This book began life as a thesis on the debate about special divine action which has been going on in Anglo-Saxon philosophical theology for some years. However in the process of editing it for publication the author has sought to make it more accessible to a general readership. Most of the time this has been successful but there are several points in the book where one gets the impression that an argument has been considerably summarized. Given that White’s concern is merely to establish the rational possibility of special divine action one wonders just who his general readership might consist of. The topic is of some academic interest, but a general reader would probably want something of a more practical nature.
The structure of the work is simple. Two chapters present the experiential and biblical contexts for talk of special divine action. A third chapter reviews the current state of the academic debate and the author’s perceptions of its shortcomings. The remaining five chapters outline the author’s alternative to the views criticized in the third chapter.
The experiential context is that of the tension between our intuition of a pattern in some events and the seeming meaninglessness of others. In the light of Christian theism this tension contributes to the problem of evil. Against this ambivalence he sets a ‘phenomenological’ account of the Bible’s testimony to divine action. This may be summarized by saying that God is a personal agent with a purpose which is fulfilled through both universal and particular activity. Apparent failures at the level of particular events are in fact instrumental in bringing about divine victory on a larger scale.
White’s critical account of the contemporary debate concentrates on two very different theologians: Maurice Wiles and Schubert Ogden. He gives useful summaries of their respective positions and raises a number of problems facing each. The common failing of such contemporary accounts is their insistence on the vulnerability of divine love. White sees this as a threat to the biblical notion of divine sovereignty since it makes the efficacy of divine action dependent on creaturely response.
It is White’s contention that an alternative account of special divine action which maintains the Bible’s dual emphasis on love and sovereignty is rationally possible. The proposed alternative is based largely on the work of Austin Farrer. White develops this alternative by responding to a number of possible criticisms of Farrer.
There is one very important point at which White differs from Farrer. White insists that every event is in some sense part of the divine intention. But this sharpens the problem of evil to an intolerable extent and White only escapes the consequences by insisting that no event is intrinsically evil. Evil is a judgment made when an event is seen in a particular context. Farrer on the other hand was very clear that there were events not intended by God but which come to have meaning by being transformed into the means to achieve divine intentions.
In conclusion, this book does not represent a major contribution to the current debate. For the most part White is an able advocate of Farrer but he does not add anything of significance to his position. Where the book will certainly be welcome is amongst beleaguered undergraduates seeking raw material for essays on the concept of divine action.
