Events

With our ontology in place we can say something about our metaphysics of causation; the causal relata and the causal connection. We take the apparent causal relata to be events. Doing so affirms the empirical grounds of science. Nevertheless, the real causation underlying the apparent regularity of events is God conferring existence according to his commitments. Our view of causation is developed in the next subsection, but to provide sufficient background and to forestall mistaken inferences or unnecessary criticism, we should first clarify what we mean by “event.” An event may be characterized in four complementary ways. Each of these characterizations is a different way of considering the same thing. First, a nonelementary event may be viewed as a finite sequence of discrete states of a physical system. This is an event understood physically or scientifically (Chew ; Dowker ). Second, perceptually understood, an event just is a change in a physical system (or interacting systems) over a duration. The acorn becomes an oak tree. The boulder warms as the sun shines upon it. Third, an event may be understood conceptually as a manifesting disposition (fundamental or complex). The ionic bond of sodium chloride (NaCl) molecules is an event that may be conceptualized as the manifesting dispositions of sodium and chlorine ions. The complex biological process of protein synthesis is an event that may be conceptualized as a manifesting, complex structure of dispositions. Finally, on our view, what we perceive as a change and conceive as a manifesting disposition is the acting/result of God's compositionally conferring existence to that physical system over a sequence of moments. This is an event understood ontologically. This is what underlies the phenomena and theoretical entities of fundamental science. To recapitulate, an event understood scientifically as a sequence of states of a physical system, perceived as a change, conceived as a manifesting complex of dispositional properties, is a divinely realized composite world state.

This account of events is only an approximation which serves the purpose of getting the ideas on the table. To refine the account, both complex (or derivative) events should be differentiated from elementary (or fundamental) events. Only derivative events—events that are individuated or abstracted through perceptual experience—play a role in biology and ordinary life. No derivative event can be completely accounted for in terms of simple classical mechanics, much less quantum mechanics—assuming of course that these fundamental theories and their presupposed ontologies represent things the ways they are physically “at the bottom.”

Causation

Now that we have declared our view of events as causal relata, we can explain our view of the causal relation or connection. There are two ideas at play here that are often conflated and are difficult to conceptually separate. As we consider our (nonscientific) ordinary concept and experience of causation, it seems to us to involve the production of some event by some earlier event. The two intertwined ideas are, first, that there are apparently causal relations between events and, second, that that relation is the apparent causing of an event. Ordinarily, we all believe that the vase falling on the tile floor “causes” it to break, that smoking “causes” cancer, that the wind blowing against the trees “causes” them to bend. It looks to us as though events cause other events. Furthermore, we all learn early on that not every pair of sequential events stands in a causal relation. Our ability to discern and to discover these relations enables us to function in the world. It grounds our scientific understanding and, of course, makes modern medicine possible. So, we have come to expect and to treat the “producing” as the causal relation. In sum, this standard two relata–one relation model of causation seems to suggest that the apparent causal relation is the causing of the effect. This is, of course, what David Hume (1711–1776) claims in his analysis of our ordinary concept. But since he argues that the causing, that is, the “necessary connection,” cannot be observed, all we can see is a regularity (Hume [1748], 49–50).

Our view is an alternative to this Humean understanding. First, the apparent “causal” relation between events is not the productive causation; it is not the causing, the producing, the bringing about, or the making happen. The same point has been recently argued by Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum who claim that “causation should not then be understood as a relation between two events, but rather as what makes an event occur” (Mumford and Anjum , 23). We agree entirely, but what could it be that “makes” an event occur? Answering this brings us to a second point.

Second, the causing, the producing, the bringing about, or the making happen is God's existence‐conferring action. Causation seems primitive or basic and resists reductive analyses because it is not a productive relation by, of, or between physical things. Rather, causation is God's compositionally conferring existence per God's commitments—all of this is in accordance with the actual world, which is God's plan. Our view is not strictly Humean. There is more to causation that mere regularity. Causation is not in nature; it grounds nature.

Third, the productive causation of an event (i.e., God's conferring existence) is simultaneous with the occurring of the event. This may involve the completed transfer of energy or momentum, but it need not; and when it does, the transfer is not the causing. Transfer of energy or momentum distinguishes a causally related sequence from a noncausally related sequence of states; it is indicative, but not explanatory.

