Noninterventionism

For better or worse, the question of divine intervention has been the foundation of contemporary divine action debates. Does God intervene in seemingly explicable physical processes? Given science's extraordinary efficacy in uncovering the physical mechanisms of seemingly mysterious phenomena (and indeed, this has been somewhat codified in the “causal closure of the physical” principle), the notion of intervention has gained something of a bad reputation. Divine intervention in intelligible regularities would seem to undermine the foundation of scientific inquiry; many in the field would follow Clayton in urging “the presumption of naturalism” when examining all events. Beyond methodological and scientific concerns about intervention, there are theological challenges as well. Put simply, theologians are often loath to affirm that God could be in competition with the ordered, regular laws of nature that God presumably created. As Taede Smedes explains, “to argue that God works against the laws of nature, or suspends them temporarily, would make the concept of God inconsistent” (, 243). This rejection of interventionist divine action is strikingly prevalent in the divine action conversation, and almost universally affirmed by participants in the DAP. Noninterventionist causal joint proposals involving seemingly underdetermined areas (i.e., quantum mechanics, chaos theory) are thus developed in direct response to this belief that God must not intervene in physical regularities. In other words, theorists begin by affirming the primacy of physical regularities, and then attempt to identify ontologically underdetermined gaps in which God could act without intervening.

Important to note here are the metaphysical assumptions of the noninterventionist position. Namely, noninterventionists prioritize science in their search for a causal joint (perhaps ironically). This is, thus, something of a correlationist project, in which theological affirmations are subjected to the scrutiny of current scientific knowledge; this essentially renders the natural sciences as “objective arbiters of the way things really are” (Smith , 885). There is something of a logical progression here: if the causal closure principle is correct and all physical events are determined by physical causes, then noninterventionist divine action seems impossible. But if ontologically underdetermined areas exist, then God could essentially fill that causal vacuum—or so it is argued. Again, these causal joint proposals give enormous theological power to the natural sciences, insofar as they determine where indeterminism might exist. It is perhaps ironic that proponents of these standard special divine action theories defend a traditional theism in which God acts personally, while simultaneously giving science nearly unlimited authority to determine the parameters around such action. Moreover, the noninterventionist causal joint program is perennially vulnerable to scientific advances in the relevant areas. As Charles Coulson quipped, “There is no ‘God of the gaps’ to take over at those strategic places where science fails; and the reason is that gaps of this sort have the unpreventable habit of shrinking” (, 20). In any case, a commitment to noninterventionist divine action has been remarkably prevalent in recent decades. But is the question of intervention question‐begging, presuming a debatable God–nature relationship? As will be discussed, the entire metaphysical framework implied in the intervention/nonintervention dichotomy is rejected outright by representatives of the theological turn in divine action.

The Laws of Nature

Closely related to the noninterventionist commitment is the question of the laws of nature. Indeed, to ask whether God intervenes in the laws of nature is to presume a specific ontology for those “laws”; the very notion of intervention presupposes a closed system of binding physical relationships. In divine action debates, there is disagreement over whether the laws of nature should be considered prescriptive or descriptive. Prescriptive laws would constitute necessitarian physical relationships; they would “ontologically determine which possibilities are open to the world and which are not” (Saunders , 66). Those affirming a descriptive view of the laws of nature, however, describe the laws as contingent, nonbinding descriptions of regularities. Many divine action theorists endorse a descriptive view of the laws of nature, as this would seem to allow scope for divine action (i.e., God cannot “break” scientific laws if the laws are not rigidly fixed in the first place). However, the whole noninterventionist paradigm in which these theorists work actually presumes an ontological status for the laws of nature; the noninterventionist question itself “presupposes a strong ontological concept of the laws of nature in the first place” (Gregersen , 191). In other words, if “laws” really just describe nonbinding regularities, why the concern about intervention? Indeed, the expressed affirmation of descriptive laws is a puzzling feature of many noninterventionist theories, suggesting a high degree of confusion regarding the laws of nature. In any case, Gregersen is correct that the prescriptive “concept of the laws of nature serves as a foil for shaping the idea of non‐interventionist [special divine action]” (, 191). If the laws of nature are ontological and prescriptive, then the only noninterventionist possibility for divine action would involve ontologically underdetermined areas in which God could act.

