Review of "The mystery and agency of God" (2014), by Frank G. Kirkpatrick

[Teofrastus]

Hi! I'm new. This is a review of a book I just finished reading:

In The mystery and agency of God: divine being and action in the world (2014), Frank G. Kirkpatrick wants to resuscitate our traditional view of God as personal agent operating in the world. Divine agency must be modernized, because there’s a disconnect or tension between trying to relate to God as a personal agent and, on the other hand, thinking of God as radically transcendent and thus beyond personal agency. Rather than relying on miraculous intervention, God has a way of governing causal chains without breaking into them. It is a top-down approach that centers on the primordiality of action: “[T]he hierarchically higher agent carries out the agent’s intentions through supervening actions” (Preface). In this way the causal chain is bent towards the enactment or realization of the agent’s purpose. Because personal agency is the most basic element, “the mystery of God is essentially the mystery of any personal agent” (Introduction). An important corollary is that human action must rely on authentic free will, independent of causal determinants. This arouses my skepticism.

The author relies on several philosophers, especially Edward Pols. But he does not quite succeed in explaining how God, in governing worldly events, uses supervening action rather than intervening action. It has something to do with God participating in all actions while empowering them all (ch. 5). This calls to mind Luther’s theology. The author claims that classical theology is dominated by ‘ontological transcendence’, the view that God is ‘wholly other’ (ch. 1). I contest this. It seems that Augustine and Aquinas see God as exceeding the human capacity of comprehension (cf. Aquinas, ST. Ia.12.1). It is a well-written and scholarly book that leads the reader into the labyrinth of theological metaphysics. It made me think of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s critique of modern philosophy, namely that philosophers tend to build a house of cards upon a foundation of unproven postulates, and it awoke in me a longing for good old Plato. Although this book could possibly lead to valuable developments in the theology of divine action, it didn’t make me much wiser. I give it three stars of five.

 

[Clare73]

Hi! I'm new. This is a review of a book I just finished reading:

In The mystery and agency of God: divine being and action in the world (2014), Frank G. Kirkpatrick wants to resuscitate our traditional view of God as personal agent operating in the world. Divine agency must be modernized, because there’s a disconnect or tension between trying to relate to God as a personal agent and, on the other hand, thinking of God as radically transcendent and thus beyond personal agency. Rather than relying on miraculous intervention, God has a way of governing causal chains without breaking into them. It is a top-down approach that centers on the primordiality of action:

“[T]he hierarchically higher agent carries out the agent’s intentions through supervening actions” (Preface). In this way the causal chain is bent towards the enactment or realization of the agent’s purpose. Because personal agency is the most basic element, “the mystery of God is essentially the mystery of any personal agent” (Introduction). An important corollary is that human action must rely on authentic free will, independent of causal determinants. This arouses my skepticism.

As well it should.

The author relies on several philosophers, especially Edward Pols. But he does not quite succeed in explaining how God, in governing worldly events, uses supervening action rather than intervening action. It has something to do with God participating in all actions while empowering them all (ch. 5). This calls to mind Luther’s theology. The author claims that classical theology is dominated by ‘ontological transcendence’, the view that God is ‘wholly other’ (ch. 1). I contest this. It seems that Augustine and Aquinas see God as exceeding the human capacity of comprehension (cf. Aquinas, ST. Ia.12.1). It is a well-written and scholarly book that leads the reader into the labyrinth of theological metaphysics. It made me think of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s critique of modern philosophy, namely that philosophers tend to build a house of cards upon a foundation of unproven postulates, and it awoke in me a longing for good old Plato. Although this book could possibly lead to valuable developments in the theology of divine action, it didn’t make me much wiser. I give it three stars of five.

 

[Teofrastus]

As well it should.

