divine action: a neo-byzantine model

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Divine Action: A Neo-Byzantine ModelAuthor(s): Christopher C. KnightReviewed work(s):Source: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Dec., 2005), pp. 181-199Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40012794 .

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Divine Action: A Neo-Byzantine ModelCHRISTOPHERC. KNIGHT

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (2005) 58: 181-199 Springer 2005DOI: 10. 1007/sl 1153-005-1076-5

Hope Cottage, Hindringham Road, Great Walsingham,Norfolk NR 22 6DR, GreatBritain (E-mail: ccolsonknight@yahoo. o.uk)

1. The problem of divine actionBrieflystated, the problemof divine action has, in recent thought,been that of whetherand how God can affect the workingsof a worldcharacterized usually at least - by obedienceto "laws of nature."Therehave,essentially,been two kinds of answerto this question.One of these has relied on a traditionalconceptualscheme,whichspeaks of a "special"mode of God's action which is analogous,inmanyrespects, o that of any otherpersonalagent.In this understand-ing, a very clear distinction is made between"general"providencewhich arises straightforwardlyrom what the cosmos will do "on itsown"- and what will happenif God chooses to performsome "spe-cial" providentialaction by interferingwith the normal workingsofthe cosmos.1

The othermainkind of response o the problemof divine actionisconceptuallydifferent rom this interferencemodel (thoughit is some-timescombinedwith aspectsof it.) Here the focus is on a distinctionbetweenprimaryand secondarycauses,and God's action is not seenas that of an agentworking"fromthe outside",as in the interferencemodel. The fact that this approachhas givenrise to outlooks as var-ied as a traditionalistneo-Thomismand an essentiallydeistic kind ofnaturalismndicates,however, hat the model, in itself,has no specificanswers o the questionsof how God's will is broughtabout through"natural"auses,and of whatthe scope of this mode of divineactionis. In a book publishedin 2001 - Wrestlingwith the Divine: Reli-gion, Science,and Revelation2 I outlinedan understanding f divineactionwhich,thoughavoiding he vocabularyof primaryand second-ary causes,could in certainrespectsbe seen as an attemptto refine


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182 CHRISTOPHERC. KNIGHT

this second kind of model. A significant actorin the developmentofthis understandingwas what I called the "pansacramentalism"nher-ent in aspectsof the currentdialoguebetween heologyand the naturalsciences.This led me to dubmyownapproacha "pansacramentalatu-ralism," nd I drewattention,briefly,o aspectsof theEasternChristiantradition hat I believedmight givethis approachat least some sort ofrootingin traditionalChristian hinking.At the time of the book's writing, however,this aspect of pan-sacramentalismwas somethingthat I had exploredonly in a cursoryway.Since then, a growingawarenessof aspectsof the Greekpatris-tic and Byzantineunderstanding f the relationshipbetweenGod andthe world has led me to see the pansacramentalnaturalismthat Ithen advocatedn a new and broaderperspective.3n particular, nowbelieve that this naturalismcan - throughincorporation nto whatmight be describedas a neo-Byzantinemodel of God's presenceandaction in the world - offer an essentiallynew outlook on the prob-lem of divine action. It is this model that I wish to present n outlinehere.4

2. The Byzantine "cosmic vision"The model takes its historical bearingsfrom the strand of Greekpatristicthinking5which culminated in the work of Maximos theConfessor(580 - 662). In this work,the fourthgospel'sassertionthatthe Logos (Word)of God "became lesh"(John 1:14) s not seen sim-ply as a statementabout a historicalevent.Rather,Maximosdevelopshis understandinghrougha subtle and profoundperceptionof howeverythingwas, in the beginning,createdthroughthis Logos (John1:1-4). By mouldingthe philosophicalcategoriesavailable o him tothe realities of the Christianrevelation as he perceivesthem, Maxi-mos expresseshis faith in terms of the way in which the Logos ofGod is to be perceived,not only in the personof Jesus,but also, insome sense, in the "words" logoi)of all propheticutterance,and inthe "words" logoi)that represent he underlyingprinciplesof all cre-ated thingsfrom the beginning.6In this way,both for Maximos and for those earlierstrandsof theGreekpatristic radition hat come to a culmination n his work,thereis a focus on the concept of God's Logos which, for some, pointstowardsa pluralisticexpansionof traditionalChristian heology.7Theincarnation n Jesus is not seen simplyin terms of a historicalevent


