chance and necessity, providence and god

http://itq.sagepub.comIrish Theological Quarterly

DOI: 10.1177/002114000507000305 2005; 70; 263 Irish Theological Quarterly

Neil Ormerod Chance and Necessity, Providence and God

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263

Chance and Necessity,Providence and God

Neil Ormerod

This article addresses the issue of difficulties raised by process theology for the traditionalunderstanding of God. Far from new, the issues raised by process thinkers were notunknown to past thinkers, such as Aquinas, who dealt adequately with them. The authorargues that the classical view of God, more recently expressed by Lonegran in a moremodern idiom, is more in accordance with contemporary scientific thinking on space,time, and matter, than the view of its detractors.

here is no end of philosophers and theologians who are willing toTdeclare the God of classical theism dead and buried. The classical

view of God, most thoroughly articulated in the writings of ThomasAquinas, and based on a series of attributes such as omnipotence, omni-science, and impassibility, is now viewed as inimical to modem evolu-tionary worldviews and the needs of a suffering world. Rather God shouldbe thought of as passible and self-limiting in creation, a God who delightsin the novelties that arise in the random process of creation and sufferswith creation in its various destructive moments, both natural and moral.Compared with the remote, unfeeling, transcendent God of classical the-ism, this is a God who both suffers with us and delights in us. For manythis stance is both pastorally attractive and closer to the Scriptural data.The most common exponents of such an account of God can be found inprocess writers such as Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne,2 2John Cobb, and Joseph Bracken, but similar positions can be found inJfrgen Moltmann,4 Elizabeth Johnson,5 Denis Edwards and others. Anumber of these authors add a Trinitarian dimension to their reflections.The position outlined above has proved a powerful challenge to the

classical presentation of the divine as found in the Western theological1. For example, Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, ed.David Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne, Corrected ed. (New York: Free Press, 1978).2. For example, Charles Hartshorne, Aquinas to Whitehead: Seven Centuries of Metaphysicsof Religion (Milwaukee: Marquette University Publications, 1976).3. Most recently Joseph A. Bracken, The One in the Many: A Contemporary Reconstructionof the God-World Relationship (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2001), but forthe purposes of this paper see Joseph A. Bracken, Response to Elizabeth Johnsons "DoesGod Play Dice?", Theological Studies 57 (1996) 720-30.4. Jrgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: The Doctrine of God (London:SCM Press, 1981 ).5. Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse(New York: Crossroad, 1992), but for the purposes of this paper see Elizabeth A. Johnson,Does God Play Dice? Divine Providence and Chance, Theological Studies 57 (1996) 3-18.6. Denis Edwards, The God of Evolution: A Trinitarian Theology (New York: Paulist Press,1999), and Denis Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God: An Ecological Theology (Maryknoll,N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995).



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tradition. I would like to suggest however that the challenge can be metby classical theism, most notably in the writings of a modem exponent ofthat tradition, Bernard Lonergan. At the heart of the debate, I suggest,there lie questions of chance and necessity, and the role of these in thecosmos. Inextricably linked to this issue is the notion of divine provi-dence. Many of the questions raised by those who reject classical theismare not new, and the classical approach has at various times sought toaddress them. In the massive cultural shifts of modem times, the powerand depth of the responses of Western classical theism have been lost.Lonergan has done much to restore these responses, while transposingthem into a modem scientific context.

The structure of this essay will be as follows. I begin with an examina-tion of the claims of Process and other thinkers in relation to the ques-tions of necessity, contingency and chance. Often the concerns raisedhere are discussed under the heading of real and logical relations betweenGod and creation, but I think issues of contingency and necessity are themore fundamental. I then consider the way in which these questions arehandled by Thomas Aquinas, as mediated through the writings ofLonergan, specifically his work Grace and Freedom. I then turn toLonergans transposition of the classical tradition and his own handlingof these questions. Finally I suggest that the classical position is actuallymuch closer to that of modem science than the one proposed by itsdetractors. In suggesting this I shall consider the question of time and itsrelationship to space and matter.

The necessary and the contingent

Classical theism has long held a distinction between the necessary beingof God and the contingency of the created order. Only God is necessarybeing, while the created order is suffused with contingency. Further classi-cal theism argues for the existence of God precisely as an explanation forthe existence of contingent being. Contingent being is not self-explana-tory, but its existence must be explained by something which is in itselfnon-contingent. Such necessary being is identified with what all peoplecall God (e.g. ST 1 q2 a3). While this may seem remote from the BiblicalGod, it captures well the sovereignty of God over creation and human his-tory, so evident both in the creation accounts of Genesis and the Exodusand second Exodus motifs in the history of Israel. As sovereign Lord of cre-ation and history God is not subject to any external necessity and freelycreates the world and freely elects Israel from among the nations.7. The two key works are Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace inthe Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, vol. 1,Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), andBernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, ed. Frederick E. Croweand Robert M. Doran, vol. 3, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1992).



