Can a Divinely Guided World Include Blind Chance?
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Compatibilism, or accommodationism, is the view that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism are compatible. According to compatibilists, God can guide the biosphere while allowing for chance events. A key challenge for compatibilists is to explain how blind and aimless chance events together can build a guided biosphere. This article aims to address this challenge. We discuss three candidate models designed to show the compatibility of chance and being guided: The Bartholomew-Bradley model, the van Inwagen model, and the Polkinghorne model. We argue that: (1) The Bartholomew-Bradley model fails to demonstrate the compatibility of blind chance and being guided; it only shows that chance is compatible with statistical orders. (2) The van Inwagen model does not demonstrate that being guided is compatible with mere chance but with geometrically constrained chance. And, (3) although the Polkinghorne model successfully shows the compatibility of chance and being guided, it faces its own challenges; it leaves some notions unexplained and the controversy over naturalism untouched.
Source: Zygon®
DOI: 10.16995/zygon.17237
Authors: M. Ebrahim Maghsoudi, Seyed Hassan Hosseini
Institution: Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,630
OpenAlex ID: W4410132507