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DIVINEACTION:A NEO-BYZANTINEMODEL 183

which is to be interpreted - as in so much western Christian theol-ogy8 - as a supernatural intrusion into the created order. Rather, whatoccurs in the person of Jesus is, for this strand of thinking, intimatelylinked both to the whole history of the redemptive process and tothe creation itself. Lars Thunberg's comment that Maximos envisages"almost a gradual incarnation"9may, perhaps, be imprecise in its ter-minology. It points accurately, all the same, to an important aspect ofMaximos's thought. Just as the fourth gospel's prologue speaks, not of"the sudden arrival of an otherwise absent Logos", but rather of "thecompletion of a process already begun in God's act of creation,"10soalso Maximos uses the Logos concept to describe a continuous pro-cess from the beginning of the cosmos to the Christ event.The insight that Maximos expresses in this way is, we should note,an explicit manifestation of a more general intuition that is implicitthroughout the Byzantine tradition. This is that it is quite wrong tospeak of grace as something which is added as a supernatural giftto "pure nature". Rather, as Vladimir Lossky has rightly noted, theeastern Christian tradition knows nothing of this "pure nature,"sinceit sees grace as being "implied in the act of creation itself." Andbecause of this, as he goes on to note, the cosmos is seen as inher-ently "dynamic ... tending always to its final end."11What Lossky seems to be hinting at in this latter phrase is the wayin which, for Byzantine theology, at least some12aspects of divine prov-idence arise from within the creation through the intrinsically teleolog-ical factors that have been, so to speak, built into its components. Thiscan be seen with particular clarity in the work of Maximos, in fact,since the logos that constitutes the inner reality of each created thing is,for him, not only uncreated, and as such a manifestation of the divineLogos itself. Each characteristic logos of this sort is also, as KallistosWare puts it, "God's intention for that thing, its inner essence, thatwhich makes it distinctively itself and at the same time draws it towardthe divine realm."13

3. A modern teleogical-christological model?Thus, for Maximos, and for the strand of the Greek patristic traditionwhich comes to its culmination in his work, the way in which each createdthing has its origin and intended final end in God is intimately linked tothe constitutivepresencein it of a characteristic ogoswhich is a manifesta-tion, in some sense,of the divineLogos itself.That presencenot only gives,


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to each created thing, the being that it has in the temporal world. It alsodraws it - from within, and not through some external, "special"action -towards its eschatological fulfilment. This approach posits, then, a modelof the created order that is both teleological and christological. It is a tel-eological model in the sense that created things are continuously drawntowards theirintended final end (though not in a waythat subverts humanfree will and its consequences.). It is a christological model in the sensethat this teleological dynamism comes about, not through some externalcreated "force,"but through the inherent presence of God's word in theinnermost essence of each createdthing.At the present time, perhaps, few (outside of the Eastern orthodoxtradition) are likely to accept the details of Maximos's philosophicalarticulation of this model. The reasons for this do not, however, pre-clude a consideration of what we might call the general "teleological-christological" character of the vision that he articulates. Indeed, theadoption of a teleological-christological model of divine action wouldseem to have several advantages in the context of current debate. Notthe least of these is the model's way of envisaging, in its teleologicalaspect, a mode of divine action that is neither the "special" nor the"general"mode of one strand of western thinking.14For, by allowingus to transcend the need for any distinction to be made between what"nature"can do "on its own" and what can only be done through some"special" mode of action, a neo-Byzantine model of this sort wouldallow us to see God's presence and action in the cosmos simply as twosides of the same coin. In this respect, it would seem not only to tendtowards the sort of model that speaks in terms of primary and second-ary causes, but also to provide this model with a far more definitivetheological grounding than it has usually been given.This is not to say that the model does not present important prob-lems to be solved. The chief of these relates, perhaps, to. that outlinedin my introduction: that of, how divine action is related to the workingsof a world characterized - usually at least - by obedience to "laws ofnature."Here, I would argue, one of the chief difficulties lies, not in ourbelief that the behaviour of the cosmos is characterized by such laws,but in the particular way in which we usually think about them.

4. Theistic naturalismThis is an issue that can perhaps best be explored, in the present con-text, in terms of another approach to divine action which eschews the


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DIVINE ACTION:A NEO-BYZANTINEMODEL 185

concept of "special providence." This is the understanding which issometimes labelled as "theistic naturalism," and which can be devel-oped in terms of what Willem Drees calls "a scheme of primary andsecondary causes, with the transcendent realm giving effectiveness andreality to the laws of nature and the material world governed bythem."15An important part of the historical pedigree of this theistic natu-ralism is the deism of the 18th century. The deists did not, of course,express their beliefs in terms of primary and secondary causes, andtended to see God as more definitively separated from the world thansuch terms suggest. Their approach was, however, in many respectssimilar to that which most contemporary theistic naturalists adopt.In particular, the scope of divine providence was seen by the deistsas being extremely limited by a naturalistic approach, and in this themajority of contemporary theistic naturalists follow them. For bothgroups, not only is the concept of "special" providence eschewed, butthe understanding of what is possible through "general" providenceis extremely limited. Neither group, for example, can see intercessoryprayer as having any purpose - other, perhaps, than that of refiningthe religious sensibilities of those who indulge in it. The possibilitythat there can be some sort of response to such prayer is simply pre-cluded by their understanding.It is important to recognize, however, that this is not, philosophi-cally, the only option available to the theistic naturalist. A naturalis-tic view, in itself, assumes simply that the cosmos develops accordingto "fixed instructions" of a law-like kind, and the possibility that suchinstructions can bring about subtle and appropriate "responses" toevents in the world is not one that can be precluded in principle. Thiscan be seen through the analogy of human providential action.Parent'sfinancial support of their children, for example, can be donethrough a standing order to a bank. Such an order can not only includeinstructions about the transfer of money on a regular basis - the equiv-alent of ordinary "general"providence- but can also anticipate specificneeds. Such an order can, for instance, include instructions of the kind:"If my daughter provides a receipt for repairs to her car, then transferto her account - over and above her regular payment - the amountnecessary to pay for those repairs."An instruction of this sort has theeffect of "special"providence- in that it brings about action in responseto a specific rather than a general need - even though it comes aboutthrough a "secondary cause" mechanism of the "general" providencekind, and no new action on the part of the prime agent is necessary.


