Peacocke and Polkinghorne: Comparison of Models of Divine Action
Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne are
two important British scientist-theologians active in the last 20 years. Both
have written importantly on God’s action in the world (see a classification of
theories of divine action).
Though neither thinker would concede that
they agreed with the other, their positions are not as dissimilar as has
sometimes appeared. In particular, Polkinghorne’s recent essays make clear that
his conjectures about the causal joint are not so adventurously precise as they
first appeared (see Polkinghorne’s view of divine action). In a paper
originating in 1993 he writes:
It is important to recognise that, in this
scheme, the significance of the sensitivity of chaotic systems to the effects
of small triggers is diagnostic of
their requiring to be treated in holistic terms and of their being open to
top-down causality through the input of active information. It is not proposed
that this is the localized mechanism by which agency is exercised. I do not
suppose that either we or God interact with the world by the carefully
calculated adjustment of the infinitesmal details of initial conditions so as
to bring about a desired result. The whole thrust of the proposal is expressed
in terms of the complete holistic situation, not in terms of the clever
manipulation of bits and pieces(emphasis
ours). It is, therefore, a proposal for realizing a true kind of top-down
causality. It may fittingly be called contextualism,
for it supposes the behavior of parts to be influenced by their overall
context.
and in 1996
It seems entirely conceivable that God also
interacts with the creation through the input of active information into its
open physical process. We glimpse, in a rudimentary way, what might lie behind
theology’s language of God’s “guiding” and “drawing on” creation, language
often associated with talk of the Spirit working immanently on the inside of
creation
This is very close to Peacocke’s emphases
on divine immanence, whole-part causation, and God as the ultimate boundary
condition (see Peacocke’s view of divine action). Granted, Polkinghorne still
wants to speak of the ontological openness of non-linear systems, and has been
rightly criticised for the logic by which he arrives at this.However, a system-open-to-God-as-overall-context is very similar to Peacocke’s
whole-part-influence-on-the-world-as-a-whole, given that they both agree that
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Christopher Southgate
Source: God, Humanity and the
Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999)