Finally, events (as effects) are legitimately associated with events (as causes), because the “causal” relation is a real relation. The “causal” relation between events is a real relation of necessity due to the irresistibility of God's conditional commitment. Both dispositions and structures have a modal aspect: both are ways God confers existence and are (in some cases) what “must be” and (in others) what “cannot be,” for example, Pauli's Exclusion Principle: two identical fermions cannot occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. Thus, natural necessity is not a primitive of nature, but is an aspect of the three ways God confers existence. Thus, we account for both the necessity and regularity aspects of our concept of causation: nothing can hinder God's fulfilling God's commitments (necessity) and God (almost) always acts per God's commitments (regularity).

In sum, even though it seems to us that events cause events (or states of systems cause other states), in reality causing is not a brute, fundamental feature of nature. Causation is God's compositionally conferring existence per God's commitments, which are aspects of God's plan. This explains why physical causation seems primitive or basic. Causation resists reductive analyses because it is not a productive relation by and of purely physical things.

This account satisfies a crucial condition that William Vallicella describes: “The idea is that a total causal explanation of an event cannot merely specify the relations in which the explanandum‐event [i.e., the effect] stands to other (typically prior) events [i.e., the cause], but must also explain the very existence or occurrence of the explanandum‐event” (Vallicella , 356). The very existence or occurrence of the explanandum‐event on our view just is God's existence‐conferring action. The existence‐conferring act and the resulting existence of state of a physical system are one and the same, though considered from two standpoints. This follows from the fact that God is self‐existent and absolutely independent (a se) and the aseity is incommunicable. No entity, property, or relation exists apart from—before or after—God's conferring existence, because it is impossible. Our position satisfies both conditions stated by Vallicella and, stated technically, is as follows:

DEF cause (v.): A (discrete) event e ¹ “causes” event e ² just in case God's coordinated, existence‐conferring act¹ is event e ¹, which satisfies the set of initiating conditions attached to God's commitment to act² on condition, and where such a divine, existence‐conferring act² is each sequential state of the relevant physical system picked out as e ².

There are several things to take note of here. First, there are not two types of causation. We use the term, “causation,” univocally: only God causes events. Yet, apparent causation and empirical work is legitimate. It is legitimate because of the underlying reality of God's commitments and existence‐conferring action. Second, these divine commitments—experienced, perceived, or discovered by us as dispositions, laws of succession, or mechanisms—have ranges and degrees of manifestations and of initiating conditions. These variabilities serve God's larger purposes. Third, it is reasonable to think that often several such divine commitments are jointly relevant to an effect. Fourth, given such ranges and degrees of manifestations and of initiating conditions, and the coordinating of multiple relevant commitments, prediction of what outcome will occur is often difficult, if not impossible. This is consistent with what Jason Colwell posits regarding apparent randomness: “God makes active decisions about each fundamentally random event in the universe” (Colwell , 137). (We will add more detail to this idea in the next section.) Fifth, note again the complementarity of the divine act and its result here. If an event is a sequence of states of a physical system, and causing is simultaneous with effect, then there is a complementarity of act and result of God's existence‐conferring action.

The contiguity objection against event‐causation. It might be thought that this view of events renders our view subject to an important objection to event‐causation. As Anjan Chakravartty puts it, for any two events A and B, “for A to bring about B causally, not mediated by other events, but directly, A and B must be contiguous in time. But A and B cannot be contiguous, because time is dense. That is, between any two instants, say that at which A terminates and that at which B begins, we can always find further instants. Therefore, it is impossible for successive events to be temporally contiguous. Thus, A cannot cause B” (Chakravartty , 11). Note that this contiguity objection invokes two explicit premises. The first is the premise that causally related events must be contiguous, and the second is time is dense. Divine Compositionalism holds that time and space are discrete and that events standing in a causal relation need not be temporally or spatially contiguous. The real, productive causation is God's existence‐conferring action and the apparent causal connection is God's commitment. The temporal and spatial contiguity of events are not conditions of causation on our view, so the objection does not apply.

The light‐cone objection against simultaneity of cause and effect. Our view holds that the causing is simultaneous with the being caused. It might seem obvious, but this means that God's creative action is the causation and it is the result. But someone might object saying that “since no causal influence can travel faster than the speed of light, the set of point‐instant (or physically minimal) events that lie on or inside the past light cone of event e ¹ are the only ones which stand in a possible causal relation to e ¹ as cause to effect. Likewise, the set of events that lie on or inside the future light cone of e ¹ are the only ones which stand in a possible causal relation to e ¹ as effect to cause, since productive causation involves a signal of some sort. The simultaneity of cause and effect is impossible for physically minimal events.”