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There is some irony then in the counter-claim of process thinkers thatthe nexus between necessity and contingency is itself a problem. In hisAquinas Lecture of 1976, Charles Hartshome argues as follows:

The entire history of philosophical theology, from Plato to White-head, can be focussed on the relations between three propositions:(1) The world is mutable and contingent;(2) The ground of its possibility is a being unconditionally and in

all respects necessary and immutable;(3) The necessary being, God, has ideally complete knowledge of

the world.Aristotle, Spinoza, Socinus, and process philosophers agree that thethree propositions, taken without qualification, form an inconsis-tent triad, for they imply the contradiction: a wholly non-contin-gent being has contingent knowledge 8

The irony lies in the fact that while classical theism seeks to establish theexistence of necessary being precisely as an explanation for contingentbeing, having arrived at its destination, it is told that the conclusion isinconsistent. Either there is a fault in the reasoning leading to a necessarybeing, or reasoning is no longer a reliable guide in knowing reality.

The stakes here are in fact not small. The argument goes as follows. Anecessary being, with complete knowledge of the world, is a necessarydeterminer of all that happens. This effectively eliminates contingency inthe world, and with the elimination of contingency, human freedombecomes a chimera. The universe is reduced to being a puppet in thehands of God who effectively pulls all the strings. This concern is readilyidentified in various authors mentioned above.

Elizabeth Johnson evokes chance, statistical probability and chaostheory to assert real contingency in the physical order, so as to move awayfrom the traditional model of God as king and ruler, gifted with attributesof omniscience and omnipotence, who in creating and sustaining theworld preprograms its development.&dquo; She notes the concerns of scientistand process thinker Ian Barbour, that the difficulty in classical theism isin moving away from divine determinism to allow for the genuinely ran-dom to occur.ll Johnson regularly refers to the interplay of law andchance to evoke an image of divine artistry, so that divine governanceinvolves God in waiting upon the world, so to speak, patiently actingthrough its natural processes including unpredictable, uncontrollablerandom events.&dquo;8. Hartshorne, Aquinas to Whitehead, 15.9. It is not at all clear to the current author that the God of Process thought is knowableby natural reason. If such a God is not known through a chain of reasoning from the con-tingent to the necessary, how indeed is Gods existence known at all? Is God only knownthrough revelation?10. Johnson, Does God Play Dice?, 8.11. Ibid. 10.12. Ibid. 17.



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While Johnson explores both neo-Thomistic and Process options indealing with the problems of necessity and chance, Joseph Bracken sug-gests that the Process line of thought is actually more coherent with theposition Johnson seeks to develop. Brackens focus is not so much thequestions of physical chance and necessity, but the implications thesequestions have in terms of human freedom. He rejects the neo-Thomisticnotion of divine concurrence with secondary causes, because God as apersonal being does not have to concur in what happens, even thoughthe divine nature may be a necessary ingredient in every created reality.Bracken introduces this distinction between divine nature and divinepersonhood in order to ensure that God is not responsible for moral evil.But in the end the creature, as an ontologically independent subject ofthe act of being, can choose to do what it wants. Hence, the creature, notGod as a personal being, is morally responsible for the choices that itmakes.13 Process thought involves a massive shift in ontology, from aThomistic emphasis on act, to a focus on potentiality, creativity andchange. He notes that Whitehead compares creativity with theAristotelian notion of prime matter, though viewed as a principle ofprocess rather than pure receptivity. Even God is subject to process andcreativity.&dquo; While Johnson speaks with some hesitancy about involvingGod in the temporal order ( divine governance involves God in waitingupon the world, so to speak), Bracken has no such hesitancy:

The world order within this scheme is still unfolding even for God.That is, even God cannot know with certitude what the creaturewill choose until after the creature chooses it. God, in other words,must adjust to what creatures decide and thus inevitably take risksin dealing with creatures. Does this imply that God is in some sensetemporal and subject to change? It would seem that this is the priceto be paid for claiming that God is a genuine subject of experiencein interaction with creatures rather than an abstract object ofthought, the term of a logical inference from contingent effect totranscendent first cause.&dquo;

Indeed this is a radical price to pay in order to ensure genuine contin-gency and freedom in the universe.