The debate about the laws of nature is perhaps made clearer by a further distinction: between the laws of nature as they actually are, and the laws of nature as current science now understands and formulates them. Indeed, many theorists speak of the laws as descriptive, but seem actually to be referring to the currently incomplete laws of science. This is an important distinction, as there is a significant difference between the laws of nature being ontologically descriptive of discrete events, and the laws instead referring to useful, human approximations of reality. Many theorists seem unaware of this distinction, but others work constructively with this instrumentalist, or approximationist, view: “‘Our laws of nature’ are much more limited and uncertain than the full range of ‘the laws’ in themselves…there are also such processes and relationships which are in principle beyond the competencies of the natural sciences to investigate and to model” (Stoeger , 237). As will be discussed, many proponents of the theological turn embrace this approximationist view, arguing that a full account of the laws as they really are would include “higher laws”—a sort of lawful causal joint through which God affects the “lower laws” described by current science. As William Stoeger explains it, “God may act in a purely ‘natural’ way…but in a way which we see as supernatural intervention simply because we have not yet come to comprehend fully the relationships and regularities (the ‘higher laws’) which obtain” (, 124). The merits and challenges of this approach will be picked up below.

Incompatibilism

A third defining commitment in the divine action conversation involves compatibilism, or the question of whether a closed, physical causal history is compatible with simultaneous divine action. That is, can divine action be affirmed even if scientific explanations are fully sufficient? Incompatibilists would answer in the negative, and this is perhaps an intuitive position: it may seem self‐evident to say that either physical laws produced an outcome, or God did, but not both. As Smedes characterizes the incompatibilist approach: “in order for God to act, something in the natural order has to give way—hence the active search for irreducible ontological gaps in the causal nexus” (, 246). And indeed, the incompatibilist approach has been dominant in standard causal joint theories; in fact, the search for underdetermined causal joints assumes incompatibilism. Indeed, if compatibilism were to be affirmed, there would simply be no need to find a specific physical space that was underdetermined by the laws of nature—God could act in and through known laws of nature. Once again, incompatibilists privilege science in determining whether and how God might act; this “enables one to rule out types of special divine action on the basis of our scientific understanding of the laws of nature—God may only act in a special, direct way in the ‘causal gaps’ opened by indeterminacies” (Stoeger , 240). First assuming a noninterventionist framework and prescriptive laws of nature, incompatibilists must then find gaps in the otherwise lawful causal web in which God might work in addition to physical mechanisms.

Though incompatibilism has remained a dominant assumption in divine action debates, compatibilists are by no means absent from the conversation (even within the DAP). Compatibilists deny the noninterventionist, incompatibilist framework, affirming divine action as “continuous with natural processes, present throughout the whole cosmos and entirely compatible with our descriptions of mathematical behavior” (Ward , 260). The classic compatibilist formulation is found in Thomism, which emphasizes the distinction between primary and secondary causality when addressing the causal joint problem: “Therefore God is the cause of every action, inasmuch as every agent is an instrument of the divine power operating” (Aquinas [1932], De Pot. Q. 3, Art. 7). This dual affirmation that both God and secondary causes are fully causal in all natural events is known as double agency, and will be discussed below. The point here is that incompatibilism has been a governing commitment (implicit or otherwise) in contemporary divine action theories.

This section has highlighted the general contours of the theoretical commitments implicit in standard causal joint theories. Recent decades have been dominated by noninterventionist, incompatibilist approaches that presumed an ontological status for the laws of nature. Crucially, this approach renders science as the final arbiter of whether and how God acts in nature; theology is, thus, subjected to current scientific knowledge. The next section explores the “theological turn” in science and religion, identifying how representatives of this trend reject these metaphysical commitments.

