How a General Sense Reading of Scripture Warrants a Classical View of Divine Power

I recently presented a paper at the 2021 Southeastern Regional ETS Conference, March 19. Below is the abstract, with a link to the article for those interested in reading further.

When it comes to the nature of divine power, non-classical theists, notably process theists, affirm a persuasive, indirect view of divine power. According to this view, God’s love entails freedom given to creatures, whereby God cannot unilaterally exercise his will in a manner that impinges on a creature’s free will/actions. A classical view ascribes to unilateral determinative power (not omnicausal), generally defined as God’s divine activity to bring about a state of affairs according to his specific purposes.[1] Detractors of the classical view claim that God’s loving nature and Scripture do not support it.

The claim I will be making is that a general sense reading of Scripture more coherently aligns with a classical view of divine power. When I say general sense, I mean when one reads passages pertaining to God’s action with/toward creation, is a process view of God’s power a naturally derived assumption from the text? By naturally, I mean is that the “general sense” of the text? For example, 1 Samuel 25:38 says, “About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal dead.” In reading this text and the context, is it a more natural or a general-sense reading to think that God directly acted and struck Nabal dead, or is it a more natural or a general-sense reading of the text to think God used persuasive power to indirectly move another physical body to bring about Nabal’s death? With that said, a general-sense reading may determine that God struck down someone indirectly by means of another (e.g., Josh 10:10; Isa 10:1–24; Acts 2:23; 4:27–28). And that is where a classical reading provides greater consistency, in that it understands that God directly and indirectly acts in/within his creation. A process view delimits what God can do, regardless of a general sense reading of the text. Therefore, I conclude that a general sense reading of Scripture warrants a classical view of divine power.

Click to download/read the full paper.

~ Romans 11:36

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[1] Confessionally speaking, God is the primary cause of all that occurs (though not the author of evil), “yet by his providence he arranges them to occur according to the nature of secondary causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently” (Gen 8:22; Jer 31:35; Exod 21:13; Deut 19:5; Isa 10:6–7) 1689 LBC, 5.2.

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