Here is our response. What the objector is referring to has to do with the relation between events, one being understood as the cause and the other as effect. But this is not the real causing of events. On our view, we must always ask: are the relata in question aspects of God's commitment (i.e., realized world states observed as states of a physical system) or are they the causing and the being caused? The light cone pertains to the former, the relation. But the causing and the being caused is God's acting. Thus, the appearance of an intrinsic productive relation between events is God's conditional commitment and the event caused (i.e., the effect) is God's existence‐conferring action. Thus, again, even though it seems that event causation is brute, primitive, and unanalyzable, in reality—as both pure occasionalism and Divine Compositionalism hold—physical causation is not primitive. We perceive a thing's existence, but we cannot perceive God's conferring its existence. Therefore, we cannot perceive the causation. We infer it. Our position on events and causation is basic to our view of dispositions, to which we turn next.

An Analysis of Dispositions

Every event is unique and is related to another by what appears to us to be a causal process, but which we claim is God's conferring existence per God's commitments. In other words, a disposition (ontologically considered) may be construed as God's commitment to confer existence on condition. What do we mean by the phrase, “on condition”? Let a “situation” be a state of a physical system. Since the actual world is God's plan, to say “the actual world includes situation A” is to say “God plans to create A.” Likewise, to say “the actual world includes a representation for a type of causal process of which situation A is the terminal state” is to say “God plans to create a situation A (of some range of types) whenever a previous situation B is created that satisfies a certain set of conditions.” Or to put it another way, it is to say “God is committed to confer existence to situation B, on the condition that situation A is realized.” Thus, whether a physical system has a dispositional property is a matter of what the actual world includes. But since the actual world is God's plan in accordance with which God confers existence, we have related a conception of dispositions to a conception of God's creative acting according to plan. With these comments in mind, the analysis may be stated as follows:

For any physical system (object or substance) x, any state σ of physical system x, any disposition D, and any duration δ, physical system x has a disposition D over duration δ if and only if

• (1)

  the actual world includes a representation for a type of causal process C_x associated with D and holding for some duration δ within which state σ of physical system x satisfies a set {i} of D’s initiating conditions over some duration δʹ and state σʹ of physical system x is a token of one of D’s manifestation types {m} occurring over duration δʺ later than δʹ

and exactly one of the following holds: either

• (2)

  the actual world does not include a representation for which state σ of physical system x satisfies a set {i} of D’s initiating conditions at δʹ, or

• (3)

  (i) the actual world does include a representation for which state σ of physical system x satisfies a set {i} of D’s initiating conditions over some duration and (ii) the actual world does include a representation for which state σʹ of physical system x is a token m of one of D’s manifestation types {m} occurring over duration δʺ later than δʹ, and (iii) the actual world does not include any representation for a type of causal process C_x * associated with a competing disposition D* over duration δ that overrides D, or

• (4)

  the actual world does include a representation for a type of causal process C_x associated with D, but a different causal process C_x * associated with a competing disposition D* interferes over duration δ.

Therefore, physical system x has a dispositional property D just in case

• (1) and (2) hold, so that is not manifested at δʺ, or

• (1) and (3) hold, so that is manifested at δʺ, or

• (1) and (4) hold, so that is not manifested because of some interference.

In other words, whether a physical system has a dispositional property is matter of what the actual world, God's plan, includes.

Adequacy Conditions for Disposition Analyses

The extensive critical attention that has been given to analyses of dispositional properties at least since Rudolf Carnap () revealed several conditions that any proposed analysis must meet. First, an analysis of dispositions should indicate how a disposition is associated with an object of some sort, whether an individual such as an electron or a quantity of some substance such as water. As George Molnar emphasizes in his criticism of the conditional analysis, “The conditional does not seem to be saying anything about what it is in the object, makes the response follow upon the stimulus” (Molnar , 1). This requirement is satisfied in part (1) of our analysis.

