Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 What is the problem?
- 2 What is chance?
- 3 Order out of chaos
- 4 Chaos out of order
- 5 What is probability?
- 6 What can very small probabilities tell us?
- 7 Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?
- 8 Statistical laws
- 9 God's action in the quantum world
- 10 The human use of chance
- 11 God's chance
- 12 The challenge to chance
- 13 Choice and chance
- 14 God and risk
- References
- Further reading
- Index
4 - Chaos out of order
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- 1 What is the problem?
- 2 What is chance?
- 3 Order out of chaos
- 4 Chaos out of order
- 5 What is probability?
- 6 What can very small probabilities tell us?
- 7 Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?
- 8 Statistical laws
- 9 God's action in the quantum world
- 10 The human use of chance
- 11 God's chance
- 12 The challenge to chance
- 13 Choice and chance
- 14 God and risk
- References
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
The transition from chaos to order is not a one-way process. Just as order can result from chaos, so can chaos result from order. In this chapter I describe three ways in which this may happen. These are: accidents, pseudo-random numbers and mathematical chaos. This transition, also, has to be taken into account by our theology. If these were the only sources of uncertainty in the world there would be no need to invoke pure chance or to explain how it might be consistent with divine purpose.
DISORDER GENERATED BY ORDER
Our theological assertions about what God can or cannot do in the world depend very much on what kind of place we believe the world to be. In the last chapter we encountered the somewhat disconcerting fact that much of the order and lawfulness which we so readily attribute directly to God has its roots in disorder. But this is only half of the story – a great deal of disorder attends the regularities that are all around us. In this chapter, therefore, we shall look at the other side of the coin as a prelude to seeing whether the apparently paradoxical situation which faces us can be resolved. For example, if the purposefulness of God is to be discerned anywhere, one would expect it to be in the regularity and predictability of the aggregate. But, if this is the case, how does God engineer it?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- God, Chance and PurposeCan God Have It Both Ways?, pp. 55 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008