deterministic direction. There is disagreement about whether St. Thomas’s theology is predestinarian and deterministic. Aquinas and St. Augustine agree that those who deliberately do evil will to do so, free from external compulsion (as in a modern example of someone threatening to kill you unless you help him rob a bank). But I discern here a position labeled “soft determinism” in contemporary philosophy. People exercise moral or immoral wills, yet God ultimately determines the nature of those wills by divine action—or nonaction—with respect to saving grace.
Knight’s Eastern Orthodox panentheistic naturalism and Smith’s and Yong’s pneumatological naturalisms all insist that God always acts in natural ways that include both General Divine Action-like sustaining of regularities and more finely tuned Special Divine Action-like providential action (Ritchie 2017, 375; Smith 2010, 40; Yong 2011, 131). For Knight (2007, 116), divine action constitutes an eternal act (Ritchie, 282–87), and this creates a problem. The divine ability to determine the most providential of options throughout all time entails foreknowledge of particular situations. Some argue that free will in the sense of some indeterminate freedom to choose among options does not contradict foreknowledge. For me, however, to foresee all decisions yet to be made in time from a perspective wholly outside of time is nonsensical. Thus, like double agency, a divine eternal act warrants an interpretation of soft determinism. Smith on the other hand judges divine choices to happen in time (Ritchie, 303–04). (I also find commendable Smith’s (2010, 12, 88, 96–99) honoring of embodiment and the (nonreductive) physicality of human beings against any dualism (Ritchie 2019, 301–11)). While neither Knight nor Smith want to be pinned down on the specifics of divine action, neither claims that all natural laws and regularities boast flexibility open to what I have called manipulation. Indeed, Knight (2007, xi, 36–39) appears to concede my point in distinguishing between “low-level” and “higher” natural laws (Ritchie 2019, 278–81). While Knight would demur from my getting more specific with types of natural laws, I do not find it plausible that, for example, laws of motion represented by algebraic or partial differential equations could be anything other than “low-level” laws, “which are scientifically explorable” and apparently fixed (Knight 2007, 94; Ritchie 2019, 281). Self-organizing systems, which are never fully predictable, appear amenable to providential divine choices not accessible to science. Knight (2007, 36–39) focuses on the self-organizing systems that are human mindbodies in terms of human responsiveness to God (Ritchie 2019, 280–81). One could, though, look at weather as a chaotic system and wonder why so many natural disasters vastly destructive of human and animal life occur. Again, the question of horrific evil and divine particular causation raises its head. In addition, as Occam’s razor sharply asks, why invoke myriad divine decisions beyond the natural unpredictability and, perhaps in cases such as sentient organisms and some of their actions, the indeterminacy of self-organizing systems?
Divine Power to Violate Natural Laws?
Finally, I will address the proposition that God or the divine has the power to violate or supersede natural laws but rarely or never uses it. I have supported the “never” version in the past. I do not challenge the contention that God should only rarely exercise such alleged power, since stable, reliable natural laws constitute a necessity for a livable world and the value of creaturely integrity and free will should ordinarily be respected. Plus, one can reasonably add that the divine should not overturn natural processes in a manner that sufficiently intelligent creatures would recognize, lest they factor the hope for divine intervention in decisions (as some people do with climate change). But could God not intervene in ways undetectable to humans and thus save tens of thousands or millions of creatures from trauma, torture, maiming, or death? For example, a fatal heart attack or brain hemorrhage for Adolf Hitler or Vladimir Putin might have accomplished such a goal. Good parents grant their children much freedom to learn, explore, and make their own decisions—but within limits that foreclose the most disastrous outcomes. If God could do so, should we not expect God to do the same? (Wesley Wildman (2007, 278) makes a similar argument). A traditional counter to my current position would be that, since we are not in the position of the divine, perhaps non-intervention was actually the best (non)action God could have taken relative to whatever situation of horrific evil one might raise. However, we can only make judgments about the divine as the embodied human beings we are. This traditional objection tends to call into question any human capability to make sense of the divine.
