Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

What are Theistic Explanations? 55
effi cacious cause is to reject the theistic hypothesis. For as we have seen,
God’s willing of an event or state of affairs cannot be other than unfailingly
effi cacious. It is unthinkable that God would will e and that e would not
occur. And it is unthinkable that God, the divine cause, could be dependent,
even counterfactually, on what he himself creates. It follows that the
counterfactual analysis of causation is not applicable to God. It cannot
avoid the “spurious causal dependence” problem identifi ed by Lewis.
3.4.3.2 An In Principle Argument
These refl ections bring Smith to his second, in principle, argument against
the idea of divine causation. It relies on the idea that if an event or state, x,
is a logically suffi cient condition of another event or state, y, then x cannot
also be the cause of y. To take Smith’s example, “a body’s being in motion
is logically suffi cient condition of the body occupying space.” 95 So far, so
good, although this surely needs rewording. If the condition in question is
logical, it seems better to express it as a relationship between propositions.
The truth of the proposition “the body is in motion” is a logically suffi cient
condition of the truth of the proposition “the body occupies space.” For if
a body is in motion, it must also be in space, and we could understand this
from an analysis of both concepts. Nonetheless, Smith argues, “the body’s
being in motion is not the cause of the body’s occupation of space.” 96 This,
too, seems correct. Intuitively, at least, we would not speak of this as a
cause. This gives us, in Smith’s view, a distinction between logically suffi
cient conditions and causes.
Into which category does the action of God fall? Smith argues that God’s
willing y is a logically suffi cient condition of y. Again, we might more accurately
express this in terms of propositions. Where y is any event, the truth
of “God wills y” is a logically suffi cient condition of “y occurs.” For if an
omnipotent being wills y and y does not occur, then the agent in question
is not an omnipotent being. But this is a contradiction. Given the principle
that a logically suffi cient condition cannot be a cause, it follows that God’s
willing y cannot be a cause of y. Smith speaks of a cause of the universe, but
it seems it would be true whatever we substitute for y.
If this argument is sound, it is a fatal objection to the very idea of a
theistic explanation. For it entails that any argument which suggests that
x—let’s say the universe—has a cause is also an argument against the idea
that its cause is a divine state. And on the assumption that all explanations
are causal explanations, then there could never be a successful theistic
explanation. How might the defender of theistic explanations respond?
Are all explanations causal? One response would be to deny the assumption:
the idea that all explanations are causal explanations. The theist might
argue that while all scientifi c explanations might be causal explanations,
when science runs out, theology takes over. And what theology offers is a