Second, an analysis should represent what it is about the possessor of a disposition that renders it poised either to be an agent of a token of a type of causal process or else or to be subject to some causal process. What is it that makes the object “powerful” or “liable”? Why does it have that “ability” or “vulnerability”? What about a salt such as NaCl that makes it liable to dissolving? There is a significant gap between scientifically informed metaphysics and standard metaphysics. Standard metaphysics posits “causal powers” and “liabilities.” Scientifically informed metaphysics holds that some dispositions are ungrounded, some are complex and coordinated. Complex and coordinated dispositions are mechanisms. For example, a scientific analysis of the mechanism of the solubility of salt (i.e., a liability) reveals a complex structure of dispositions (D'Andrea‐Winslow and Schultz forthcoming). Even though water appears to have the power to dissolve and salt appears to have the liability to be dissolved, the analysis reveals only states of a physical system as stages in a process. In our analysis, the “double arrow” symbol in the formal analysis represents the connection between an initiation state and a manifestation of both an ungrounded disposition and a complex structure of dispositions. The double arrow also represents both the intentionality (i.e., directedness toward a manifestation) of the disposition and the apparent causal necessity of the manifestation of the dispositional property associated with object x. However, what the double arrow ultimately represents is God's commitment and the manifestation is God's existence‐conferring action. There is nothing more. Water appears to have a causal power and salt appears to have causal liability, but all there is God's existence‐conferring action. Our metaphysical analysis is consistent with and does not compete with scientific analysis.

Third, an analysis should represent a disposition's existence even when not manifesting (Broad , 265). We represent this in the last paragraph of the analysis where (1) and (2) hold. God's commitment D holds regarding some physical system x over some duration, but his plan, the actual world, does not include a representation for which state σ of physical system x satisfies a set {i} of D‘s initiating conditions at δʹ so that D is not manifested at δʺ.

Fourth, an analysis should represent the conditions under which object x has disposition D in a way that precludes it from being subject to refutation by examples of “finkish” dispositions, antidotes, or mimickers (Martin ; Lewis ; Bird ; Fara ). These counterexamples have forced revisions in many analyses. We represent this requirement in the last paragraph of the analysis where (1) and (4) hold so that D is not manifested because of some interference.

Fifth, an analysis should represent the apparent ungroundedness of the dispositional properties of elementary particles (Mumford , ; Thompson ; McKitrick ; Dorato , ; Bigaj ). To reiterate what was said earlier, the grounds or causal base of a dispositional property is a “lower level” physical feature of the object. However, such features often turn out to be structures of other lower level dispositional properties, which, in turn, may be structures of even other lower level dispositional properties, and so “all the way down” to apparently ungrounded dispositions, such as those of an electron. Elementary particles seem to have no lower level components that could be the cause of the manifestation its dispositions. In our analysis, ungroundedness is represented by the double arrow just like any complex disposition. An ungrounded manifesting disposition is—like more complex dispositions—God's conferring existence per his commitments. However, in the ungrounded case, the disposition is a “bare” commitment, governed by God's purposes and plans only. (This idea is developed in the next paragraph.)

Sixth, an analysis of dispositions should represent the range of manifestation types that is usually associated with a disposition either by ordinary experience or by scientific research. For example, ordinary experience tells us that a rattlesnake bite can make one very sick and can even lead to death. This is because rattlesnake venom has the disposition of being poisonous. A person's being sick and a person's dying are types of manifestations. Scientific research may indicate that a repeated test result of some experiment maps onto a graph as a bell‐shaped curve or that an elementary particle's state is a matter of a “collapse” of its wave function ψ. In these cases, we have actual states of physical systems as instances (or tokens) of a type of manifestation of a complex disposition. Depending on the disposition in question, our analysis can represent both. That is, by the letter m in the formal analysis it can represent either a manifestation type or a manifestation instance. A range of manifestation types or instances can be represented by {m}, where the brackets enclose a set, taking m to summarize several types or instances: m ₁, …, m _n . Thus, the range {m} may represent the possibilities indicated by a bell‐shaped curve or {m} may be a set of values for any physical system's wave function ψ. The range of manifestations of multitrack, higher level dispositions (molecular or macroscopic) is rooted in the indeterminacy at the subatomic level. However, we take the “indeterminacy” to be nothing other than God's intentional, purpose‐guided action. Such indeterminacy reflects God's freedom in sustaining the physical world and God's providential control of history.

Our analysis meets all six of these widely acknowledged adequacy conditions for an analysis of dispositions.