Man has not authentic free will, says Luther. Everything depends on God’s will and activity (see On the Bondage of the Will). And this is the view of science: You don't have free will, but don't worry | YouTube

 

[Mark Quayle]

Man has not authentic free will, says Luther. Everything depends on God’s will and activity (see On the Bondage of the Will). And this is the view of science: You don't have free will, but don't worry | YouTube

The fact something is the view of science doesn't make it right, nor wrong.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Hi! I'm new. This is a review of a book I just finished reading:

In The mystery and agency of God: divine being and action in the world (2014), Frank G. Kirkpatrick wants to resuscitate our traditional view of God as personal agent operating in the world. Divine agency must be modernized, because there’s a disconnect or tension between trying to relate to God as a personal agent and, on the other hand, thinking of God as radically transcendent and thus beyond personal agency. Rather than relying on miraculous intervention, God has a way of governing causal chains without breaking into them. It is a top-down approach that centers on the primordiality of action: “[T]he hierarchically higher agent carries out the agent’s intentions through supervening actions” (Preface). In this way the causal chain is bent towards the enactment or realization of the agent’s purpose. Because personal agency is the most basic element, “the mystery of God is essentially the mystery of any personal agent” (Introduction). An important corollary is that human action must rely on authentic free will, independent of causal determinants. This arouses my skepticism.

The author relies on several philosophers, especially Edward Pols. But he does not quite succeed in explaining how God, in governing worldly events, uses supervening action rather than intervening action. It has something to do with God participating in all actions while empowering them all (ch. 5). This calls to mind Luther’s theology. The author claims that classical theology is dominated by ‘ontological transcendence’, the view that God is ‘wholly other’ (ch. 1). I contest this. It seems that Augustine and Aquinas see God as exceeding the human capacity of comprehension (cf. Aquinas, ST. Ia.12.1). It is a well-written and scholarly book that leads the reader into the labyrinth of theological metaphysics. It made me think of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s critique of modern philosophy, namely that philosophers tend to build a house of cards upon a foundation of unproven postulates, and it awoke in me a longing for good old Plato. Although this book could possibly lead to valuable developments in the theology of divine action, it didn’t make me much wiser. I give it three stars of five.

While I consider a Deistic notion of God as nonsense, the fact of his being "outside of" time is relevant to the question you bring up. As being the "inventor" of time, he is not subject to it, but has the ability to act within it. The problem with that way (that I just described) of looking at it is that it is necessarily also anthropomorphic (but then, can we do otherwise than to think anthropomorphically?). Maybe the reality is that to him there is no difference.

Probably my two favorite philosophical attributes of God are Aseity and Simplicity. While God is necessarily Transcendent as his Omnipotence makes clear, his Immanence is understood by his Aseity and Simplicity. And his Simplicity shows that none of these attributes we humans apparently are bound to consider separately, are actually separate in God.

WE are the ones finding a tension there, because we can't think from God's POV. But we might find some relief in the notion that God SPOKE the creation into being. What to us may appear as, so far, 6 thousand or 14 billion years, to him might already be a finished project, completed as soon as he spoke the Bride of Christ into existence. I honestly can't find a reason, then, why to him both the creative word, and his decree, and his beginning the intricacy of the chains of causation and what we think of as his interventions and work, are not one and the same thing to him.

Why must they be two different considerations? This temporal POV is but a vapor, compared to the solid reality of God's economy. Why must we gauge God by his dealings with us, from a temporal point of view? I think he completed it, and is doing it.

We have many places in scripture that hint at the "already but not yet" sound of this. "God...subjected all things to him, He left nothing outside of his control. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him."

 

[Teofrastus]

[...]

That doesn't work, because we do not live in a strictly deterministic universe. Not only has quantum physics refuted this, but also a Newtonian universe is practically indeterministic, in view of chaos theory. The determinism of Pierre Laplace only works on paper, and only in highly idealized examples. God has no other choice than to intervene in creation, because there are no causal chains from beginning to end. In fact, divine intervention (in terms of nonviolationalism) poses no problem at all, as Jeffrey Koperski (Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature, 2020) explains. Most people, including the theologians, still reason like 19th century determinists. They still believe that divine intervention means that God must break into causal chains and thereby overrule the laws of nature. In fact, this is not necessary. Divine action is perfectly compatible with the laws of nature.

