Jeffrey Koperski, DIVINE ACTION, DETERMINISM, AND LAWS OF NATURE [Book review]

Jeffrey Koperski offers a philosopher of science’s intervention in the debate over divine action, with the dual purpose of providing a scientifically-historically informed clarification of key concepts such as “determinism” and “law of nature,” as well as proposing and defending his “neoclassical” model of divine action. Koperski frames the debate as between three broad factions: interventionists, who believe not only in ongoing divine activity that sustains creation, but also special divine action that violates the laws of nature; nonviolationists, who believe not only in ongoing divine activity that sustains creation, but also special divine action if it does not violate the laws of nature; and noninterventionists, who believe only in ongoing divine activity that sustains creation, not special divine action. Each of these factions is painted as searching for a way between the Scylla of Deism and the Charybdis of Occasionalism. Koperski’s own view is a novel version of nonviolationism.