Thomism

Thomism is arguably the paradigmatic example of a purely theological approach to divine action, often acting as the inescapable backdrop against which other approaches are developed—or developed against. The starting point for Thomistic divine action is the affirmation that “God is in all things, and innermostly” (Aquinas , Sum Ia, Q. 8, Art. 1.). Like the theistic naturalist, Aquinas affirms that all physical processes (secondary causes) are ultimately dependent upon God. The idea of a self‐sufficient, autonomous natural world is foreign to Thomistic thought. It is true that Thomists deny causal gaps in the created order; as Elizabeth Johnson writes, “in principle there are no gaps in the universe, which is complete on its own level” (, 8). Nevertheless, Thomism maintains that a gap‐less natural world is yet fully involved with God: “in all things God works intimately” (Aquinas , Sum Ia, Q. 105, Art. 5.). We have here the classic example of compatibilist divine action theology: natural causes are complete at their own level, but God as primary cause is simultaneously causing and acting through those natural causes. This is the heart of double agency; full agency is granted to both created and uncreated causes, but (somehow) in different ways. Elizabeth Johnson goes so far as to assert that “it is incoherent to think of God as working in the world apart from secondary causes.…God acts wholly through and in the finite agents that also act wholly in the event. As a result, the one effect issues from both primary and secondary causes simultaneously” (, 12). For Thomists, this relationship between God and nature necessitates the rejection of standard causal joint models. Indeed, once this basic God–nature relationship is established, the problems with divine action would seem to dissipate—if not disappear altogether. That is, the ontology of nature is such that it is ever and always dependent upon God as primary cause; God is never absent or inactive, even while natural processes occur without explanatory gaps.

Like other theistic naturalist approaches to divine action, Thomism challenges the premises of the three commitments implicitly shaping modern divine action theories. The noninterventionist paradigm is rejected as presuming an insufficient ontology of nature; God literally cannot intervene because God is always acting as primary cause in the first place. Incompatibilism is rejected for similar reasons. That is, the Thomistic emphasis on different types of causation enables the affirmation that both God and natural processes are fully responsible for bringing about the same events. And regarding the laws of nature, Thomists insist that God's constantly causal role in all secondary processes renders the debate theologically meaningless. In other words, God can act in, through, and under the laws of nature, regardless of their ontological status as prescriptive or descriptive. As Michael Dodds explains, “on the natural level, one can describe what happens in the world entirely in terms of causes that are open to the investigation of empirical science” (, 187). The world of created causes operates on a wholly different level than God, who works in and through natural processes in a manner that respects the integrity and completeness of that natural level. The upshot of all this is that for Thomists the reigning debates guiding the divine action conversation presume an erroneous God–world model; there is no single causal joint through which God can effect change in the natural world, because everything “that the secondary cause is and does is caused by the primary cause” (Silva , 280). The point here is that the Thomistic divine action model can be thought of as a type of theistic naturalism, insofar as nature is always dependent on divine agency—even as it is prone to full explanation on the level of physical causes.

While Thomistic divine action has been compelling for centuries of Christian thinkers, the approach faces serious challenges. Again, the key to Thomistic divine action is double agency: “the same effect is ascribed to a natural cause and to God” (Silva , 284). It can be quite difficult to see beyond the paradox in this. If scientific explanation fully accounts for the natural causes of an event (as Thomists readily affirm), how does primary causality avoid the charge of redundancy? Again, the claim is that “God acts wholly through and in the finite agents that also act wholly in the event”; it is not as if God does a bit of the work and the laws of nature do the rest (Johnson , 12). Thomists ultimately appeal to divine mystery when it comes to the actual “how” of double agency, univocally insisting that we cannot know how an uncreated God works through created causes. Denis Edwards, for example, goes so far as to assert that “a theology of divine action not only should not spell out how God acts, but should insist that this is something we cannot know” (, 63). And yet, double agency can seem incoherent and redundant, undermining the sufficiency of natural causes. Joseph Bracken admits to seeing “major problems in proposing that two ontologically independent subjects…each wholly produce one and the same finite effect” (, 723). After all, Thomists themselves grant the sufficiency of scientific explanation on the natural level; the additional assertion of simultaneous divine causation can seem ontologically superfluous—or, as John Polkinghorne has infamously quipped, “an unintelligible kind of theological doublespeak” (, 81–82). The Thomistic appeal to mystery may eventually be inevitable or even theologically desirable, but is this sort of compatibilism an adequate approach? Thomists insist that the search for a causal joint is wrongheaded, because God is acting in everything that happens. And yet, must there not be a specific point at which uncreated reality affects the material world, if divine transcendence is to be preserved? It is not clear that this problem is solved by the affirmation that everything is, essentially, a causal joint.