The modern worldview, with its natural laws, fine-tuned creation, contingent events, inexplicable constants of nature, inexplicable biological evolution (such as the Cambrian explosion) reeks of a law-giver and a Creator. Like never before has our worldview pointed so clearly at a Creator. Comparatively, the medievals had no notion of natural law. Their universe was architectural and teleological. Today, God is the huge elephant in the room. It is almost comical the way in which scientists try to avoid mentioning the elephant. It reminds me of John Cleese in Faulty Towers, when the Germans came to visit: "Don't mention the war! Don't mention the war!" But then he lost it.

 

[Teofrastus]

Correction: nonviolationism

 

[Mark Quayle]

That doesn't work, because we do not live in a strictly deterministic universe. Not only has quantum physics refuted this, but also a Newtonian universe is practically indeterministic, in view of chaos theory. The determinism of Pierre Laplace only works on paper, and only in highly idealized examples. God has no other choice than to intervene in creation, because there are no causal chains from beginning to end. In fact, divine intervention (in terms of nonviolationalism) poses no problem at all, as Jeffrey Koperski (Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature, 2020) explains. Most people, including the theologians, still reason like 19th century determinists. They still believe that divine intervention means that God must break into causal chains and thereby overrule the laws of nature. In fact, this is not necessary. Divine action is perfectly compatible with the laws of nature.

The modern worldview, with its natural laws, fine-tuned creation, contingent events, inexplicable constants of nature, inexplicable biological evolution (such as the Cambrian explosion) reeks of a law-giver and a Creator. Like never before has our worldview pointed so clearly at a Creator. Comparatively, the medievals had no notion of natural law. Their universe was architectural and teleological. Today, God is the huge elephant in the room. It is almost comical the way in which scientists try to avoid mentioning the elephant. It reminds me of John Cleese in Faulty Towers, when the Germans came to visit: "Don't mention the war! Don't mention the war!" But then he lost it.

What doesn't work? I don't know what thing I have said, that you deny here.

Btw, "practically indeterministic" is indeterministic. You speak there like those who think "freewill" means "uncaused in a limited way". It either is, or is not. Also, remember, that quantum physics is still only a model, or a method of describing and predicting; also, that some quantum physics experts still do not deny determinism. The fact that "we do not know how" is pervasive. "Chance" is not.

Chaos theory, as I understand it, doesn't claim lack of causation, but our lack of ability to predict/ analyze/ explain. And, what to me is fun about it, is not only that the 'chaos' is at worst described as "chaotic" (—in other words, "we don't know"—), but that the limits of its excursions are obviously controlled, and not random. I suspect that there are patterns that describe (govern?) its behavior —we just haven't found them yet. (Not that it is relevant, but the AI random generators, last I heard, still always produce patterns, in the long run. I think that is cool.)

To say "God has no other choice" is a bit, well, 'off'. Like many statements about what God can and cannot do, it assumes God is subject to something. It is not God who is subject to something —after all, all fact descends causally from him— but that our thinking puts him into categories for our considerations. I don't even say God had other alternatives: God does what God does, because he does. There is no other. Aseity, Simplicity and Omnipotence show that he needn't weigh options nor consider anything before deciding, nor even that he need decide before acting.

I thoroughly agree about the forced denial of God's causation. Bears the smell of Romans 1, doesn't it! They actively suppress their knowledge of God.

But to be honest, that tendency is still there within us believers, thinking we can describe him more suitably than he describes himself. We seem to want only just so much of him, and no more...

 

[Teofrastus]

[...]