Laws of Nature

Laws of nature depend on dispositions and structures. In our view, “disposition” is a generic term that denotes a class of God's commitments to confer existence on condition. Such dispositions may be simple or complex. The class includes what we refer to by the term law of nature as law of succession and “mechanism.” Structure is a term that denotes a class of ways God coordinates his existence‐conferring action. It includes what we refer to by “law of nature” as law of coexistence. Both dispositions and structures have a modal aspect: both are ways God confers existence and (in some cases) are what “must be” and (in others) what “cannot be” (e.g., Pauli's Exclusion Principle). For each, there is natural necessity, but it is not in nature in a primitive or brute way. What was said earlier regarding causation applies to laws. That is, that both the necessity and regularity aspects of our concept is accounted for; nothing can hinder God's fulfilling God's commitments (necessity) and God (almost) always acts per God's commitments (regularity). In this way, our view differs from earlier theological views of laws of nature as imposed or as governing objects and events.

We may summarize laws of nature as follows. Ontologically considered, laws of nature—as laws of succession—are regularities in God's acting according to plan; as laws of coexistence, laws of nature are the coordination of God's acting according to plan. Laws of nature—as law statements—subjectively considered, are descriptions of the regularities and coordinations of God's actions as perceived and conceived. Statements of laws of succession (e.g., Newton's Law of Inertia) are distilled from observed phenomena which are manifesting dispositions. Thus, laws depend on dispositions, rather than dispositions being determined by laws. Similarly, laws of coexistence (e.g., Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, Boyle's Law, Pauli's exclusion principle) reflect structures or the coordination of God's acting per God's commitments in carrying out God's plans.

This brief account of laws of nature is consistent with both the “conditional analysis” of laws and the “summary of regularities” analysis of laws in early modern philosophy as discussed by Walter Ott. He adds that “the real question is not which analysis of the logical form of law‐like statements is right, but rather what it is in virtue of which these statements hold” (Ott , 8–10). The answer, in our opinion, is that such analysis holds in virtue of being descriptions of the regularities and coordinations of God's actions as perceived and conceived. In his book, Converging Realities, Roland Omnès writes, “the fundamental laws of nature are pure mathematical forms accounting for the phenomena though providing no cause for them and showing no action.…The laws expressing the regularities of reality are much more accessible to understanding than reality itself.…They are prior to mathematics, however, just as reality is absolutely prior to anything” (Omnès , 157,163). Now replace “reality” with “God's actings” in the Omnès quote.

Mechanisms

A chemical or biological mechanism is a manifesting complex disposition. In general, a mechanism may be understood dynamically or statically. On the one hand—approaching mechanisms dynamically—every mechanism is a process, every process is an event, and every event is finite sequence of discrete states of a physical system (treating the dynamics scientifically) and every event is a manifesting disposition (treating the dynamics metaphysically). Thus, we may define a mechanism alternatively as a process or as a manifesting complex disposition, depending on whether it is for scientific purposes or for metaphysical purposes. On the other hand—approaching mechanisms statically as a whole—a mechanism may be conceptualized and represented as involving “entities” and “activities” or as a structure of component, fundamental dispositions.

Properties

All natural properties (as opposed to mathematical or logical properties) are dispositional; there are no categorical or (purely) qualitative properties. Permit a brief explanation. The scientific method begins with “observation,” which is perceptual experience of the properties understood as being of some object, thing, substance, event, and so on. Thus, properties are things that are seen, felt, tasted, heard, smelled, or inferred by experimentation and discovery, or posited by theory only later to be empirically verified. Nevertheless, what properties are in themselves is not (usually) a scientific concern. The idea is presupposed. Confusion can easily result from failing to distinguish properties subjectively considered, that is properties as qualities of things (e.g., that thing's redness) from a consideration of what they might be objectively—what might account for the thing's being red and the perceptual experience of it as such. (Humean) science aims simply to accurately report or describe the observation and/or the phenomenology. Metaphysics and theology want more than description, they want understanding that goes as “far down” as possible—all the way down to ontological fundamentals. Accordingly, there are at least four views of natural properties. Property dualism holds that there are two irreducible kinds of properties categorical (qualitative) and dispositional). Categoricalism holds that all fundamental properties are essentially categorical. Pandispositionalism holds that all fundamental properties are dispositional. The identity theory of properties holds that all fundamental properties are both categorical and dispositional. Our theory of divine action, Divine Compositionalism, entails the pandispositionalist view that all fundamental properties are dispositional, but adds that every disposition is a way God confers existence on condition. Given God's aseity, this latter point differentiates our view from neo‐Aristotelian pandispositionalists (both theistic and naturalistic) who treat such dispositions as independently existing. What this means is that, given our five‐category ontology, every property of a thing (as perceived) is really the manifestation of a simple disposition, or of reciprocal disposition partners, or of a cluster of complex dispositions which constitute the thing. Each of these are God's existence‐conferring action.

