Does Divine Intervention Violate Laws of Nature?

Rok, strany: 2019, 86 - 103

The present paper discusses processes in our world embedded in a dense net of causes and effects. The role of laws of nature is dis-cussed using classical mechanics as an example to demonstrate that the behavior of objects is not determined by laws of nature on their own. Natural processes rather depend on the environment that im-plies forces and conditions under which these processes occur. These conditions are usually described in mathematical terms using suita-ble initial or boundary conditions or further constrains. This analy-sis may seem trivial but has an important consequence. Divine in-tervention appears not to violate natural laws, rather, new causes are introduced that lead to results that otherwise would not have oc-curred. A further consequence arises from the complexity of causal nets and the presence of probabilistic processes in our world as one may not be able to determine the causes that led to a certain effect.

ISO 690:

Bergmann, R. 2019. Does Divine Intervention Violate Laws of Nature?. In Organon F, vol. 26, no.1, pp. 86-103. 1335-0668. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26106

APA:

Bergmann, R. (2019). Does Divine Intervention Violate Laws of Nature?. Organon F, 26(1), 86-103. 1335-0668. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26106

Vydavateľ: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Ralf B. Bergmann