I got the impression that you suggested that God is in control over the universe from the beginning and has it all planned out, like the Church Fathers reasoned. But it's a difficult concept, considering that the material world is not strictly deterministic. There are even events without causes. It is easier to argue that God interacts and takes charge of the situation, which is happenstance. It doesn't mean that God cannot predict the future. After all, as Frank G. Kirkpatrick suggests, God reasons statistically.

When I said that "God has no other choice than to intervene in creation", I meant that he couldn't have planned it all in advance, like a billiard player, because the material world does not function like Hume, Leibniz and Spinoza thought. We moderners do not live in a clockwork universe. So if God is going to govern Creation, he has no other choice than to interact with Creation. But this is what theists have always argued.

Koperski explains that there's no proof of a causal closure of nature, i.e., that everything that happens must follow a previous natural event. This is just a preconception that rationalists believe in as if it were a religious item of faith. In fact, a Newtonian universe is not 'closed' in the operative sense to outside influences. Nor would such influences "break" nature. Koperski says:

Changes to nonnomic conditions do not violate the laws of nature. Nature allows for change that the laws can seamlessly adapt to. We make such changes with every conscious act. If so, I see no reason based on physics to say that a divine person cannot likewise bring about change without breaking the laws… (p. 135)​

God can intervene in the world without causing any logical contradictions with science, in view of the fact that scientists have long since abandoned strict determinism. There is plenty of room for divine action in the world. It is time that theologians catch up with science, and stop advocating non-interventionist views that are close to deism.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I got the impression that you suggested that God is in control over the universe from the beginning and has it all planned out, like the Church Fathers reasoned. But it's a difficult concept, considering that the material world is not strictly deterministic. There are even events without causes. It is easier to argue that God interacts and takes charge of the situation, which is happenstance. It doesn't mean that God cannot predict the future. After all, as Frank G. Kirkpatrick suggests, God reasons statistically.

Yes, that is what I believe. I just didn't know to what you were referring. The notion that the material world is not strictly deterministic has yet to be disproven. Quantum Physics brings up plenty of counter-intuitive ideas, but they do not denote non-determinism as fact. Perhaps we could discuss a specific example?

When I said that "God has no other choice than to intervene in creation", I meant that he couldn't have planned it all in advance, like a billiard player, because the material world does not function like Hume, Leibniz and Spinoza thought. We moderners do not live in a clockwork universe. So if God is going to govern Creation, he has no other choice than to interact with Creation. But this is what theists have always argued.

I am a theist; I doubt that is what they have always argued. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to see that God's initial creating implies continued upholding and presence, and even intimate involvement (to the extreme), for all temporal existence. My point I've been trying to make, (if I remember right —I am getting old—), is that the two notions are not mutually exclusive. WE use them to refer to the one thing as over against the other, but, I think, in reality —that is, to God— they are one and the same creation. But, yeah, admittedly, that is just me trying to get a point across. Not exactly God's way to put it.

Koperski explains that there's no proof of a causal closure of nature, i.e., that everything that happens must follow a previous natural event. This is just a preconception that rationalists believe in as if it were a religious item of faith. In fact, a Newtonian universe is not 'closed' in the operative sense to outside influences. Nor would such influences "break" nature. Koperski says:

Changes to nonnomic conditions do not violate the laws of nature. Nature allows for change that the laws can seamlessly adapt to. We make such changes with every conscious act. If so, I see no reason based on physics to say that a divine person cannot likewise bring about change without breaking the laws… (p. 135)

Agreed. Thus, God is not breaking the law of causation, (nor even shoving it to the side). Pretty much what I'm trying to say. To put a little meat to the bones, "God inserting himself into the temporal" —whatever you make of that— is still, causing. He is the ONLY uncaused causer, and he can do as he pleases. This does not imply that he does the temporal within the temporal, (or even the eternal within the temporal —witness Christ's death and resurrection, and each soul saved—), as a sudden decision. Take a good look at the attribute, "The Simplicity of God". We are the ones who seem to be unable to avoid saying that 'he intervenes'.