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When used to suggest that "general" divine providence might beextended to account for events of the sort usually attributed to God's"special" providence, this analogy does, of course, have limitations. Inparticular, it can be objected that humans can not anticipate all pos-sible needs, and that an analogy based on a set of "if . . . then" state-ments can provide neither an elegant model of divine providence norone based on mechanisms that are conceivable. Neither of these pointsis, however, strictly relevant.On the first issue, we simply need to note that God's wisdom cannot be thought of as limited in the way that human wisdom is. Thereis, therefore, no reason to believe that His "fixed instructions" for thenatural world must be inadequate in the way that human instructionsmust. As to the problem of elegance, it is important to recognize thatthe analogy that I have used is not intended to elucidate the mech-anism of divine action, but simply to illustrate an important princi-ple. This is that "responses" of a providential sort can be the resultof a "fixed instruction" mechanism.16 The analogy's mechanism clearlyrelates more to human limitations than to divine possibilities and,once again, we must remember that God must not be assumed to belimited in the way that we are.

5. "Laws of nature" and the effects of complexityIt is, of course, far from easy to guess how God may have set up Hisprovidential fixed instructions in a less clumsy way than we humansmust. As I have noted elsewhere,however, it is not entirely beyond con-jecture.17Moreover, the validity of an expanded theistic naturalism doesnot depend on the validity of any particular mechanisms that may besuggested. It depends, rather,on an acceptance of the general belief thatlies behind the search for such mechanisms: that the creation - with itsinbuilt "fixed instruction" - is far more subtle and complex than ourpresent scientific understanding indicates. This may be something thatsome naturalists will find difficult to accept. It is not, however, incom-patible with naturalism as such.The point here is that the "lawsof nature"which can be provisionallyidentified are those which can be explored through the scientificmethod-ology. Although this methodology may vary somewhat from disciplinetodiscipline, it relies on the repeatabilityof observation or experimentandon the discernibility of a particularkind of logic of cause and effect. Weneed to recognize, however, that we can not preclude the possibility that


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the cosmos obeys, not only the laws that can be identified in this way,butalso other "fixed nstructions,"which are not straightforwardly usceptibleto this investigativemethodology.Indeed, this is something which may even seem likely when we con-sider the effects of complexity. For not only are practical repeatabilityand discernible cause and effect characteristic of only relatively sim-ple systems, which can be effectively isolated from factors which wouldobscure these characteristics. In addition, important issues related toreductionism in the sciences suggest the necessity of positing laws ororganizing principles of a kind that are not susceptible to ordinary sci-entific investigation, but can only be inferredfrom their general effect.18This issue of complexity also has important ramifications for ourresponse to anecdotal evidence of phenomena of the kind labelled"paranormal."For it is simplistic to see such phenomena as spurioussimply because of their lack of susceptibility to investigation throughnormal laboratory methods. There is nothing incoherent in believingthat such phenomena may occur through processes which - while fol-lowing law-like patterns - are in practice impossible to replicate in astraightforwardmanner. The failure of laboratory methods may sim-ply indicate that such phenomena occur only in situations of consider-able complexity or extremity.19Once this is recognized, the supposedimpossibility of paranormal phenomena becomes questionable, and anumber of further questions present themselves for consideration. Notthe least of these is that of the weight that we should give to the anec-dotal evidence for such phenomena, which - in the religious context inparticular - we may judge to be considerable.The point of these considerations is that when theistic naturalistsdeny the possibility of the kinds of events usually ascribed to "special"providence, they do so in the context of an inadequate philosophicalargument. For, as we have seen, there is no fundamental reason toinsist that such events can not be ascribed to the regularities of thenatural world that have been "built into" that world from the begin-ning by its Creator. A theistic naturalism can, in principle, be con-structed in such a way that the scope of divine action is not limitedin the way that the deists assumed.

6. The relevance of panentheismThis does not in itself, of course, mean that a theistic naturalism istheologically acceptable. One of the main objections that is sometimes