In seeking to develop a Trinitarian theology of evolution, DenisEdwards also adopts elements of Process thought.I6 Here the issue is notjust contingency per se, but the consequences of that contingency as evi-dent in evolution. If ones view of God is a being who is absolutelyomnipotent, unencumbered by any limits whatsoever, then it is difficult to

13. Bracken, Response to Elizabeth Johnson, 724.14. Ibid. 725-6.15. Ibid. 729-30.16. Edwards, The God of Evolution, 40.



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reconcile such a God with the pain and death that accompanies naturalselection and still affirm divine goodness.1 Moreover Edwards is respond-ing to recent attacks on religious beliefs from people such as biologistRichard Dawkins, who argue that the recognition of chance in the evolu-tionary process undermines any claim that the universe is subj ect to divinedesign.&dquo; He responds in a similar manner to Johnson, with a juxtapositionof chance and lawfulness in the physical universe. God is now pictured asinvolved creatively in an open-ended process that involves both random-ness and lawfulness.I9 As with Process thought this means that God is ina real and reciprocal relationship with creation, so that not only does Godeffect creation, but creation affects God. This relational theology involvesa real, two-sided, but differentiated relationship between God and crea-tures, a relationship in which God becomes vulnerable.&dquo;The pattern that emerges in this sampling of authors is clear. The need

to be able to affirm genuine contingency and chance in the universe isincompatible with the God of classical theism, who is conceived as thefirst and necessary cause of all that is. The only solution offered is torework traditional concepts of omnipotence, omniscience, impassibilityand eternity. God is not absolutely omnipotent, Gods knowledge isreceptive not purely creative, God suffers and is subject to time. The tran-scendent God of classical theism is dead, to be replaced by a dipolar viewof God, who is both contingent and necessary, in a world which is itselfboth contingent and necessary, for such a God cannot but create; but notto the extent of assuming personal responsibility for all that is.21 Theapparent contradiction in positing divine attributes of both necessity andcontingency is avoided by qualifying them as not in the same respect. 1 22The question that this attack on classical theism raises is whether it

was ever aware of the issues that Process thought and others raise, and ifso how did it respond. For according to the proponents of a more dipolarview, these chances are forced upon us in light of modem dynamic con-ceptions of the universe and the role of contingency in modern science.While both Johnson and Edwards acknowledge that Aquinas could havecoped with the emergence of contingency,23 there is little to suggest justhow radically he actually dealt with the problem without resorting to adipolar understanding of God being promoted by his modern critics.

17. Ibid. 39.18. Ibid. 46. For an account of Dawkins position see his article on

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_3 .html.19. Ibid. 49-50.20. Ibid. 40. See also Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God, 122-23, where Edwards rejects theclassical doctrine that God is not really related to creation, while creation is really relatedto God. Further he seeks to extend his analysis to the individual persons of the Trinity.21. As Whitehead argues, It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that theWorld transcends God. It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the Worldcreates God, Whitehead, Process and Reality, 348.22. Hartshorne, Aquinas to Whitehead, 18-23.23. See Johnson, Does God Play Dice?, 10-14; Edwards, The God of Evolution, 47.



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Contingency and providence in AquinasIndeed the problems associated with contingency and necessity are not

the new discovery of modern thinkers. As Hartshorne notes, evenAristotle thought it inconsistent to affirm both created contingency andthe necessity of divine knowledge. It is instructive then to consider howAristotle solved the dilemma. According to Lonergan, Aristotle refuteddeterminism by appealing to the per accidens, that is the fortuitous coin-cidences of unrelated predicates in the same subject. For Aristotle scienceis of the necessary, while there can be no science of the contingent. Thereis an objective lack of intelligibility to the per accidens, which finds itsground in the multipotentiality of prime matter. God does not create exnihilo, but from pre-existent prime matter, which, because it resists divinenecessity, then provides the fundamental source of all contingency.&dquo; Theparallels with Process thought are clear, as acknowledged by Bracken.

Being a thorough student of Aristotle, Aquinas could not but be awareof these questions.&dquo; Being a devout Christian believer he could not butbaulk at the solution. Not only did Aquinas hold that God created exnihilo, he also held that Gods providence was efficacious. These two posi-tions are inextricably linked. Only a God who creates ex nihilo can be theprovident Lord of history, for otherwise God too is subject to the con-straints imposed by pre-existent matter. Aquinas cannot adopt the solu-tion suggested by Aristotle, but at the same time he acknowledges thereality of contingency in the world. How then does he solve the problem?

In the Summa contra Gentiles Aquinas deals with questions concerningdivine providence and its relation to contingency and necessity. Theobjections raised by modem authors are already in evidence. If all thingsthat are done here below, even contingent events, are subject to divineprovidence, then, seemingly, either providence cannot be certain, or elseall things happen by necessity (SCG, 3, c.94.). Again we find the con-trast of divine necessity and the contingency of the created order, as high-lighted by Hartshome. But Aquinas does not accept the same conclusion.Among his long and detailed response we find the comment: If God fore-sees that this event will be, it will happen, just as the second argumentsuggested. But it will occur in the way that God foresaw that it would be.Now, He foresaw that it would occur contingently. So, it follows that,without fail, it will occur contingently and not necessarily (SCG, 3,c.94). Or as Lonergan pithily summarizes, what providence intends to becontingent will inevitably be contingent.2624. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 79-80. See Lonergans footnotes for multiple referencesto Aristotle on these points.25. Bernard McGinn, The Development of the Thought of Thomas Aquinas on theReconciliation of Divine Providence and Contingent Action, Thomist 39 (1975) 741-52,presents a thorough account of the movement in Aquinas thought on contingency andprovidence, from the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, through to the Summacontra gentiles.26. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 109.



