The Review of Metaphysics

This book is written against the background of a paradigm shift currently taking place in science, away from reductionism and toward the theory of emergence (EM) and downward causation (DC). The theory asserts that an emergent whole, whether a biological organism or a dynamic system, cannot be explained by its parts. The book evaluates a number of theologians who have embraced this theory in their accounts of divine action and concludes with an alternative account based on the theology of Aquinas.

Tabaczek initially investigated the theory of emergence in his earlier work, Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science (2019). There, he explained how a neo-Aristotelian dispositional [End Page 603] metaphysics may serve as an ontological ground for emergentism. He begins the present work by summarizing and developing those arguments. Recognizing the inadequacy of the "classical" version of the theory of emergence that employs efficient causality to account for downward causation, Tabaczek turns to the "dynamical depth" account of emergence, developed by Terrence Deacon, that employs the notion of "constitutive absences" or constraints to explain the emergence of complexity and specialization. He finds, however, that Deacon's theory also fails to provide an ontology of the emergent whole.

Many contemporary thinkers employ Aristotle's philosophy of causation in their discussions of emergence, but often without adequate understanding. Tabaczek therefore offers a masterful review of Aristotle's actual teaching and shows its relation to the dispositionalism of the New Aristotelianism.

The main concern of the present work is theological. Tabaczek notes that theologians who employ emergence in their account of divine action frequently anchor their theology in panentheism, the theory that the world is somehow in God and that God is both in the world and somehow more than the world. God influences the world, but the world also affects God. The theory requires that, to avoid interfering with the world, God's power and knowledge must be somehow limited. Tabaczek finds that such theology "calls into question the classical understanding of God as immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, infinite, eternal, and impassible." He argues that "the concept of God's self-limitation of the divine attributes … leads to an image of God as a superintelligent and a superpowerful agent, yet not a truly divine one."

Tabaczek's aim is "to critically evaluate emergentist panentheism within the circles of the theology–science dialogue and to propose an alternative theological interpretation of emergence in terms of the classical and the new Aristotelianism and the Thomistic concept of the concurrent action of God in the universe." He develops an interpretation of divine action that preserves the traditional, transcendent divine attributes while affirming God's immanence in the world. His model of divine action is "built in reference to both the classical DC-based and Deacon's dynamic depth views of EM (reinterpreted in terms of the classical and new Aristotelianism) and the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic view of the God-world relationship." It provides "an important alternative to the emergentist panentheism developed by Peacocke and supported by Clayton and Niels Henrik Gregersen."

Tabaczek presents an insightful review and critique of theologians who employ panentheism and emergentism in their account of divine action. In so doing, he unearths some serious theological problems with panentheism in general and emergentist panentheism in particular. He finds a troublesome ambiguity with the notion of "in" (en) not only in the claims of panentheism regarding the God-world relationship but also in the very term "pan en theism" itself. He also spots an unresolved tension between the notions of divine transcendence and immanence. The issue [End Page 604] of theodicy arises with the claim that the world, with all its natural and moral evils, is somehow "in" God. Finally, there is a tendency to view God as a univocal cause, belonging to the same order as natural causes.

Inpresenting his theory of emergence and divine action, Tabaczek first offers a magisterial review of Aquinas's account...