In addition to the paradox of double agency, Thomistic divine action is essentially immune to scientific critique; “the science and the theology pass by each other without much traction” (Wildman , 148). Because this theological approach is just that—explicitly theological—Thomists can simply assert that divine agency occurs irrespective of scientific analysis or knowledge of causal mechanisms. Thomism affirms that scientific knowledge is fully explanatory on its own level, and that God's action just works in and through the laws of nature—regardless of what those laws turn to be. This may seem to be a mere theological gloss that prevents rigorous engagement between science and religion. Moreover, this comes back to the core causal joint problem: if God is transcendent and has specific purposes to be enacted in the natural world, then at some point the divine will must meet physical processes. Wholly theological models of divine action struggle to define how primary causality could effect a concrete change at the physical level.

These critiques notwithstanding, however, contemporary Thomists have been developing divine action theories that may circumvent some of the difficulties with the classical formulation. Retaining the theistic naturalist's assumption that all nature is fundamentally involved with God, some have begun to reconsider how primary causality is to be understood. Double agency is controversial and paradoxical, but is there another way to formulate the relationship between God and the natural world? Thomists like Michael Dodds, for example, have emphasized the participatory character of the God–nature relationship—thus avoiding the possible redundancy or coercion of double agency. Suggesting the replacement of the word “causation” with “participation,” Dodds even suggests that “if ‘causation’ tends to arouse images of interference, the word ‘participation’ seems to imply cooperation rather than intrusiveness. And if ‘causation’ raises the imagined need for a ‘causal joint’ in which cause and effect can somehow interface, ‘participation’ raises no such specter since it accents the true intimacy which characterizes the action of God in the creature” (). This is a fascinating move, as it seems to shift away from double agency; it instead stresses the fundamental participation of God in nature. That is, there may be a difference between saying that both God and nature are fully causal at their own respective levels, and that nature exists in responsive relationship with God. A full explanation of the natural world would thus require an account of divine involvement with physical processes themselves, because all creatures exist and act only insofar as they participate dynamically in God. It remains to be seen whether this move to creaturely participation with God (as opposed to the language of causation) is an adequate response to the challenges Thomism faces.

Panentheistic Naturalism

A second version of theistic naturalism comes from Eastern Orthodox scholar Christopher C. Knight, whose theological approach to divine action is shaped by a panentheistic understanding of the God–world relationship. Knight argues that a full account of the natural world not only includes reference to God, but also that participation with God actually makes creation more natural: what most “call naturalism is—both for the Eastern patristic understanding and for my own—in fact no more than subnaturalism. Only in the context of what has been revealed to us by God can the universe in which we live be fully understood” (Knight , 95). In other words, this approach challenges the natural/supernatural binary that undergirds the modern divine action debate, as well as the intervention/nonintervention dichotomy. Knight rejects the idea of an autonomous natural realm; naturalism must of necessity include reference to divine presence and activity. If this is the case, then insisting on noninterventionist divine action is wrongheaded; God cannot intervene because nature is inherently involved with God in the first place. That is, “questions about how God acts ‘on’ the world—as if from outside—are rendered meaningless since the model rejects the usual conceptual picture of what the cosmos can do ‘on its own’ or when merely ‘sustained in being’” (Knight , 50). The Orthodox panentheistic doctrine of God with which Knight works requires that the everpresent influence of God is simply a brute fact about reality, and necessary for a full explanation of the natural world. This model allows us to “transcend the need for any distinction between what nature can do ‘on its own’ and what can only be done through some special mode of action” (Knight , 47). Because all the natural world exists in God, divine action is quite literally the most natural thing in the world.