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Aquinas is able to avoid the conclusions of the dipolar type because herecognizes two distinct types of contingency. Firstly there is the contin-gency of the per accidens, a contingency recognized by Aristotle, the for-tuitous coincidences of unrelated predicates in the same subject.However, at a deeper level there is the very contingency of created beingitself. For Aquinas, there is no necessity that any created thing actuallyexists.27 It is created ex nihilo, not out of any pre-existing matter, and notout of any inbuilt necessity in Godself. The very fact of creation itself isnothing less than gift, a gratuitous act of a loving God. This and thisalone guarantees not only divine omniscience, and an efficacious provi-dence, but also the unequivocal goodness of the created order. This sec-ond type of contingency is where the real antithesis between contingencyand necessity occurs. The types of necessity and contingency, which arethe sole focus of many modem authors, do not impinge upon the divine.As Lonergan states, the Thomistic higher synthesis was to place Godabove and beyond the created orders of necessity and contingence:because God is universal cause, his providence must be certain; butbecause he is transcendent cause, there can be no incompatibilitybetween terrestrial contingence and the causal certitude of providence.&dquo;

It might be obj ected that this analysis is all well and good for materialreality, but it does not carry over to the free decisions of human beings.We have seen, for example, how Bracken seeks to absolve God of respon-sibility for the decisions of free agents, thus absolving God from responsi-bility for sin and evil. However, Lonergan has shown that Thomas appliesthe very same analysis to the free decisions of human beings. Humanbeings are true causes of their own free acts, but only secondary causes, forGod remains transcendent cause of all that is. What God does not cause,and indeed what obj ectively speaking is uncaused, is the failure of the willto act for the good. This failure is the non-being of sin and evil, an objec-tive surd that defies intelligibility even to God.29 For this we and wealone, are responsible.3 And so, even in the case of free decisions, Godremains transcendent cause. As Lonergan notes, St Thomas always heldthat God was more a cause of the wills act of choice than the will itself.&dquo;This is a far cry from modern concepts of human autonomy, which are nota little touched by Pelagianism, but it is based on a precise metaphysical27. Of course, this rests on a real distinction between essence and existence. Johnson isaware of the significance of this distinction when she distinguishes between the being ofGod and the participated being of creatures, Johnson, Does God Play Dice?, 11. HoweverBracken blurs the distinction by treating existence like any other predicate (Bracken,Response to Elizabeth Johnson, 721-2). He seems to treat being as a concept with leastconnotation and greatest denotation in line with the position of Scotus (Lonergan, Insight,391-2).28. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 81-2.29. Ibid. 94-118.30. Perhaps more correctly we are irresponsible for our acts. How does one claim respon-sibility for an irresponsible act?31. Lonergan, Grace and Freedom, 98. Or as Jesus might say, On seeing your good worksthey will give glory to your Father in heaven, Mt 5:14.



270

analysis of God as transcendent creator. Further there is no denial of con-tingency or of freedom involved; precisely because God is transcendentcause, secondary causes, including human freedom, remain real causes.

Above we noted the distinction between the contingency of the peraccidens and the deeper contingency of created being, precisely as being.We noted that Aristotle viewed science as something which deals withthe necessary, while there can be no science of the contingent. ForAristotle the per accidens lacks intelligibility and finds its grounds in pre-existent prime matter. Aquinas rejects this position. This can only meanthat for Aquinas there is intelligibility in the per accidens, an intelligibil-ity that finds its ultimate source in God. Implicitly Aquinas is asserting ascience of the contingent. What might this science be? To this Aquinasdoes not directly provide an answer. To do so we must transpose the lan-guage of contingency and necessity into a modem context.

The emergence of modern science

Already in the religious arena, the finely balanced account of Aquinashad broken down. In his work, Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther rejectedthe distinctions between transcendent and terrestrial causation to con-clude the complete and utter sovereignty of the divine will, even in oursinful actions.

But granted foreknowledge and omnipotence, it follows naturally byan irrefutable logic that we have not been made by ourselves, nor dowe live or perform any action by ourselves but by his omnipotence.And seeing he knew in advance that we should be the sort of peoplewe are, and now makes, moves and governs us as such, what imag-inable thing is there, I ask you, in us which is free to become in anyway different from what he has foreknown or is now bringing about?Thus Gods foreknowledge and omnipotence are diametricallyopposed to our free choice, for either God can be mistaken in fore-knowing and also err in action ... or we must act and be acted uponin accordance with his foreknowledge and activity ... This omnipo-tence and the foreknowledge of God, I say, completely abolish thedogma of free choice.&dquo;

In parallel fashion over a century later the emergence of Newtonianscience gave some comfort to those who could not maintain this samedistinction. The success of Newton (1643-1727) was evident to all. Forthe first time, publicly accessible phenomena, the movement of the

32. Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will in Philip Watson, ed. Career of the Reformer III, 56vols. vol. 33, Luthers Work (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955-86). 189. Again this high-lights that the problems identified by Process thought are not new. Luther however opts forthe position clearly rejected by modem authors.



