seminar of CRYF on Divine Providence and Quantum Mechanics
It was given by Ignacio Silva, researcher of Oxford and co-director of project of research 'Science and Religion in Latin America'.
The group of research 'Science, Reason and Faith' (CRYF) of the University of Navarra organized in April the seminar 'Divine Providence and Quantum Mechanics: Can God cause?'.
It was given by Ignacio Silva, researcher of the Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford University and co-director of project of research 'Science and Religion in Latin America' which receives funding from the Templeton Foundation.
PHOTO: Courtesy
The seminar had as its starting point the following dilemma: the three great monotheistic religions affirm that God is actively involved in the development of human and natural history, but modern science provides a picture of nature in which every event has a natural and only natural cause. As a solution, some theologians have set out to find in natural causal mechanisms 'places' where God can exercise his provident activity, finding in the indeterminism of quantum events the opportunity to develop a theology of divine activity in creation, such that God decides the result of quantum events.
Ignacio Silva presented the problems posed by the notion derived from this approach in the understanding of causality. He also analyzed whether in the classical tradition, particularly in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, the same problems are present or, on the contrary, there are proposals that allow us to face them.