God can intervene in the world without causing any logical contradictions with science, in view of the fact that scientists have long since abandoned strict determinism. There is plenty of room for divine action in the world. It is time that theologians catch up with science, and stop advocating non-interventionist views that are close to deism.

Agreed, though there is no need to give science more respect than they deserve. Science is in the business of producing models to help explain and to help discover. God is a lot more substantial than that.

To repeat myself, I don't think that God intervening in the world requires abandoning strict determinism. It is we humans who can't see the forest for the trees. Again, I'm pretty well convinced that God "intervening" is no different from God "creating"; but regardless, any way you cut it, I don't see any of it lacking causation, except for First Cause Himself.

 

[Teofrastus]

[...]

Arguably, if there is no place for special acts of providence, then theism is dead. It leads to deism, which in turn degenerates into atheism and the death of religion.

I have a problem with this Thomistic view that God is involved in every event, confers existence on each entity and process, and thus causes all particular things to be and enables them to interact. Rather, I think that causal processes are autonomous while divine action is intermittent. It is a more Augustinian/Platonic view. The world has fallen away from God and acquired relative autonomy. That's why things go adverse all the time, as in the World Wars, the Holocaust, etc. I cannot stomach the notion that God enabled the Holocaust to happen.

But it seems that you uphold such a Thomistic view when you say that "God's initial creating implies continued upholding and presence, and even intimate involvement (to the extreme), for all temporal existence". Aristotle and Aquinas had no notion of natural laws, and that's why their universe required an Unmoved Mover. But today we know that, thanks to natural laws, the material world has autonomy. In consequence, theology has to give up the Unmoved Mover and formulate another view of divine action.

 

[Teofrastus]

After all, as Frank G. Kirkpatrick suggests, God reasons statistically.

Correction: as David J. Bartholomew (God, Chance and Purpose) suggests.

 

[FireDragon76]

But it seems that you uphold such a Thomistic view when you say that "God's initial creating implies continued upholding and presence, and even intimate involvement (to the extreme), for all temporal existence". Aristotle and Aquinas had no notion of natural laws,

They don't? It seems to me natural law is a significant part of Aquinas' thought.

and that's why their universe required an Unmoved Mover. But today we know that, thanks to natural laws, the material world has autonomy. In consequence, theology has to give up the Unmoved Mover and formulate another view of divine action.

We don't live under a Newtonian scientific paradigm anymore.

 

[public hermit]

I have a problem with this Thomistic view that God is involved in every event, confers existence on each entity and process, and thus causes all particular things to be and enables them to interact. Rather, I think that causal processes are autonomous while divine action is intermittent. It is a more Augustinian/Platonic view. The world has fallen away from God and acquired relative autonomy. That's why things go adverse all the time, as in the World Wars, the Holocaust, etc. I cannot stomach the notion that God enabled the Holocaust to happen

I would think the Thomistic distinction between primary causality and secondary causality would mitigate this concern about as much as possible. Unfortunately, you can't completely remove God's responsibility for the Holocaust simply by asserting that God's action is further removed from the event. Without God's action, no event.

What the distinction between primary and secondary causality does is ensure that the responsibility (in terms of an intention toward a telos) for each agent is different. God's purposes for creating and sustaining a world and its agents in which the Holocaust occurs will be different than Hitler's purposes in bringing about the Holocaust. But no matter how you cut it, there would be no Holocaust without God's agency no matter where in the causal chain you place divine agency.