271

planets, which had resisted adequate explanation for thousands of years,were now seen to be the mathematical consequences of a few simpleequations. Newton, it seemed, had cracked _the code of the universe.Working at fever pitch, mathematicians across Europe applied Newtonslaws to a variety of cosmic phenomena, each time meeting success.Neither did the metaphysical implications of Newtonian science escapethem. Mathematician Simon Laplace (1749-1827) boasted that, giventhe position and velocity of every particle in the universe, the futurewould be as accessible as the past.33 The Newtonian universe was a deter-ministic universe, where cause produced effect with absolute certaintyand predictability. In such a cultural context, it did not take much for thefine distinctions made by Aquinas to break down. God was viewed as themaster watchmaker, whose clockwork creation operated under a strictlydeterministic plan. God could predict the future with absolute certainty.As is well known such a deterministic account of the universe began

to break down in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The devel-opment of Darwins biological theory of evolution highlighted chancevariation and processes of natural selection. For many thinkers this elim-inated the possibility of divine creation, not because evolution appearedto contradict the biblical account of creation, but because chance eventscould not be subsumed under divine providence. Quantum theory addedweight to this argument with what appeared to be an irreducibly statisti-cal account of subatomic phenomena. It was in response to the success ofquantum mechanics that Einstein uttered his well-known phrase, I can-not believe that God plays dice with the universe! Einstein remained acommitted physical determinist in the mould of Laplace.34

Of course it was not as if earlier scientists such as Laplace did not knowabout statistics. Indeed Laplace himself contributed to statistical theory.But in the deterministic view, statistical accounts of physical phenomenawere a mask for ignorance. They were required because of our inability todeal with the complexity of the phenomena, not because the systemsthemselves were inherently statistical. It was an epistemological issue, notan ontological one. But is this adequate? The questions we must confrontare then the following: are statistical causes real causes? Is complexityirreducible or do statistics simply mask our ignorance? Or, to give a con-crete instance, does smoking really cause cancer ?35

33. See http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Pierre-Simon_Laplace.34. It is one of lifes ironies that Einstein won his Nobel Prize in physics (1921) not for histheories of special and general relativity which are deterministic in nature, but for his con-tributions to the statistical quantum theory of the photoelectric effect. His attempts todevelop a hidden variable account of quantum theory, which would re-establish some formof determinism, failed. I have been unable to find a precise source for Einsteins famousdictum.35. This is not a facetious question, of course. Tobacco companies long denied the linkbetween lung cancer and smoking by arguing that the link was merely statistical.



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The thinker who has done most to transpose the classical insights ofAquinas into this modern scientific context is Bernard Lonergan. Inchapter 2 of Insight&dquo; Lonergan establishes two distinct forms of scientificintelligibility, one based on direct insight, which he correlates with clas-sical deterministic laws of the Newtonian type, the other on inverseinsight, which he correlates with statistical laws, as evident, for example,in the theory of evolution and quantum mechanics. In doing so he effectsa transposition of the terrestrial notions of necessity and contingencefound in Aquinass scholastic synthesis into modern scientific concepts.He identifies these as two distinctive forms of intelligibility, an intelligi-bility that is intrinsic to reality and not just a mask for ignorance.&dquo; ForLonergan there is no juxtaposition of law and chance, as found in theauthors surveyed above. Rather chance is itself subject to a certain typeof lawfulness, a statistical lawfulness whose outcomes, in the long run, canbe predicted with some certainty. Indeed any variation in the statisticalnorm in the long run would require further investigation and explana-tion. The science of the per accidens which Aquinas anticipates in hisaccount of creation ex nihilo is statistical in nature.Not content with this transposition of classical categories into a mod-

em scientific context, Lonergan then moves on to ask about the comple-mentarity of classical deterministic laws and statistical laws.38 Withremarkable acuity he develops the notion of what he calls cyclic schemesof recurrence which arise through the interaction of these two distincttypes of lawfulness. These increasingly complex schemes have distinctprobabilities of emergence and of survival. Surviving schemes become thebasis for new and even more complex schemes 39 Lonergan thus developsthe notion of emergent probability as the basis for world process. In doingso, he places on a much more secure basis the scientific struggles ofDarwin, the mystical musings of Teilhard de Chardin4 and the meta-physical meditations of Karl Rahner. 41 World process is shot through withintelligibility, the intelligibility of emergent probability, combining bothclassical and statistical lawfulness to envisage a world of increasingcomplexity, novelty, breakdown and genuine chance.