Affordances of Religion without Supernatural Intervention or Manipulation
In imagining a classical religion restoring equilibrium relative to a modern scientific worldview and way of life by rejecting particular divine causation, what affordances could such a religious tradition offer? Unlike with the responses of Neo-Confucianism or Kabbalah, Christianity and Islam have a closed canon. The interpretation of narratives and other scriptural and canonical textual genres would focus on the religious or theological meaning of the text, sans the extraordinary packaging incredible to a scientific worldview. Scriptural and canonical textual interpretation more generally would fully recognize the embodiment and embeddedness of the authors and original hearers in their respective historical cultural situations. This recognition includes the fact that these folks did not possess an understanding of modern historical methodology and standards; therefore, many canonical stories are not historical. The considerations of theology or religious faith conditioned what folks believed must have happened. Again, it was the religious or theological meaning that drove the formation of scripture, hence we should attempt to apply it to the contemporary context. That does not mean, though, that all the values manifested in scripture have equal worth or are consistent with each other. The recognition of the embodiment and embeddedness of scriptural formation obliges us to make ethical judgments based on our own contexts.
Forms of classical religions without supernatural particular causation can provide orientation to the larger picture or the whole of things to the extent humans can comprehend this. In theory, one such form sets the divine outside nature insofar as it is the supernatural cause and sustainer of the world without intervening in it (though I have criticized that model if it involves unused power to intervene). Whether nature as a whole is conceived as nondivine or divine, or the divine is not identical to nature as a whole, these forms can concur on a metaphysics with directionality of increasing complexity that provides for sentient life, including very rich and intelligent life.
Rituals should play a prominent role in religion without supernatural intervention or manipulation, as they did for Neo-Confucianism and Kabbalah. They afford bonding and solidarity, which promote cooperation within the religious group and outreach beyond the group. Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar (2022, 137–40; 2012, 208) notes that religious rituals increase the uptake of endorphins, which promote both this bonding and pain reduction.
Prayer has functioned as an important ritual for the Western monotheisms as well as for Hinduism, Shinto, folk Daoism, and Mahayana Buddhism in relation to bodhisattvas. Prayer without expectation of supernatural intervention can help the one who prays, as it serves spiritual self-cultivation and self-transformation and spurs one to act ethically with respect to persons and situations. In theory, I am open to the existence of unknown natural forces that could allow intercessory prayer to work directly in the world. Unfortunately for this possibility, as mentioned earlier, meta-studies reach a negative verdict (Hodge 2007; Masters et al. 2006). However, knowing that someone is praying for you or thinking about you in a caring way can have positive effects with respect to psychological and physical illness.
The creation of new contemplative and meditational techniques, which were key adaptive emphases in Neo-Confucianism and Kabbalah regaining equilibrium, also offers benefits. While the rituals of synagogue and Ruist orthopraxis for Kabbalah and Neo-Confucianism, respectively, engender bonding with fellow practitioners and larger realities, meditative/contemplative practices inspire connections to universalist dimensions. Meditation/contemplative prayer involving a diminished sense of self as distinct from others and compassion/loving kindness meditation/contemplation can yield an increased sense of connectedness with one’s fellow human beings, other sentient creatures, nature as a whole, and/or a divine reality (Fox et al. 2016; Nash and Newberg 2013, 7, 8; Winkelman and Fortier 2019, 65). Another adaptive benefit of meditation or contemplative prayer involves the autonomic nervous system and relaxation, indeed two types of relaxed states. Some studies indicate a state where the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and lowers heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure, and metabolism. Other studies suggest a more complex picture of meditative and contemplative states: heightened activity of the parasympathetic nervous system happens at the same time as heightened activity of the sympathetic nervous system, the system associated with arousal (see Newberg 2006; Winkelman and Fortier 2019, 64). Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg (2006) notes that this “fits characteristic descriptions of meditative states in which there is a sense of overwhelming calmness as well as significant alertness.”
