Divine action and modern science: the problems of interpretation

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleБожественное действие и современная наука: проблемы интерпретации
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Saprykin, Dmitry
5. lemma category Complementarity - Various approaches to the problem of correlation between science and theology
6. Publication date 2014
7. lemma work Кирьянов Дмитрий, протоиерей [Author]. Divine action and modern science: the problems of interpretation
8. lemma manifestations Вера и знание: взгляд с Востока : Faith and knowledge: view from the East
9. Keywords the providence of God - Maximus the Confessor
10. Citations
    1. http://standrews.ru/internet-magazin/bogoslovie-i-nauka/vera-i-znanie:-vzglyad-s-vostoka.html
11. Lemma body

    1. The article author analyzes the history of the ways to harmonize the nature law action and the Divine Providence, and, in more detail, the polemics between modern Western theologians R. Russel, N. Saunders, K. Knight over this issue.

       The author notes that the Orthodox theology position is expressed by K. Knight in his conception of "incarnational naturalism". The laws of nature are something that can be investigated through scientific methodology, but we can not a priori exclude the possibility that the cosmos is a subject to other fixed instructions not directly accessible to the scientific research methodology.

       The problem of divine action can be solved by understanding the cosmos in the way set forth by St. Maximus the Confessor, whose works are the base for K. Knight’s works . There are two kinds of causes in the world at the same time: natural and supernatural, or more precisely, internal logoi associated with the Divine Logos, and therefore removing the rigid division of the world into two orders of being. The presence of logoi does not only give each created thing a being that it has in the temporal world, but it also moves it - from the inside, and not through some external, special action - to its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. The St. Maxim’s theology allows us to overcome the classical western division of the special and general form of divine action, which still remains dominant, as the article author notes.

       Today, when we are talking about a constructive dialogue between science and theology, it is necessary to keep a balance between science and theology, Kiryanov concludes. It is wrong tracing the tracks of Almighty God in Einstein's equations or vacuum fluctuations, but this does not mean that the universe does not need what Christian theology calls God to exist in the ultimate reality. Theology does not replace science, but it can make a deeper dimension in our understanding of the universe history, which science can not give.