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The Action of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Brian Davies O P
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I have a very simple point to make in what follows. For all I want to say is that God does nothing. I do not wish to deny that God brings or brought things about (e.g. that the universe continues to exist or that St Paul was converted). So my “God does nothing” has a special sense (it does not deny that action can be ascribed to God). But what I intend in saying it is, I think, something of great importance when it comes to thinking about God in a sensible way. To grasp the point I want to make will save one from following all sorts of false trails when it comes to reflection on divinity.

Let’s start with what is going on when you or I act. Examples of human actions could include opening a door, wiping one’s nose, making a telephone call, baking a cake, and waving goodbye to a friend. But what is common to these examples, and to others which might be mentioned?

There is at least one thing common. For they all involve people going through a process. I open a door by reaching for the door handle and exerting a continued pressure on it. I wipe my nose by transporting with my hand an object to my nose and moving it about. I bake a cake by walking around a kitchen and following a recipe. I wave good-bye to a friend by lifting my arm and going through a waving motion.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 75 , Issue 879 , February 1994 , pp. 76 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Fr James Sadowsky SJ assures me that, though I might be able to h k e a potato, I cannot bake a cake — unless I put a cake in an oven. I can make a cake, but making a cake is not baking a cake. I don’t wish to disagree, but I shall let my example stand.

2 Uncle Henry might find it hilarious that I have left him a raw cabbage. In that case, of course, I shall not have succeeded in my aim. The same would be true if Uncle Henry dies laughing when the will is read to hm.

3 I may be decomposing, of course. But that would not be a case of me acting by going through a process.

4 Here, of course, I am not being at all original. I am endorsing what I make bold to call the patristic and medieval tradition of thinking about God. I am also endorsing what I take to be taught by numerous councils of the Church. Yet if “original” means “being out of step with much that is commonly said”, what I am saying is original. For is it commonly denied by many modern writers and by many who do not write.

5 Conira Eutychen, III.

6 Medieval commentators on Scripture would here, rightly, ask us to distinguish between different senses in which the words of Scripture are to be understood — e.g. literal and metaphorical.

7 James 1:17.

8 An exercise for the Reader. Look at all the available commentaries on the Letter of James which you can find. And try to construe any of them as clearly saying or showing that James must be interpreted as holding that God is in any sense changeable.

9 Geach, P.T., Logic Matters (Oxford. 1972), p.322Google Scholar.

10 I discuss them in Thinking About God (London, 1985). Chapter 6 and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford. 1992). Chapter 8.

11 I accept that there is an obvious sense in which one might say that someone has been teaching even though no learning occurred. Fred may claim payment for his “teaching” for an hour even though his student learned nothing. But Fred, to be precise, is not here earning money for teaching. He is earning money for doing things designed to result in learning, which is what occurs when teaching takes place.

12 Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, book 5 lectio 5 [on chapter 3 202a22-202b29]. Also cf. De Unitate Intellectus contra Averroistas. 71–74.

13 Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, XI, lect 9, 2291 and 2308-2309.

14 John 14:9.

15 A comparable view is defended by Gareth, Moore OP in “A Scene With Cranes: Engagement and Truth in Religion” (Philosophical Investigations, Vol.17. No 1, January 1994)Google Scholar.

16 Julian of Norwich, Showings (trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, London, 1978. p. 166).