Miracles in Said Nursi and Thomas Aquinas : Non-Noninterventionist Approaches to Divine Action and the Sciences

In order to preserve contemporary understandings of the sciences, many figures of the Divine Action Project (DAP) held that God could never violate or suspend a law of nature, causing the marginalization of miracles from scholarly theology–science dialogue. In the first substantive entry of interreligious dialogue on the topic, this book provides fresh, contemporary accounts of Said Nursi and Thomas Aquinas on miracles and science, challenges contemporary noninterventionist presuppositions, and explores rich, untapped avenues in the theology, metaphysics, and epistemology of miracles and laws of science. Through an exploration of Nursi’s Ash’arite, Quranic interpretation of the sciences, and St. Thomas’s neglected doctrine of obediential potency, this volume marshals powerful tools from the world’s two largest religions to elucidate the foundations of God’s interaction with creatures. As well as contributing to the contemporary debate, this volume provides Muslim and Christian readers alike substantive intellectual frameworks in which to think about the sciences from the heart of their own intellectual traditions, while at the same time giving them as alternatives to mainstream contemporary approaches for scientists and other readers engaged in theology–science dialogue. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Introduction 1 Challenges of the Divine Action Project to Miraculous Action 2 Said Nursi’s Theology of Divine Causality and Miracles 3 Nursi on Laws of Science and Miracles 4 St. Thomas Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Divine Action and Natural Scientific Causality 5 The Metaphysics of Miracles and Obediential Potency 6 Thomistic Criteria for the Epistemology of Miracles Conclusion Bibliography Index