A Model of the Divine
I will conclude this article by exploring a model of the divine that avoids supernaturalism but preserves some personal dimensions of the divine. It is a version of panentheism and divine embodiment where an all-encompassing but differentiated reality begins with the Big Bang—whether this involves one inflation, a pre-inflation, post-inflations, and/or a distinct inflation for dark matter (or Roger Penrose’s minority position in astrophysics of cyclic universes, each beginning with an inflation3). Divine intelligence (in)forms structures that involve some indeterminism in a whole that includes particular configurations of energy and matter. It is a package, so to speak. This divine reality establishes the basic structures or laws during the early inflation(s) and maintains them. While this divine intelligence is differentiated from the nondivine parts of the universe, it does not bring these into existence in ex nihilo fashion. Empirically, we cannot get “before” or behind the earliest inflation. If something existed in eternity in the sense of timelessness, it would have included the divine intelligence. This integrated whole may carry its own kind of necessity. With its causative role involving the determination of structures of the universe, the divine does not and cannot supernaturally or quasi-supernaturally determine particular outcomes of the interactions of energy and matter in the universe. The divine has awareness of the universe in its beginning and through nonlocality retains some awareness of everything that happens in the universe, appreciating when sentient or experiencing realities fulfill their needs and desires and sensing the feelings of these realities when they experience pain or failure. This allows for a sense in which God hears our prayers. Given the ongoing reality of this divine intelligence, its knowledge may be retained through time. As embodied in the universe, God faces certain limitations, though not limitations or dependencies that we do, for God never ceases to exist and, again, has some awareness relating to everything that happens in the universe.
That the divine always wishes the best for each creature in each moment has important ramifications. We can attempt to discern the divine will for particular situations or historical moments, not based upon a direct communication from God but from our best intuitions, thinking, and compassion for sentient life driven by our faith in divine love, justice, and mercy. Belief in revelation through central figures and canonical texts can be understood not as supernatural communication, inspiration, or incarnation but rather through our best judgment that they stand as revelatory of the divine will that love and justice ought to prevail. A sense of divine forgiveness may be obtained for harmful past deeds, in that God does not wish punishment or evil upon the perpetrator but rather wishes them the best, including that the guilty party repent and not cause that harm again. Trust in the awareness of what happens in the universe by the divine intelligence, as well as its implications, is transempirical given the lack of any direct evidence; therein, it is a matter of faith. One can cite indirect evidence from the intuitive interpretation of intelligence fashioning the universe, as opposed to its nature being a matter of chance or brute fact. My modest claim is that belief in a divine intelligence (in)forming our universe lends plausibility to my model.
This model can be adaptive through embodied and enactive interpretation of scripture and tradition—and also crucially through rituals—in an age of science by encouraging imitation of divine love and offering the hope that we affect the divine, perhaps being remembered after dying, and providing a plausible picture of the origin and causes of the universe and our place in it. This can also be the case in terms of ecological concerns, where working with natural processes and encouraging helpful sacrifices may succeed where hoping for divine intervention will fail.
Notes
- I note though that while Lior explicitly cites only greater complexity, in one respect, these reorganized traditions became simpler. In contrast to older paradigms of lifelong immersion to try to master the Five Classics or the Talmud, Neo-Confucianism and Kabbalah made these canonical texts clearer, more “accessible,” and more “user-friendly” for the growing numbers of educated people (Lior 2020, 118–20). In this vein, the Protestant Reformation is generally recognized as organizing Western European Christianity into a simpler religious system. [^]
- Conservative Judaism’s Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary does not shy away from citing evidence that many biblical narratives are not historical, as well as acknowledging the consensuses of modern science (Lieber et al. 2001). [^]
- The cyclical coming together of everything of a universe, if actual, would be part of the (in)forming by the divine intelligence, which would result in an unending series of universes rather than the cold death of our universe, which seems to be the most likely scenario at this point. [^]
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