As Lonergan notes, on such an account of emergent process, the sheersize and age of the universe takes on an explanatory character:36. Lonergan, Insight, 57-92.37. Fundamental to Lonergans approach here is the isomorphism of the knowing and theknown; see Ibid. 138.38. Ibid. 126-62.39. This is a major feature of ecological science, which examines the interlocking schemesof recurrence in the natural world.40. For example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, rev. ed. (London:Collins, 1977).41. In particular, Karl Rahner, Christology within an Evolutionary View of the World inTheological Investigations (New York: Herder & Herder, 1966), Vol. 5, 157-92. I remainamazed at the number of theologians who are familiar with Rahners metaphysics of activeself-transcendence, yet who are completely unfamiliar with Lonergans much more rigor-ous notion of emergent probability. It is one of Lonergans many major achievements.



273

... low probabilities are offset by large numbers of occasions, so thatwhat is probable only once in a million occasions is to be expecteda million times on a million million occasions. In like manner, therarity of occasions is offset by long intervals of time, so that if theoccasions arise only once in a million years, still they arise a thou-sand times in a thousand million years. At once emerges theexplanatory significance of statistical laws. Why are there in theworld of our experience such vast numbers and such enormous inter-vals of time? Because probabilities are low, numbers have to be large;because occasions are rare, time intervals have to be long.&dquo;

The size and age of the universe ensure the causal certainty of divineprovidence, a certitude which is not eliminated simply because somecausal factors are statistical in nature. Indeed even we humans canachieve causal certainty where the underlying causes are statistical innature. We know, for example, that if we reduce the incidence of smok-ing, we will reduce the incidence of lung cancer. We do not know whoselives will be saved through such a reduction, but we know with certaintythat lives will be saved. How much more then can the divine intelligenceuse statistical causes to achieve determinate outcomes with certainty?Such statistical lawfulness does not eliminate the reality of design in theuniverse. Rather it specifies the mode of such design, a design encom-passed in the notion of emergent probability.

As with the position of Aquinas, Lonergan distinguishes between thelevels of contingency encountered in statistical laws, and the deeper con-tingency of the very act of being of things. The necessity and contingencydiscussed above is formal, that is, it concerns the intelligibility or formof reality, and corresponds to the act of insight in the subj ect. The deepercontingency is found at the level of act, which corresponds to the act ofjudgment in the subject. Lonergan refers to this contingency as the vir-tually unconditioned, that judgment requires certain conditions to befulfilled and as a matter of fact they are fulfilled. The contingency of thevirtually unconditioned stands in contrast to the formally unconditionedof necessary being, that is, God. 41 It is the contingency of the very beingof things, not their formal contingency (i.e. statistical lawfulness), whichdemands the existence of a necessary being as the ultimate ground ofintelligibility of the universe. Indeed we can witness this same appeal tothe contingency of being, as distinct from formal contingency in the com-ments of royal astronomer, Martin Rees. Rees notes, Theorists may, someday, be able to write down fundamental equations governing physicalreality. But physics can never explain what breathes fire into the42. Lonergan, Insight, 136-7. In evoking the explanatory power of the age and size of theuniverse, Lonergan has anticipated what modem cosmologists call the anthropic cosmo-logical principle; see John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic CosmologicalPrinciple (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).43. Lonergan, Insight, 304-306.



274

equations, and actualizes them in a real cosmos.44 Rees might be surprisedto be told that the distinction he is drawing is nothing less than thescholastic distinction between essence and existence, which is central tothe deeper questions of the contingency of the universe.

Finally, we can ask how this analysis translates into the realm of humanactivities, of history, economy and polity. Is human freedom subject to thesame intelligibility as that characterized by the emergent probability ofthe universe? Here Lonergan speaks of a world process that is not onlyintelligible but also intelligent. Humans are capable of comprehendingthe nature of world process and intelligently shaping it, generating realprogress. In this analysis, the real contingency of world process is anecessary condition for the existence of real human freedom, which mustchoose between various contingent possible futures. However humanbeings may not only act intelligently, they may also act stupidly and irre-sponsibly and so generate decline. Thus there emerges the surd of humansin, a brute unintelligible fact in an otherwise intelligible universe. Asunintelligible it is unexplained, and without caused

This then raises the question as to whether there is a genuine scienceof the human. This is a genuinely modern question and the modemanswers to it are evident in developments such as sociology, economics,and cultural anthropology. However, Lonergan is adamant that for thehuman sciences to be truly scientific they must take into account theunintelligible surd of sin, lest they conflate the intelligible and unintelli-gible into some specious form of intelligibility. Unlike the randomness ofchance, which falls under a statistical lawfulness, the randomness of sinadmits no such higher viewpoint. Consequently human sciences must notjust be empirical but also normative, that is, they must distinguishbetween the intelligent and the unintelligent, or they will fail to be trulyscientific. As many different forms of human science fail to do so, theyrequire a major reorientation.46One consequence, however, of this observation is that the human

