Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 What is the problem?
- 2 What is chance?
- 3 Order out of chaos
- 4 Chaos out of order
- 5 What is probability?
- 6 What can very small probabilities tell us?
- 7 Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?
- 8 Statistical laws
- 9 God's action in the quantum world
- 10 The human use of chance
- 11 God's chance
- 12 The challenge to chance
- 13 Choice and chance
- 14 God and risk
- References
- Further reading
- Index
1 - What is the problem?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 What is the problem?
- 2 What is chance?
- 3 Order out of chaos
- 4 Chaos out of order
- 5 What is probability?
- 6 What can very small probabilities tell us?
- 7 Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?
- 8 Statistical laws
- 9 God's action in the quantum world
- 10 The human use of chance
- 11 God's chance
- 12 The challenge to chance
- 13 Choice and chance
- 14 God and risk
- References
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
The problem is to reconcile the central place which chance has in the scientific account of the world with the theological account of God's relationship to the world. Chance suggests lack of purpose; theology speaks of purpose. This long-running source of tension has come to the fore again in the claims of the Intelligent Design movement, which aims to eliminate chance in favour of design. Quantum theory, which places chance at the heart of matter, poses essentially the same question for theologians. This chapter sets the scene and, very briefly, points the way to a solution which lies in seeing chance within, not outside, the providence of God.
CHANCE VERSUS GOD
Chance has become a major weapon of those who regard science and theology as locked in mortal combat. On the theological side there are those like Sproul, who signals his intentions in the title of a book Not a Chance (1994). The subtitle makes his intentions doubly clear: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology. In the preface he goes on to say ‘this book’ may be viewed as a diatribe against chance. ‘It is my purpose to show that it is logically impossible to ascribe any power to chance whatever.’ As if that did not make his intentions clear enough he continues, on page 3, ‘If chance exists in its frailest possible form, God is finished … If chance exists in any size, shape or form, God cannot exist.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- God, Chance and PurposeCan God Have It Both Ways?, pp. 1 - 15Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008