 

[public hermit]

Hi! I'm new. This is a review of a book I just finished reading:

In The mystery and agency of God: divine being and action in the world (2014), Frank G. Kirkpatrick wants to resuscitate our traditional view of God as personal agent operating in the world. Divine agency must be modernized, because there’s a disconnect or tension between trying to relate to God as a personal agent and, on the other hand, thinking of God as radically transcendent and thus beyond personal agency. Rather than relying on miraculous intervention, God has a way of governing causal chains without breaking into them. It is a top-down approach that centers on the primordiality of action: “[T]he hierarchically higher agent carries out the agent’s intentions through supervening actions” (Preface). In this way the causal chain is bent towards the enactment or realization of the agent’s purpose. Because personal agency is the most basic element, “the mystery of God is essentially the mystery of any personal agent” (Introduction). An important corollary is that human action must rely on authentic free will, independent of causal determinants. This arouses my skepticism.

The author relies on several philosophers, especially Edward Pols. But he does not quite succeed in explaining how God, in governing worldly events, uses supervening action rather than intervening action. It has something to do with God participating in all actions while empowering them all (ch. 5). This calls to mind Luther’s theology. The author claims that classical theology is dominated by ‘ontological transcendence’, the view that God is ‘wholly other’ (ch. 1). I contest this. It seems that Augustine and Aquinas see God as exceeding the human capacity of comprehension (cf. Aquinas, ST. Ia.12.1). It is a well-written and scholarly book that leads the reader into the labyrinth of theological metaphysics. It made me think of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s critique of modern philosophy, namely that philosophers tend to build a house of cards upon a foundation of unproven postulates, and it awoke in me a longing for good old Plato. Although this book could possibly lead to valuable developments in the theology of divine action, it didn’t make me much wiser. I give it three stars of five.

Welcome!

The notion of divine transcendence (and thus the divine is incomprehensible) is rooted in Platonic metaphysics. Reality transcends our experience in this world, think of the theory of forms, Plato's cave, and the dialogue Timaeus. I'm not sure how Plato is going to address your concerns because you can trace a virtually unbroken line from the Christian notion of divine transcendence back to Plato's work (certainly with some help from Plotinus).

Interestingly, I'm tempted to think Wittgenstein would be happy with the notion that God is incomprehensible. As he says in the Tractatus: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. So I think you have a salient point in so far as he might take more the route of the mystic than the systematic.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Correction: as David J. Bartholomew (God, Chance and Purpose) suggests.

I wonder what makes him suppose God must reason at all. Why should God, who knows all things, weigh one thing against another, as though they are external forces for him, incumbent on him to deal with?

 

[Teofrastus]

I would think the Thomistic distinction between primary causality and secondary causality would mitigate this concern about as much as possible. Unfortunately, you can't completely remove God's responsibility for the Holocaust simply by asserting that God's action is further removed from the event. Without God's action, no event.

What the distinction between primary and secondary causality does is ensure that the responsibility (in terms of an intention toward a telos) for each agent is different. God's purposes for creating and sustaining a world and its agents in which the Holocaust occurs will be different than Hitler's purposes in bringing about the Holocaust. But no matter how you cut it, there would be no Holocaust without God's agency no matter where in the causal chain you place divine agency.

Because Aquinas's "secondary causes" refers to creatures, whose activity depends on divine action, my concern isn't mitigated.

I believe that humanity is "totally fallen", and thus there remains no connecting link to God. It is our autonomy which is the problem. The Holocaust is the supreme example of our disobedience, our total autonomy.

The only remedy is Platonic participation, the imitation of the Forms. I do not believe that God actively sustains my mental and bodily life. Rather, divine action is equal to intermittent acts of providence, nothing more and nothing less.

 

[public hermit]

Because Aquinas's "secondary causes" refers to creatures, whose activity depends on divine action, my concern isn't mitigated.

I believe that humanity is "totally fallen", and thus there remains no connecting link to God. It is our autonomy which is the problem. The Holocaust is the supreme example of our disobedience, our total autonomy.

The only remedy is Platonic participation, the imitation of the Forms. I do not believe that God actively sustains my mental and bodily life. Rather, divine action is equal to intermittent acts of providence, nothing more and nothing less.