science cannot be predictive in the same way in which the physicalsciences are. The randomness of sin is not intelligently predictable, noteven statistically. Rather than view this as a failure of the humansciences, perhaps we should take it as an opportunity to review to role ofprediction in the physical sciences. While the physical sciences have44. Martin J. Rees, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (New York:Basic Books, 2000), 131.45. Lonergan, Insight, 261.46. Ibid. 767. The most thorough achievement towards this reorientation has been thework of Robert Doran and his reorientation of depth psychology, see Robert M. Doran,Theology and the Dialectics of History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990). Anacknowledgement that the human sciences need to deal with the problem of unintelligi-ble data can also be found in Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory,2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 209; also Roy Bhaskar,Societies, in Critical Realism: Essential Readings, ed. Margaret Archer, et al. (London/NewYork: Routledge, 1998), 231.



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enjoyed pre-eminence because of their power of prediction, their predic-tive power is not essential to their nature. What is central is their abilityto understand physical phenomena. The predictive element is secondaryto this, but has become dominant in a culture that instrumentalizesreason.47 This has relevance to our discussion of God and providence pre-cisely because God does not predict the future, rather he understandsreality, the whole of reality, past, present and future for us.

This shift in perspective brings us to the final consideration of thispaper, that is, the involvement of God in time. As we have seen, Brackenand Process thought in general do not shy away from the conclusion thatGod is in some sense temporal and subject to change .14 For Processthought, God cannot know the future because the future is contingenteven to God, so that not even God can predict it. For Aquinas andLonergan, on the other hand, Gods being is strictly non-temporal and soGod does not predict anything, God simply understands and so knows.Only the surd of sin remains outside the scope of Gods knowledge, notbecause it is unpredictable as a future possibility, but because objectivelyit is unintelligible. Which of these two accounts of Gods involvement intime stands up under the scrutiny of modern science?

God, time and creation49

The claim is often made that modem science demands the revision ofclassical theism, particularly in light of elements of contingency in theuniverse. The Process solution to the fact of contingency is to make Godalso subject to time, thus saving both physical contingency and the free-dom of acting subjects. Yet a serious question can be raised as to whetherthe subjection of God to time is consistent with, or indeed even intellig-ible in terms of, the insights of modem science. For it would seem thatProcess thought, and other forms of dipolar theism, treat time in a man-ner not compatible with modern science. Rather than drawing on themost recent insight of science, such a stance reflects now discardednotions of absolute space and absolute time drawn from Newtonianscience.

In constructing his account of the universe, Newton posited anabsolute space of three dimensions, and an absolute time. This impliedthat there was a single absolute means of measuring and establishing atime for every given point in space. For example, it was both possible and

47. On the instrumentalization of scientific reason see Jrgen Habermas, Knowledge andHuman Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro, 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann Educational,1978).48. Bracken, Response to Elizabeth Johnson, 729-30.49. In part this section is inspired in part by Matthew L. Lamb, Nature, History, andRedemption in Jesus Crucified and Risen: Essays in Spirituality and Theology in Honor of DomSebastian Moore, ed. William Loewe and Vernon Gregson (Collegeville, Minn:Liturgical/Michael Glazier, 1998), 117-132.



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meaningful to speak of two spatially separated events occurring at thesame time. As Steven Hawking notes of the Newtonian view, time wascompletely separate from and independent of space. This is what mostpeople would take to be the commonsense view.50 This same common-sense view seems to be operating in those who would place God within atemporal continuum, as subj ect to change.

Yet this is not a position sanctioned by modern science. Einsteinsaccount of special relativity posits not a three dimensional space, but afour dimensional space-time, thus eliminating a Newtonian notion ofabsolute space and time. Rather the intelligibility of space and time areinterrelated and relative to observers. Time has no intelligibility apartfrom space on this account. For example, the commonsense notion ofsimultaneity is meaningless in special relativity. However, Einsteinstheory of special relativity remains an idealization, since it prescinds fromthe existence and presence of matter. To overcome this deficiency,Einstein developed his theory of general relativity, which incorporatedmatter and hence gravitational effects into its account of space-time. Thiselucidated the intrinsic interconnections between space, time and matter.These interconnections are further reinforced by quantum theory, whichdemonstrates that even the empty vacuum of space is a seething ocean ofvirtual particles. Space, time and matter are interconnected and insepar-able realities. More recent attempts to unify the perspectives of generalrelativity and quantum mechanics, so-called string theory, abandon four-dimensional space-time to work in ten or even eleven dimensions ofspace-time. Matter is just the harmonics of vibrating space, whose dimen-sions are so tightly curved as to remain undetectable to our grosser senses.&dquo;What all this science seems to be saying is that time is unintelligible

apart from a scientific understanding of space and matter. This fits neatlywith the view of classical theism that time is as much a created reality asspace and matter. There is no before creation, because there is no mea-sure of time without space and matter. On the other hand, the Processview, which claims that God is in some sense temporal and subject tochange, would also seem to imply that God is in some sense spatial andmaterial. Is this part of the price Process thought is willing to pay for itsrejection of classical theism? Further we are entitled to ask, if God is tem-poral, to which frame of reference does he belong? Does this privilege thisframe of reference over all others (Gods time) and so re-establish anabsolute time for the whole cosmos, contrary to Einsteinian relativity?Again this question does not yet seem to have been raised.