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voiced to it, for example, s that a theistic naturalism whatever hescope of divine action that it allows - still envisagesthe essentially"absent"God of the deistic model. And certainly, f one acceptstheseparationof God from the world that has been characteristic f mostwesternphilosophicaltheology,this will seem to many to be a validobjection.In the context of this argumentwe must, however,remember hatthere has been somethingof a reactionagainstthis conceptof sepa-rationin recentyears.Panentheism the notion that the cosmos is tobe seen as beingin some sense"inGod"- is finding ncreasing avourfrom a number of differentperspectives.20 nd if, for whateverrea-son, we do adopt a panentheisticposition then the argumentaboutan "absent"God immediately ails, for a God who has the cosmoswithinhimself can hardlybe said to be absentfrom it. (In this sense,it is ironic that a panentheisticunderstandings advocatedby many-such as ArthurPeacockeand Philip Clayton21 who defend a "causaljoint" understandingof God's providentialaction. For by taking upa panentheisticposition, they underminewhat might otherwisehavebeen the main argumentagainst the sort of theistic naturalism hatthey oppose.22)Panentheismmakesquite explicitwhat is - accordingto WillemDrees- already mplicit n a theisticnaturalism xpressednterms of primaryand secondarycauses. This is that God is, for sucha naturalism,"thegroundof all realityand thus intimatelynvolved neveryevent- thoughnot as one factor amongthe naturalfactors."23If, as this argumentsuggests,theistic naturalismwill be more per-suasiveif it is expanded n terms of a panentheisticunderstanding fthe relationshipbetween God and the world,then this persuasivenesswill be reinforced f such an expansionis based on somethingmorethan an ad hocjuxtapositionof the two frameworks.This is, in fact,one of the reasonsthat a re-workedversion of the Byzantine"cosmicvision"suggests tself as a candidate or suchexpansion.For not only,as we haveseen, is such a model comparable o a theistic naturalismin its rejectionof the concept of "special providence". t also arisesfrom a traditionalmodel which,as commentatorshavenoted, consti-tutes an explicitlypanentheisticramework.24 he possibilityof a syn-thesisof the two frameworks s thereforean intriguingone. It is also,I would argue,a tenableone, providedthat we can accept a notionwhich is intrinsicto the Byzantineunderstanding f God's action inthe world,but whichhas hitherto been ignored by advocatesof a the-istic naturalism.This is the notion of teleology.


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7. "Laws of nature" and teleologyThe notion of teleology is, of course, one which tends to strike a dis-sonant note in contemporary discussion. This is largely due to of thefact that the development of our understanding of the laws of naturewas associated, historically, with the abandonment of the teleologicalthinking that had characterized the late medieval thinking of the Chris-tian west. Given this association, many will inevitably ask themselveswhy they should consider once again a notion which, half a millenniumago, constituted one of the chief barriersto human intellectual progress.Those who dismiss teleology in this way tend to forget, however,that it was not teleology per se that constituted the chief impedimentto the development of early modern science. It was, rather, the totalphilosophical framework then current that had this effect. (Aspectsof early modern physics can still, in fact, be expressed in teleologicalterms.25)More importantly, they ignore the fact that we can no longerregard scientific understanding or the philosophical framework withinwhich that understanding is developed, in the same way as couldthose of the early modern period who rejected teleological thinking.A teleological understanding may be at odds with the picture of the"laws of nature" that is commonly accepted within our culture asa result of the lingering influence of the "clockwork" model of thecosmos that so influenced the deists. It is, however, in many ways sur-prisingly consonant with a truly contemporary understanding of thecharacter and content of the natural sciences.Not only has contemporary science challenged many of the broadphilosophical aspects of early modern science that would tend tonegate a teleological understanding.26 In addition, it has actuallyevoked questions about teleology in a direct way. It has, in particu-lar, indicated that a universe whose development depends on laws ofnature and on certain fundamental physical constants need not neces-sarily be a fruitful one of the sort that ours clearly is. Only very par-ticular laws, in fact, together with very "finely tuned" values of thosephysical constants, provide the possibility of a fruitful universe likeour own.This insight has given rise to many arguments related to what isusually called the "anthropic cosmological principle,"27and from atheological perspective these need careful analysis. Some, for example,have seen anthropic considerations as allowing the development of anapologetic approach comparable to that of the natural theology of thepast. This has not been widely accepted however. The consensus view,


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within the dialogue of science and theology, is that the perception thatthe universe has been able to "make itself" so fruitfully is not persua-sive of, but simply consonant with, the notion of its purposeful crea-tion. In this sense, it is widely agreed that this perception provides thefoundation, not for a natural theology akin to that of the past, but fora "theology of nature" in which, for religious believers, scientific per-spectives provide valid insights into the way in which God acts in theworld's continuing creation.If we accept, with those who think in this way, that God's creativeaction should be understood (at least largely28)in naturalistic terms,then we are faced with the question of how we should understand itsteleological aspect. Here, two key points need to be made.The first is that, in speaking of a teleological factor in this con-text, we are speaking of something that is very different in charac-ter to the teleological factor assumed in the Aristotelian thought ofthe late medieval period. It is not a teleological factor that competeswith the concept of mathematical laws of nature, but rather one whichfocuses on the meaningful outcome of the working of those laws. It iswhat we might call a teleology of complexity: one which sees signifi-cance in the increasing intricacy of the cosmos's structures and in thesuccessive emergent properties to which this intricacy gives rise.29Thesecond point to be made is that we are not, here, speaking of the sortof quasi-vitalistic teleology in which the components of the universeare drawn towards an intended final end by some external agent orforce. The universe's teleological tendency is, in this scientific perspec-tive, absolutely intrinsic to its components and to the laws that theyobey.