Given this panentheistic God–world model, how does Knight deal with the causal joint problem? Even if all nature exists in God, it is unclear how an uncreated and immaterial God could actually effect change in physical processes. Consistent with his theistic naturalism, Knight affirms that even divine action is (in principle) subject to naturalistic explanation. Even when divine action seems inexplicable and untestable in scientific terms, this is not “because it is not susceptible to naturalistic understanding. Rather, it is because its manifestation depends on something that cannot be replicated under laboratory conditions: the faithful response to God of those who recognize him as their creator and redeemer” (Knight , 39). Similar to participatory accounts of Thomistic divine agency, Knight thus emphasizes how relational response to God might affect the way that divine action is manifest in physical processes; the ontology of nature itself involves participation with God. But if divine action is in principle subject to naturalistic explanation, how can it be truly divine action, and how does it occur—what of the causal joint?

In dealing with this, Knight first rejects the common distinction between general divine action (GDA) and special divine action (SDA) or providence. This distinction between God's general action in creating and sustaining the universe, and God's specific “special” acts, Knight argues, implies an inaccurate God–nature model. That is, this dichotomy presumes a normal self‐sufficient natural world; in Knight's approach, “all aspects of providence are comprehensive in terms of a single, simple model” (, 122). Knight then affirms that all instances of SDA can be included in God's initial act of creation, and thus be considered part of general providence. More specifically, Knight focuses on the laws of nature and God's “fixed instructions” for those laws. That is, Knight affirms that divine actions are not a violation of the laws of nature, but reflections of “higher” natural laws at work. Relying on an affirmation that God is atemporal and cognitively unlimited in the way that humans are, the model suggests that God has woven divine responses into the laws of nature themselves. True, current science may not be able to identify or analyze these “higher” laws, but they also may not be conducive to scientific methodology in the first place. Knight's argument is that “God's creation, with its inbuilt ‘fixed instructions,’ is far subtler and more complex than our present scientific understanding indicates” (, 540). Knight is basically suggesting that God planned for all the eventualities that could occur in the world, “fixing” the instructions (laws of nature) in such a way that takes into account human response to God, physical and spiritual needs, and so on. As he writes, “the ‘fixed instructions’ inherent in the natural world could, at least in principle, have been so arranged that there is no need to supplement the general providence provided by the character of that world” (Knight , 538). Even though these higher laws may “inevitably be beyond what the scientific methodology is able to examine,” they are no less natural than gravity or thermodynamics (Knight , 49). Thus, what appear to humans as miraculous instantiations of divine action are actually fully explicable in naturalistic terms—but still occurring because of divine action. Again, Knight can say this precisely because of how he understands naturalness: the more attuned and involved with God creation is, the more natural it becomes—literally.

Like the Thomistic affirmation of double agency, Knight's theistic naturalism is an explicitly theological approach to divine action, irrefutable on scientific terms. Also like Thomism, the model denies the need for a causal joint; everything is a causal joint, because involvement with God is fundamental to what it means to be natural. Further, both Knight's theistic naturalism and Thomism affirm that God is fully causal in divine action, even though divine action is in principle naturalistically explicable. And yet, questions remain. First, Knight's theistic naturalism is also immune to scientific critique. While this may be necessary or even desirable, it is unclear how this approach escapes “God of the gaps” charges: if apparent divine action is in principle explainable with higher natural laws, what is the nature of these laws? How could such laws bridge the gap between an ontologically immaterial being and physical processes? If divine action is fully natural and fully divine, how can one affirm divine transcendence? At some point, there must be an ontological gap between God and matter, if panentheism is to avoid slipping into pantheism. And indeed, many of the challenges that could be put to this theistic naturalism are common to panentheism in general: it is not always clear how panentheism can avoid collapsing into a pantheistic model when analyzed too closely. Are we to imagine a God–nature relationship in which an immaterial spiritual reality gradually bleeds over into physical processes? More simply—is God natural? If not, then the model does not fully address the causal joint problem—an unbridged ontological gap still exists.

