Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Successful Theistic Explanations 139
explanatory force and can still enable us to make some rough-and-ready
predictions. And unless you are prepared to reject all forms of intentional
explanation, the fact that a proposed theistic explanation lacks precision
does not seem a fatal objection.
7.6.2 The Mysteriousness of the Divine Agent
This is, at fi rst sight, a good response. But it fails to take into account a
key fact about proposed theistic explanations, namely the mysteriousness
of the posited divine agent. We have very little idea just what would be
denoted by the predicates that we use of God. In discussing this diffi culty,
it is useful to distinguish two types of predicates, namely mental and action
predicates. 103 I have already discussed the diffi culty of using mental predicates—terms
such as “belief,” “desire,” “love,” or “anger”—in reference
to God (3.3.3). What I wish to focus on here are the diffi culties associated
with using action predicates in reference to God. What could it mean to say
that God creates something, or that he speaks to us? In what sense can we
say that God commands, forgives, comforts, or guides? 104 There are two
options here. The theist might argue that both mental and action predicates
are used of God analogically. But on the received theological view of analogy
(3.3.1), what does this mean? It means that we are simply unable to
grasp just what these terms would mean when applied to God; their proper
meaning in this context exceeds human comprehension. So our language
will lack precision. We will be unable to specify precisely what it would
mean for God to “speak” or to “guide” or to “comfort.”
The second option is to argue, with William Alston, that we can use
such terms of God in their literal sense. Would this mean that our action
predicates had a more precise meaning? No, it would not. For how does
Alston argue for this conclusion? He suggests we can abstract some core
meaning from these terms and distinguish this meaning from the particular
way in which such actions are performed by creatures like us. We “create”
things, for instance, by way of bodily movements, but it is at least conceivable
that a being could “create” things even if he does not engage in any
bodily movement. 105 This may be true, but precisely because this “creating”
is not done in the manner in which we are familiar, we are left with the diffi
culty of specifying what we might expect to observe, if he did.
7.6.3 Divine Actions as Basic Actions
The theist might respond that we can specify how God would act, in order
to create. We would expect God’s creative act to be a basic action (3.4.2), 106
so that whatever God wills should simply come into existence, “by magic,”
as it were. There are no means that he need employ. If this is true, then what
we would expect of a divine agent would be precisely a series of miracles
(4.4), perhaps akin to those narrated in the fi rst chapter of Genesis (5.3.3).