8. A "higher-levelteleology"?The relevance of this second point to the question of divine actionbecomes clear when we recall the character of the teleological ten-dency that is posited by the strand of the Byzantine tradition embod-ied in the work of Maximos the Confessor. For there, too, as we haveseen, there is an understanding of the cosmos's teleological tendencywhich has precisely this intrinsic character.A recognition of this parallelism can not, of course, lead in anysimplistic way to the claim that the earlier model anticipates animportant aspect of contemporary science. Clearly, at the level ofdetails, this is far from being the case. At a more fundamental level,


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however, we can surely recognize that there is a broad consonancebetween the two kind of understanding. By pointing to the way inwhich the "laws of nature" perceptible to the scientist have a teleo-logical effect - both in the physical development of the cosmos andin the biological evolution of the species of our planet - scientific per-spectives do suggest important parallels between what we now call thelaws of nature and what Maximos the Confessor calls the logoi of cre-ated things. At the very least, it would seem, there is a sense in which,when teleology at this low level is discussed, there need be no disso-nance between scientific perspectives and the basic insights of the tel-eological-christological model that he articulated.It can hardly escape our notice, however, that while the traditionalByzantine vision of the teleological aspect of the created order issomewhat obscure, it is clearly not limited to this low level of effect.Does this mean, then, that the parallelism between the modern con-cept of the laws of nature and the ancient one of the logoi of createdthings breaks down at this point?Our answer to this question will depend largely on our judgementof the effects of complexity, which we have thus far considered onlyin the context of a theistic naturalism. If we accept, in that context,that there is no need to limit the universe's "fixed instruction" to sci-entifically explorable ones, then the same conclusion will apply here.This will mean that we see no reason to limit the teleological tendencyof created things to the "inherent creativity" of the particular "lawsof nature" which scientists can investigate. Rather, from the perspec-tive of a teleological-christological model, it is quite possible to see the"laws of nature" which are perceptible to the scientist as representingno more than a "low level" manifestation of what St. Maximos callsthe characteristic logoi of created things. Over and above such man-ifestations, for this model, there may, at least in principle, be higherlevels of manifestation which - while still in some respects "law-like"in character - will inevitably be beyond what the scientific methodol-ogy is able to examine.30

9. Levels of complexityTo acknowledge that something may be possible in principle is not,of course, an adequate reason for accepting it as a persuasive model.We clearly need to ask ourselves, firstly, what these manifestations ofa higher teleology are likely to be and, secondly, whether what we


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conjecture in this context has any correspondence to experience. Here,I would argue, the observable hierarchy of complexity in the cosmosis particularly relevant. For what the scientific perspective points to,in the view of many, is the successive emergence in the cosmos of anumber of levels of complexity - life and intelligent self-conscious-ness in particular - which can be understood neither through a vital-istic approach nor through an ontological reductionism. Each of theseemergent levels of complexity has, according to this view, an autono-mous character which is explicable in terms of supervenience - often(but not always) expressed in terms of holistic organizing principles.31Among those who have developed this view is Arthur Peacocke,whose particular philosophical arguments are comparable to those ofmany others. In one respect, however, his use of these arguments isdistinctive, in that he suggests that the hierarchy of complexity that isperceptible through scientific observation should be understood, theo-logically, in a broader perspective.The religious aspect of human expe-rience arises, he argues, from "the most integrated level or dimensionthat we know in the hierarchy of relations,"32so that theology, as adiscipline, is related to the human sciences in much the same way asthose sciences are to biology, and biology is to physics and chemistry.The importance of this insight here is its implicit suggestion that,just as biology is rooted in physical phenomena, and specificallyhuman qualities are rooted in biological ones, so we must see humanreligious experience as rooted in (but not reducible to) such aspectsof the specifically human as the psychological.33 For, when viewedin terms of the sort of teleological model that I have outlined, thisunderstanding suggests that human knowledge of God may be seenin terms of a psychological development which, in some respects atleast, is a manifestation of the teleologically driven evolution of cre-ated things. Like life and like the specifically human qualities, reve-latory experience of God may be seen as an aspect of the "natural"potential of the cosmos from the beginning.If we are to speak in this way we must, however, be careful thatthe empirical, historical dimension of knowledge of God is taken fullyinto account. In particular,we must recognize that knowledge of Godarises from revelatory experience which is diverse in its manifestationsand which is not, when it occurs, always of the same degree of valid-ity or value. If we are to speak of revelatory experience in terms of"teleologically driven evolution," we need some way of accounting forthese factors.