However there is a further question that can be raised in relation to atemporal and passible God. Is the God of Process thought adequate to the

50. S. W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (Toronto/NewYork: Bantam Books, 1988), 18.51. For a fascinating account see B. Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, HiddenDimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999).



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problem of evil? Ian Barbour notes, Process theology does call into ques-tion the traditional expectation of an absolute victory over evil. Ratherthan envisage some final victory over evil, Process thought is moreinclined to a continued journey towards greater harmony and enrich-ment. 151 Yet what guarantee is there that God will not simply be over-whelmed by evil? If God can change, what are the limits of such changeand why can they not include possible diminishment in the face of evil?Does Process thought offer anything more than wishful thinking thatgood will triumph over evil? Such questions are unthinkable in relationto the God of classical theism who remains the sovereign Lord of thecosmos.

A positive account

Before concluding this essay I would like to present a more positiveaccount of the questions of providence, contingency and creation, onewhich draws on some contemporary scientific concerns. Popular sciencefiction often draws on notions of parallel universes, and time travel caus-ing the branching of history along alternate paths. Behind these fictionalaccounts lie two distinct theories prevalent in modern science. The firstis the Everett-Wheeler many worlds interpretation of quantum mech-anics.53 In this interpretation of quantum mechanics, the quantum waveequation for the universe should be thought of as presenting all possibleworlds, all equally real. Each time a different quantum event happens inour world we should think of the world branching off into all the otherpossible quantum outcomes for that event. Each of these worlds is real,though our awareness remains within just one of them. More recentlysome have proposed a multiverse account of the cosmos, which views thecosmos in terms of causally disconnected universes each with very dis-tinct physical laws.54 This has been proposed as a counter argument tothose who hold that our universe appears fine-tuned for life, implyingsome type of design argument. In the multiverse account, while it is truethat life occurs in our universe, there are countless other universes inwhich life is simply not possible. Our universe is then just a statisticalanomaly. In there own ways these two theories give some expression tomedieval notions of all possible worlds. The difficulty with both thesetheories is that the existence of these other worlds is in principle unveri-fiable.How can we relate this to our question of creation, providence and

chance? With perfect intelligence God grasps all possible worlds, with allpossible branchings, in all possible universes, precisely as possibilities, in52. Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row,1990), 264. Emphasis in the original.53. A full account of the issues and personalities can be found at

http://www.hedweb.com/everett/everett.htm54. Rees, Just Six Numbers, 148-54.



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a single act. With perfect wisdom and love God chooses one possibility inits totality from its beginning to its final consummation, from all themyriad options presented by divine intelligence, in that same act. Withcomplete power God realizes that one possibility, making of it the oneuniverse that exists, the one we inhabit, in all its (terrestrial) necessityand contingency, determinisms and chance, again in the single divineact. Gods election of this creation eliminates none of its contingency,because God knows, loves and creates this universe with precisely this setof contingencies built in. We do not need to place God in time in orderto preserve the contingency of the universe, nor do we need to eliminatea divine and efficacious providence. For God is the answer not to the con-tingency of chance events per se, but to the much more profound contin-gency of being. It is the contingency of the very being of the universewhich requires a necessary being as its source. Once we grasp the fact ofdivine transcendence, transcending both space and time, the divineknowledge, love and creation of the lesser contingency of chance eventsfalls out as an automatic consequence.

Conclusion

Process and other dipolar views of God have become increasinglypopular among a variety of theological authors in recent time. As I notedin my introductory comments, the concerns which motivate this interestseem to be two-fold. The first is the issue of contingency in the universeand its compatibility with the necessary being of God. The second is thatof the possibility of divine suffering. In this paper I have focussed on thefirst to the neglect of the second, which requires perhaps a separate treat-ment.55 I have sought to demonstrate that not only is classical theism wellaware of the difficulties dipolar views raise against it, it also had a work-able solution. More recently Lonergan has transposed this solution intocontemporary terms. This transposition not only meets the objections ofdipolar views, it is more than congruent with modern scientific accountsof the world. Nonetheless this achievement is ever precarious, con-structed on a finely balanced understanding of God and Gods relation-ship to the world. To move in one direction would indeed make divinesovereignty into a totalitarian nightmare where God is responsible forboth good and evil, as evident in the position of Luther. To move in theother is to compromise that sovereignty into becoming a shadow of itsformer, Biblical self.

55. A thorough treatment of the issue can be found in Thomas G. Weinandy, Does GodSuffer? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1999).



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