Dispositions, Capacities, and Powers

Schultz, Walter J.

doi:10.5840/pc200911232

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Moreover, we all use dispositional properties while describing traits of individuals' behaviour, and hence, for instance, references to agility, smartness, versatility, friendliness, and so on. Therefore, as Schultz (2009) observes, "[…] we inevitably encounter things that appear to involve 'a capacity', 'a power', 'inclination ', 'habit', 'propensity', 'proclivity', 'tendency', 'capability', 'ability', 'aptitude', or some other such thing" (321-322). For the sake of simplicity let us treat for a while the above terms, dispositions included, as synonymous.…”

Section: Dispositions Powers and Capacitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Favour of Dispositional Explanations. A Christian Philosophy Perspective with Some References to Economics

Hardt

2022

SetF

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From among philosophical concepts of explanation those referring to causes have been the most influential. The aim of this paper it to show that a particular kind of causal explanations, namely dispositional explanations are particularly suited to explain the workings of the world. Apart from purely philosophical arguments, I claim that the view treating dispositions as important elements of the basic ontology of nature is in line with the Christian worldview and the ways God impacts the world. Also, this paper shows that dispositional explanations are not only appropriate in the domains studied by natural sciences but also in the ones being under investigation in social sciences, and thus the case of economics.

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Section: Dispositions Powers and Capacitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Favour of Dispositional Explanations. A Christian Philosophy Perspective with Some References to Economics

Hardt

2022

SetF

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“…Extant divine action views such as deism, (mere) conservationism, concurrentism, and occasionalism have dominated theological ways of thinking regarding natural laws and God's divine action in the natural world (Winslow 2020a:54). However, a new view, Divine Compositionalism, was proposed more than a decade ago (Schultz 2009;Schultz & Winslow 2014) as God's moment-by-moment, compositional, existence-conferring efficient causation according to God's eternally extant ideas. God creates, not out of an ontological disposition to create, but out of an infinite, eternal, unending fountain of agape love for the creation itself, including the human beings created in God's image, to be in a relationship.…”

Section: A Preferred View Of Divine Action With Explanatory Power For...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It means that God has ordained a range of possible manifestations (m) for every physical event in nature, a range that comprises the real set of possibilities for the actual world denoted as {m 1 , m 2 , m 3 …m n } (Winslow & Schultz 2018). Avoiding the necessity of determinism, God in perfect freedom acts on condition, willing into existence one 'm' from this set out of a causal range of start-up conditions based on God's plans and purposes for the creation, in Christ, in every subsequent Plank-scale moment (Schultz 2009).…”

Section: The Present Global Environmental Precipice May Be Afforded B...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A biotheology of God’s divine action in the present global ecological precipice

Winslow

2022

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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Theological discourse surrounding the environmental crisis has rightly brought to the forefront human agency as a primary causal determinant. However, this article explores a theistic divine action position toward an account of the present global precipice that the earth and all its creatures teeter upon. The first section offers a preferred view of divine action theory, Divine Compositionalism, with explanatory power to account for an ever-changing planet. Furthermore, Divine Compositionalism is used to ground the role of God as Creator and sustainer of all things toward a constructive biotheology. The second section accounts for both human culpability and God’s divine action, retaining human free will and God’s sovereignty within a creation God owns and loves. The final section explores a possible remedy to the environmental precipice through the very elements of human cooperation that ensured the success of our prehistoric ancestors. A cooperative biotheology entails humanity re-claiming its inter-relation with all creatures in a world family while exercising the free will to partner with one another on a spiritual level in accomplishing God’s good and wonderful eternal ideas for the next step in human spiritual development toward earth’s physical evolution.Contribution: Drawing upon Divine Compositionalism as a new view of divine action, this article explores God’s action in the natural world as it is now and offers a biotheology that entails divine–human partnership toward an alternative future outcome.

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“…Underlying all physical reality is only God , God's plan , and ways God enacts his plan . We may conceptualize these for the purposes of metaphysical theorizing as God , and an ordered domain of possibilities , dispositions , forces , and structures (Schultz , 331–37).…”

Section: Ontologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Causation, Dispositions, and Physical Occasionalism

Schultz¹,

D'Andrea-Winslow²

2017

Zygon

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Even though theistic philosophers and scientists agree that God created, sustains, and providentially governs the physical universe and even though much has been published in general regarding divine action, what is needed is a fine‐grained, conceptually coherent account of divine action, causation, dispositions, and laws of nature consistent with divine aseity, satisfying the widely recognized adequacy conditions for any account of dispositions.1 Such an account would be a basic part of a more comprehensive theory of divine action in relation to the fundamental concepts of science and of mathematics. Our aim in this article is simply to present such a theory.

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Dispositions, Capacities, and Powers

Abstract: The real difficulty lies in the fact that physics is a kind of metaphysics; physics describes "reality." But we do not know what "reality" is; we know it only by means of the physical description."

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

In Favour of Dispositional Explanations. A Christian Philosophy Perspective with Some References to Economics

In Favour of Dispositional Explanations. A Christian Philosophy Perspective with Some References to Economics

A biotheology of God’s divine action in the present global ecological precipice

Causation, Dispositions, and Physical Occasionalism

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