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DIVINEACTION:A NEO-BYZANTINEMODEL 193

10. Revelatory experience of GodHere, I believe, the "pansacramental" approach to revelatory experi-ence, that I have previously advocated is of importance, since its wayof positing a God-given "natural"tendency towards spiritual develop-ment takes these factors fully into account. For in this approach, theuse of the terms "pansacramental"does not imply that the potentialof all created things can be actualized independently of context. Justas the specific sacraments of the church can only be effected in a par-ticular ecclesial context, and the emergence of a new species requiresa specific ecological niche, so also, I have argued, any particular reve-lation of God will only take place in what I call an appropriate "psy-cho-cultural niche."34One aspect of such a niche is a particular sort of psychologicalopenness to God, since (as Karl Rahner has emphasized) there isan essentially contemplative dimension to revelatory experience, fromwhich arise the thoughts or visions that constitute the outer form ofthat experience.35(This does not, it should be noted, imply that reve-latory experience necessarily takes place independently of associatedempirical events, even apparently miraculous ones. It suggests, rather,that such events can only be understood fully in terms of the associ-ated psychological states of those who experience them.36)This idea may be developed, I have argued, in terms of what I calla "psychological-referential model of revelatory experience" which isrelated to important strands of thinking about revelation in the work,not only of Rahner, but also of Yves Congar and Keith Ward.37Any authentic revelatory experience of God that occurs through thisdivinely given "natural" tendency always, I have suggested, takes aform that is appropriate to a particular cultural and psychologicalenvironment. Because of this it can never be absolute. It may havea genuinely referential component; recognizable in principle throughthe "puzzle-solving" character of the theological language to which itgives rise.38 It also, however, inevitably has a culturally conditionedinstrumental component, which makes the link between experienceand referential doctrine a complex one. Moreover, I have noted, notonly is there, in this understanding, no a priori reason for believingthat genuine revelatory experience can only occur among members ofsome particular religious grouping. In addition, a number of factorssuggest rather strongly a pluralistic understanding of the faiths of theworld.39


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This pluralisticpossibility- originally ormulatedn the contextofa kind of theistic naturalism relates n an extremely nterestingwayto the neo-ByzantinemodelthatI am now suggesting.Forin the earlyByzantinemodel, from which the new model draws its inspiration,there was - at least implicitly- a comparablepotentialfor pluralis-tic expansion.In the early patristicperiod,in particular,herewas, asPhilip Sherrardhas noted, a positiveattitude towardsnon-Christianreligionsamong some Christianauthors,based preciselyon the kindof Logos understanding hat we have noted. What is now needed,according o Sherrard,s a reappropriationf this approach.Such a reappropriations, I wouldsuggest,madeeasier,rather hanotherwise,by the neo-Byzantinemodel that I am now advocating.This model may not actuallyentail the sort of pluralistictheologyfor which Sherrardmakes his plea, which "affirms he positive atti-tude implicitin the writingsof JustinMartyr,Clementof Alexandria,Origen,the Cappadocians,St.Maximosthe Confessorand manyoth-ers." Whenexpandedas suggestedabove, however, t is certainlysug-gestiveof an understandingn which, as he puts it,"the economyofthe divine Logos" is not "reduced o His manifestation n the figureof the historical Jesus."Rather,that economywill be seen in termsof an ubiquitous presencein which "the types of His reality"willbe "equallyauthentic"40 hetherfoundwithin the Christianworld oroutside of it.

11. ConclusionSuch a pluralistic understandingwould, of course, be controver-sial. It is important,therefore,to repeat that it is not an intrinsiccomponent of the neo-Byzantinemodel that I am advocating,butsimply an auxiliary hypothesis41which is worthy of serious atten-tion. What are intrinsic to the model are a number of factorswhich I have alreadyoutlined, and with which, in summary,I nowconclude.These are that a teleological-christologicalmodel allows us bothto acknowledgethe general insights about teleology that arise fromthe naturalsciences,and to appropriatehese insightsin such a waythat we can avoid any distinction betweengeneraland specialprov-idence. On the one hand, we can acknowledgethat the teleolog-ical traits of the cosmos that are visible to the scientist - thoseto be seen in the physical evolution of the universe and in the


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biological evolution of the species of our planet - represent an impor-tant clarification of what we might call the "low level teleology"inherent in a teleological-christological understanding. On the otherhand, we can insists, from a theological perspective, that there willbe manifestations of the "higher level teleology" inherent in thatmodel. These latter manifestations, while lying beyond what the sci-entists' methodology can investigate, need not in any way be con-tradicted by a scientific understanding. They can, in principle, accountfor all that has previously been attributed to God's "special" provi-dence.Interpreted in this way, the teleological-christological model ofdivine presence and providence clearly manifests a number of advan-tages over competing models of divine action:(1) The model is based on an explicitly theological understand-ing, rather than on abstract philosophical questions about divineagency.(2) Questions about how God acts "on" the world - as if from out-side - are rendered meaningless, since the model rejects the con-ceptual picture of what the cosmos can do "on its own" or whenmerely "sustained in being." (This means, among other things,that no distinction between "general" and "special" providencecan be made, and all aspects of providence are comprehensible interms of a single, simple model.)(3) While the model is at one level "naturalistic," there need be noinherent limitation to the scope of divine providence, of the sortthat the deists and more recent theistic naturalists have assumed.The question of what God has done or could do becomes, notan abstract philosophical question, but a broader theological one,which is focused on a Logos christology. (Such a christology, whileit draws its inspiration from the Byzantine tradition, needs to echothat tradition only insofar as it must incorporate the sort of tel-eological understanding that we have examined. In principle, anunderstanding of this sort might be developed in a number ofways, some of which, as we have noted, could reflect an essentiallypluralistic position.)(4) The model removes the tension between scientific understandingand belief in divine action in two distinct ways. Not only doesit enable us to incorporate, within a theological perspective, spe-cific aspects of scientific understanding that are sometimes held tochallenge religious belief.42 It also, in an important way, allows the


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intrinsic imitations of the scientificmethodologyto be seen withmuch greaterclaritythan hitherto.