I should note that Knight's model does seem to anticipate this issue, at least in part. Namely, the emphasis on God's atemporal action is key; the model affirms divine action as occurring at the time of creation, when all laws of nature were brought into existence. This is an interesting move, as it effectively removes divine action from the scrutiny of temporal processes, instead placing divine action on the level of the laws of nature themselves. This may be persuasive to many; even deists acknowledge God as creator of the laws of nature. If so‐called “special” divine actions are really built into the fixed instructions of the laws of nature, the tension between scientific exploration and theological affirmations may be lessened.

The more pressing challenge, in my view, comes from Knight's dismissal of the causal joint altogether; rejecting the necessity of some sort of causal joint undermines divine transcendence. Again, if there is no causal joint because everything exists in God, then there seems to be little room for making an ontological distinction between God and nature. It should be noted that Knight's Eastern Orthodox framework purports to address this, namely in its denial of the unbridged ontological gap at issue here. In particular, the Eastern Orthodox framework emphasizes the relationship and distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies. Knight would argue that this model allows for affirmation of both radical immanence and radical transcendence. Whether or not this model adequately addresses the threat of pantheism, the unbridged ontological gap remains debatable. Nevertheless, Knight's theistic naturalism offers a nuanced version of naturalism that is more theologically robust than most.

Pneumatological Naturalism

A third version of theistic naturalism can be called “pneumatological naturalism,” which arises out of recent attempts to join a serious study of pneumatology with contemporary science. Two important scholars in this area are Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong and philosopher James K. A. Smith. Though their foci differ significantly, Yong and Smith are highlighted here because their respective works on pneumatology and science have been developed at least partly in response to each other. The resulting framework for divine action is arguably the best representative of pneumatological influence in the field of science and religion. Like Knight's panentheistic naturalism and many Thomistic approaches, pneumatological naturalism reverses the standard methodology of standard divine action theories. That is, advocates of a pneumatological approach question the presuppositions of the noninterventionist, incompatibilist paradigm. Like other representatives of the theological turn, these pneumatologists deny the implicit deism that would legitimize the notion of an autonomous natural world apart from the Spirit of God. Rather, “all that is ‘participates’ in the divine through the animating power of the Spirit” (Smith , 254). The default position for creation, as it were, is to be involved with the activity of the Spirit. As with the other theistic naturalisms, pneumatological naturalism challenges normative assumptions regarding what it means to be properly natural. Smith and Yong see all of the natural world as being inherently involved with the presence and activity of the Spirit—rather than as autonomous at the natural level. Unlike Knight's panentheistic model, however, pneumatological naturalists emphasize the role of the immanent Spirit in explaining the God‐nature relationship—rather than relying on a panentheistic metaphysic. And unlike Thomism, theologians like Yong and Smith emphasize the relational dynamic of the Spirit–nature model, rather than affirming double agency.

