Human and Divine Providence

To what extent can the study of human providence in the context of virtuous behavior expand the ways in which we think about God's providential care for the created world?

This project seeks to offer an original perspective on our understanding of divine providence by studying instances of human providence exhibited, for example, in human behaviors such as deliberation, planning, and imagining future contingencies, and which arise from virtues such as foresight, vision, and prudence. Divine providence is one of the most pressing issues in analytic theology and analytic philosophy of religion today, particularly considering the scientific evidence of a natural world full of indeterminism and contingency (for example, in quantum mechanics, cosmological models of the origin of the universe, galaxies, and stars, and in evolutionary biology).

On the one hand, according to classical theism, God governs the history of the natural world and humanity with perfect knowledge of future events. On the other hand, God allows creatures to behave contingently and in a non-deterministic way. Most recent proposals that have attempted to reconcile these claims have placed God's providential action within the framework of natural indeterminism.

Considering human providence, this project will attempt to catalyze a paradigm shift, applying new metaphors to understand and explain the relationships between divine providence and the actions of creatures.

The most important results of the project include a international symposiumA monograph on the metaphysics of divine providence, and at least ten manuscripts of articles from the symposium will be published in a collective volume. In addition, a [event/conference/meeting/etc.] will be held in April 2020. research seminar.