Notes1. This distinction is, we should note, still maintained when the special mode ofaction envisaged is not the traditional one of supernatural "intervention." It ismaintained, for example, also in the model that has become fashionable withinthe dialogue between theology and the natural sciences, in which it is assumed

that the laws of nature are not - as in the classical interventionist model - setaside, but instead are manipulated through some sort of scientifically identifi-able "causal joint." There is still, in this latter scheme, a distinction betweenthe "normal" workings of the cosmos - which occur when God simply sus-tains it in being - and what happens when God chooses to respond to eventsin the world through causal joint manipulation. Although this scheme is some-times labelled as "noninterventionist,"this is misleading since the classical formof intervention has merely been replaced by a more subtle form of divine inter-ference.2. Christopher C.Knight, Wrestling With the Divine: Religion, Science, and Revela-tion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001).3. An interim view was offered in Christopher C.Knight, "Theistic Naturalism andthe Word Made Flesh: Complementary Approaches to the Debate on Panen-theism", in Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke (eds.), In Whom We Live andMove and Have Our Being: PanentheisticReflections on God's Presence in a Sci-entific World(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) pp. 48-61.4. A fuller discussion of the model is to be presented in a book in preparation,provisionally entitled "The God of Nature: Incarnationism for a Scientific andPluralistic Age."5. Aspects of the earlier history of this approach are excellently summarizedin Eugene TeSelle, "Divine Action: The Doctrinal. Tradition" in Brian Heb-blethwaite and Edward Henderson, (eds.), Divine Action: Studies Inspiredby thePhilosphical Theology of Austin Farrer (Edinburgh, T and T Clark, 1990) pp.71-91.6. See Andrew Louth, Ihe Cosmic Vision or St. Maximos the Coniessor in

Clayton and Peacocke (eds.), op.cit. pp. 184-196 for a good brief discussion ofthe use of the term logos in Greek thought. When properly understood, thisusage allows and even demands what - when translated into English - mightseem little more than a play on words.7. See the section Revelatory experience of God below.8. This western tendency is often exacerbated by a further tendency to look atthe incarnation through the filter of Anselm's classic question: Cur Deus Homo(Why did God become human)? This has led to the incarnation being seenessentially as a response to human sin. In important strands of Byzantine theol-ogy, however - especially in authors such as Maximos the Confessor and Isaacthe Syrian - the incarnation is seen as something which would have occurredeven if the Fall had never happened.


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9. Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St. Maximus the Confessor(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985) p.75.10. Stephen W. Need, 'Re-Reading the Prologue: Incarnation and Creation in John1:1-18', Theology CVI (2003) p. 403. This article provides a good brief descrip-tion of why western exegesis is now beginning to recognize the biblical roots ofthe intimate link between creation and the Christ event.11. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge:James Clarke, 1957) p.101.12. Because Byzantine authors were rarely systematic, it is in fact difficult to saywhether they posited a unified approach to divine action, in which a singlemodel was sufficient. Although they did not speak of a "special" divine actionin the technical sense, they often spoke rather loosely in a way that might nowbe interpreted within that framework. In what follows, however, I advocate aneo-Byzantine model that firmly avoids the concept of "special" action. In thissense, it is inspired by the earlier Byzantine model, but is not simply a restate-ment of it.13. Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia, God Immanent yet Transcendent:The DivineEnergies according to St.GregoryPalamas in Clayton and Peacocke op.cit. p.160.14. See note 12.15. Willem Drees, Thick Naturalism: Comments on Zygon 2000', Zygon:Journal ofReligion and Science 35 (2000) p. 851.16. It also, incidentally, indicates that providence that is impersonal in mechanismneed not be impersonal in either he giver's intention or the recipient's percep-tion - thus answering the sort of objection voiced, for example, by John Pol-kinghorne, Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a Bottom-UpThinker(London: SPCK, 1994) pp.78ff.17. Christopher C. Knight, 'Naturalism and Faith: Friends or Foes?' TheologyCVIII (2005), pp. 254-263 discusses both a psychological model of divine prov-idence, based in part on Christopher Bryant's adaption of Jungian insights toChristian theology, and a possible extension of this model to events in theempirical world, including those which are usually labelled as miraculous.18. This means that two kinds of complexity may be defined. The first relates tothe way in which, for example, evolutionary biologists do not expect the pasttransformation of one species into another to be repeatably demonstrable. Theyrecognize that the complexity of the ecological niche that made this transfor-mation possible could never be replicated. Here, the issue of repeatability isseen simply in terms of the practicability of reproducing the multifarious factorsinvolved. The second is more conceptually subtle, and relates to holistic factors,of the sort that are often seen as being involved in the emergence of new "lev-els of complexity" in the cosmos, such as life and intelligent self-consciousness(which are discussed later in this essay in relation to the insights of ArthurPeacocke.) Here, the issue is tied to the sort of antireductionistic approach -advocated, for example in Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint (London: UnwinHyam, 1987) - in terms of new "laws" or "organizing principles" which comeinto operation at each emergent level in nature's hierarchy of organization andcomplexity. It is not necessary, Davies argues, "to suppose that these higherlevel organizing principle carry out their marshalling of the system's contitu-ents by deploying mysterious new forces for the purpose, which would ... be


