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
11 - God's chance
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
In chapter 3 we saw that chance and order are not incompatible; many of the regularities in the world are the aggregate effects of chance happenings at a lower level. In chapter 10 we saw that such regularities enable us to use the lawfulness which they introduce for our own purposes. God, of course, created these possibilities in the first place, so it is natural to suppose that he would use the order which results to achieve his own ends.
In this chapter I show how this might have happened in three examples where the presence of a chance element has often seemed to rule out divine involvement. These are: the origin of a life-bearing planet, the evolution of life through natural selection, and the social order.
WHY MIGHT GOD USE CHANCE?
Is chance a real feature of our world and, if so, how can we reconcile its presence with belief in the God of Christian theology? That question was raised at the outset and it has overshadowed all that I have said since. I have already rejected the idea that what we see is only the appearance of chance – that in reality every single thing that happens is as a result of the direct and immediate action of God. This is logically possible, of course, but we have seen that, in practice, it is extremely difficult to mimic chance. Indeed, the only sure way of getting it right is to resort to a chance process itself.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- God, Chance and PurposeCan God Have It Both Ways?, pp. 173 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008