But what, exactly, do pneumatological naturalisms entail? Essential here is the emphasis on the normativity of the Spirit's active presence in the natural world: to be fully natural is to be responsive to the immanent Spirit in creation. Smith labels his version of this perspective “enchanted naturalism”: “Matter as created exceeds itself and is only insofar as it participates in or is suspended from the transcendent Creator” (, 889). This is similar to Knight's theistic naturalism, as well as the participatory ontology of many Thomists; to be natural is to be fundamentally involved with God at the most basic level. Yong adds an explicitly pneumatological emphasis to Smith's enchanted naturalism; he (in Smith's words) affirms the Spirit as “the agent of ‘suspension’, the Triune person in whom the material world is suspended” (Smith , 890). In other words, theological affirmations of divine immanence and the Trinitarian personhood of the Spirit allow for a naturalism that includes—even requires—an account of divine presence and activity. If physical reality is inherently “‘charged’ with the presence of the Spirit, and exists in dynamic, responsive relationship to the Spirit, then the problem of divine action would seem to be undermined” (Smith , 12). Notably, a pneumatological framework for divine action performs the same metaphysical function as panentheism does in Knight's approach, but without the attendant problems—namely, it normalizes divine action, but without jeopardizing divine transcendence. Proponents, therefore, can argue that a pneumatological naturalism preserves both the immanence and transcendence of God: nature does not exist within God, but the Spirit is inherently active and immanent in nature. This is also similar to Thomism's affirmation of divine presence and agency in all things; pneumatologists, however, emphasize creaturely involvement with the Spirit, rather than the double agency of primary/secondary causation.

How, then, does pneumatological naturalism handle the causal joint problem? Smith affirms “the elasticity of nature as always already inhabited by the Spirit,” but how exactly are we to understand an immaterial Spirit actually altering physical processes? Yong, for one, suggests that “the laws of nature are amenable to the basic actions of God and sufficiently flexible” (, 131). The implication here seems to be that God simply works with the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. Interestingly, Yong does affirm that the laws of nature are real tendencies; Smith would add that the Spirit works “in and through nature and its laws”—presumably to bring about specific unexpected events (, 892). Similarly, Smith argues that the laws of nature are not reified prescriptions of reality, but limited approximations of processes that are necessarily insufficient descriptions of reality. A full description of reality would include the Spirit's involvement with those laws: “nature is always more than the natural” (Smith , 40). In other words, matter is always in relationship to God; there is no “pure nature” apart from the Spirit. As with Thomism and panentheistic naturalism, there is no single causal joint: “nature is always suspended in and inhabited by the Spirit such that it is always already primed for the Spirit's manifestations” (Smith , 101). The entire natural world exists in fundamental relationship to the Spirit; there is no theoretical causal joint because matter and the laws of nature cannot exist without divine involvement in the first place. If some events seem more supernatural than others, this is due to varying levels of creaturely response and openness to the Spirit; they are “sped‐up modes of the Spirit's more regular presences” (Smith , 892). Comparatively dramatic experiences of divine action are no less natural than any other natural process, for divine involvement with all natural processes is necessary for an account of the fully natural.

The pneumatological approach to divine action can be critiqued for many of the same reasons as is panentheistic naturalism and Thomism. For one, the approach essentially divorces scientific knowledge from theology; the Spirit is affirmed as working in and with the laws of nature, and science is given little authority to evaluate this claim. Some may find this an acceptable price to pay, but it is indeed a steep price when contemporary science has proven so extraordinarily successful—prematurely drawing boundary lines around science can be risky. Perhaps more significantly, it is still unclear how an immaterial being could affect the atoms and molecules of the physical world, if (as proponents insist) no causal joint is necessary. While proponents of an enchanted naturalism affirm that all nature is always somehow involved with the Spirit, this “somehow” is the causal joint problem to which we must always return. That is, if the Spirit is both transcendent and immanent, nonphysical, and not of the same “stuff ” as created physical processes—then at some point, the Spirit must causally interact with basic matter. In Smith's enchanted naturalism, for example, created beings can respond in varying degrees to the Spirit's persuasive lure—but how does this lure occur? Pneumatological naturalists may claim (perhaps correctly) that the ontological status of matter itself involves participation with the Spirit, but this does not fully answer the question. Or rather, it is unclear how this sort of participation could occur without undermining the transcendence of God. That is, if the Spirit is interacting with matter and the laws of nature in such a way as to bring about specific instances of divine action, and there is no causal joint at which spiritual and physical realities meet, then how can theists say that God is fundamentally other than physical? This is the heart of the causal joint problem.