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tantamount to vitalism . . . [instead, they] could be said to harness the exist-ing interparticle forces, rather than supplement them, and in so doing alter thecollective behaviour in a holistic fashion. Such organizing principles need there-fore in no way contradict the underlying laws of physics as they apply to theconstituent parts of the system." (p.143)19. This point about extremity is underlined by the existence of "regime-change"phenomena such as superconductivity, which are scientifically demonstrable andunderstandable, but which represent discontinuities with "ordinary" experiencewhich may have been neither predicted nor even have seemed possible beforetheir demonstration. John Polkinghorne, One world: The Interaction of Scienceand Theology (London: SPCK, 1986) pp. 74ff. has suggested this analogy as onewhich illuminates the character of events that are seen as miraculous.20. See the essays in Clayton and Peacocke, eds., op.cit.21. See e.g. Philip Clayton, God and ContemporaryScience (Edinburgh: EdinburghUniversity Press, 1997) ch.6. for an account of their advocacy of the causaljoint scheme. For their attitude to panentheism see Clayton and Peacocke, eds.op.cit.22. See note 1 for an indication of why Peacocke s occasional use of the term the-istic naturalism" of his own approach is inappropriate.The term as I use it hereprecludes any kind of "special providence" of the sort that Peacocke affirms.23. Drees, op.cit.24. Louth op.cit.\ Ware op.cit.25. See e.g. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Prin-ciple (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) pp. 1481T.26. To give just two examples: the determinism of Newtonian physics has disap-peared entirely through the insights of quantum mechanics, and the ontology ofthe world is no longer understood in terms of a naively realistic understandingof the entities posited by scientific theory.27. Although new arguments have arisen in relation to it, the most comprehensiveaccount of this principle is still that of Barrow and Tipler op.cit.28. This general view does not, it should be noted, depend on an entirely natural-istic view of divine action. Arthur Peacocke, for example, continues to defend"special providence" in relation to aspects of divine action, but sees the evolu-tionary emergence of humanity entirely in naturalistic terms. John Polkinghorne,too, makes a similar distinction though with different boundaries. See the com-ments in Knight, "Wrestling . . . "op. cit. ch. 2.29. See the section, "levels of complexity" below for a discussion of this emergencein the thought of Arthur Peacocke.30. Divine providence may be seen as "law like," I would argue, in the sense thatidentical situations will give rise to identical providential results. (This is notbecause God is "constrained" but because he is consistent and reliable in char-acter.) For the reasons discussed above, however, such providence will rarely bepredictable, since as we move to higher levels of complexity, situations becomemore difficult to identify reliably or to replicate. If we were to pursue thisargument in patristic terms, then St. Augustine's concept of a "higher" and a"lower" nature might prove a good starting point.31. For a view in terms of holistic organizing principles, see e.g. the commentsof Paul Davies quoted in note 18. For a more philosophically aware account


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see e.g. Dennis Bielfeldt, 'The Peril and Promise of Supervenience for the Sci-ence-Theology Discussion' in Niels Henrik Gregersen, Willem B.Drees and UlfGorman, (eds.), The Human Person in Science and Theology (Edinburgh, T andT Clark, 2000) pp. 117-152.32. Arthur Peacocke, God and the New Biology (London: J.M.Dent and Sons, 1986)p. 30.33. See Knight, 'Wrestiing . . . ' ch.4 for a fuller exposition of this and a criticismof aspects of Peacocke's own use of his insights.34. Knight, 'Wrestling ...'pp. 111-114.35. See Knight, 'Wrestling . . . ' ch.3, in which an extrapolation of Rahner'sapproach is attempted in order to explore the nature of Christ's resurrectionappearances. A good general introduction to this aspect of Rahner's thinkingis Christopher F. Schiavone, Rationality and Revelation in Rahner (New York:Peter Lang, 1994).36. See Knight, 'Naturalism . . . ' for an account of how this may be understood.37. Knight, 'Wrestling ...' chs.3, 6 and 11.38. See Knight, 'wrestling . . . ' chs. 7 and 8 for an exploration of this aspect of thecharacter of theological language.39. Knight, 'Wrestling ...', especially ch.ll.40. Philip Sherrard, Christianity: Lineaments oj a Sacred Tradition (Edinburgh, T.and T. Clarke, 1998) pp. 61-63.41. Nancey Murphy, Theology in an Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1990) has explained this Lakatosian term and indicated howit may be applied to theology.42. For example, Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity (London, Collins, 1972)argues that the role of chance in the universe's evolution requires an atheisticunderstanding. In a christological-teleological approach, however, it is preciselythe interplay of chance and necessity that allows the potential of the universeto be brought to fruition.

divine action: a neo-byzantine model

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