Okay, that is an unusual position, in terms of a classical Christian understanding of God's relation to creation, but I see what you're saying. This is an interesting position. I hope you don't mind answering some questions. I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise, but I am curious about the implications.

How do you differentiate your position from deism? Is it just the fact that God acts intermittently in creation?

Do you hold that God has no responsibility for creating a world where the Holocaust could happen, given that God's agency is primarily reduced to the front-end, so to speak, of creation?

Is God able to ensure God's intention in creating is realized? I'm assuming, even given your position, that God intends a good creation. But if God's agency is limited to the front-end, and humanity is totally autonomous, then it is possible that God's intention in creating could result in a sizable failure. Or does God's intermittent agency ensure a partial or full realization of the divine intention?

 

[Teofrastus]

They don't? It seems to me natural law is a significant part of Aquinas' thought.

No, by "natural law" Aquinas means "the light of reason", which God has placed in every man to guide him in his acts. It is the moral law in our hearts. But he did not take account of the fact that it is ambivalent. While we are prone to help our neighbour we are equally prone to attack the tribe living on the other side of the river. So "natural law" does not come from God. In fact, it is shaped by evolution, as Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate) explains.

I should have said scientific law instead, to avoid confusion. Aquinas had no such concept.

We don't live under a Newtonian scientific paradigm anymore.

Many still do.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Arguably, if there is no place for special acts of providence, then theism is dead. It leads to deism, which in turn degenerates into atheism and the death of religion.

I have a problem with this Thomistic view that God is involved in every event, confers existence on each entity and process, and thus causes all particular things to be and enables them to interact. Rather, I think that causal processes are autonomous while divine action is intermittent. It is a more Augustinian/Platonic view. The world has fallen away from God and acquired relative autonomy. That's why things go adverse all the time, as in the World Wars, the Holocaust, etc. I cannot stomach the notion that God enabled the Holocaust to happen.

But it seems that you uphold such a Thomistic view when you say that "God's initial creating implies continued upholding and presence, and even intimate involvement (to the extreme), for all temporal existence". Aristotle and Aquinas had no notion of natural laws, and that's why their universe required an Unmoved Mover. But today we know that, thanks to natural laws, the material world has autonomy. In consequence, theology has to give up the Unmoved Mover and formulate another view of divine action.

I keep finding this need to mention that our metrics, or our definitions, depend on our worldview. You keep talking about "special acts of providence", as though they necessarily are only what we see them to be. To you, they necessarily are NOT one-and-the-same with the original creation. But in truth, they may very well be only OUR way of putting things, or our way of seeing things. I don't care whether Augustine, Plato, Aristotle or Aquinas —they all did what they could, but they are not therefore the reason I think what I do. Of course, I do not deny their influence on my thinking, and possibly what I talk about most may resemble Aquinas' more than Augustine's philosophy, but I don't care. To me the simple logic of causality is valid on its own and need not be proven. I have yet to hear it invalidated. It may be as irritating as a small child's incessant, "But WHY?", but it is just as reasonable and its answers just as informative. I do not deny "special acts of providence" —quite the opposite is true— but they are not independent of original causation (and no, I am not saying that they are necessarily logically caused by original causation).

And certainly, then, thoughts, decisions and acts of the creature are not independent of original creation, nor, of course, are they independent of subsequent "special acts of providence".

No, we DON'T know that the material world has autonomy. We only know that the law of causation is pervasive. (The description I have heard of one particular (and old) religious notion tickles me: The idea is that everything we see around us as natural law, action (event) and consequence, is only the gods watching what we think and forming the world around us according to that. I don't know whether they thought it was all, the gods making illusion or reality, but there's the basic outline of their notion.)

But as to your stomach, a question: Do you deny the enormous ethnic cleansing ordered by God in the OT? Do you consider the Holocaust any more heinous than the murder of the Son of God?