Divine Compositionalism also explains property attributions and the perceptual experience that underlies them. A property is attributed to an object (or to a system) on the basis of that property's having been perceived as belonging to that object or system. Since a perceptual experience is an event, it too is such a manifestation. For example, say we see a brown dog. The dog seems to us to be brown. We attribute the property brownness to the dog. However, upon reflecting on the results of the relevant science, we realize that the molecules of the hair on the dog are not themselves brown. Our perceptual experience of brownness is a function of the nature of light and of the molecular structure of the dog's hair as well as features of our capacity to perceive. But is the dog really brown? Each of these factors—the nature of light, the molecular structure of that hair, and the physical features that constitute our visual capacity—are dispositional “all the way down.” Color is thus objective in that our experience of color is a manifestation of a network of disposition configurations constituting a system.

Some Implications

Taking dispositions to be God's commitments to confer existence on condition bears on several issues which can only be briefly stated. Every manifestation of a disposition (simple or complex) is God's conferring existence on condition. God's commitments govern the succession of all the states of all the physical systems that constitute the universe. The causal structure of the universe results from the various commitments God has made to act on condition in successively sustaining the universe. The composite macroscopic objects and systems of our perceptual experience are thereby created and sustained by God. What we perceive or individuate as macroscopic objects (whether “entities” or neo‐Aristotelian “substances”) over some duration are relatively invariant structural features of processes occurring over that duration, which are nothing but God's existence‐conferring action. This applies “all the (compositional) way down” to collapses of wave functions. It is all compositional. However, the initiating conditions at this, the apparent fundamental level, cannot be other events, because presumably there are none. Rather, the dynamic universe is orderly, yet apparently random or probabilistic because each manifestation of a divine commitment to act on condition is a token of a range of options and the choice is guided by divine purposes. As Jonathan Edwards observed, “the original ultimate end or ends of the creation of the world is alone, that which induces God to give the occasion for consequential ends, by the first creation of the world, and the original disposal of it. And the more original the end is, the more extensive and universal it is. That which God had primarily in view in creating, and the original ordination of the world, must be constantly kept in view, and have a governing influence in all God's works, or with respect to everything God does towards God's creatures” (Edwards , 413).

Intervention/Nonintervention

Recently, many theologians and philosophers have framed the broad issue of divine action in relation to science as a problem of saying how God acts in sustaining the creation, given a naturalist view of science and the universe (Smedes ). The idea was that maybe God can act through quantum indeterminacy. Some have asserted that God can intervene at that level, while others denied it. However, notice that the problem of intervention/nonintervention (Plantinga ) does not arise under Divine Compositionalism as it does under concurrentism, because the laws of nature (both of succession and of coexistence) are not intermediaries in divine action, but rather are the regularities of God's acting, the necessity of which lies in God's commitment to act on condition. The decision to treat the universe as a closed system or an open system of secondary causes also does not arise, for the causal structure of the universe is a structure of God's actings.

Continuous Creation, Idealism, and Panentheism

Divine Compositionalism entails continuous creation, which is the traditional view that the divine action required to conserve things in existence is identical to what is required to create in the first place. In each case—God's initial creation of an object and God's sustaining it—God confers existence. It has been objected that continuous creation is incompatible with the reality of material objects. In response, we hold that no created thing is ever, in any aspect, self‐existent. Only God is a se. The universe at any moment just is God's acting or willing it to be. This is congruent with what the quantum theorist Lee Smolin writes: “We cannot understand the world we see around us as something static. We must see it as something created, and under continual recreation, by an enormous number of processes acting together. The world we see around us is the collective result of all those processes” (Smolin , 64). The universe, therefore, exists entirely “within God's consciousness” (so to speak). A person's imagining a scenario is a helpful analogy. Thus, our view may be thought of as a kind of idealism. However, the objection fails to distinguish between two kinds of idealism introduced in Darren Hibbs: mens‐idealism and res‐idealism. Mens‐idealism, rejecting the notion that material objects are real to humans, holds that material objects are merely phenomenal constructs within the mind. However, there is another kind of idealism, which is called res‐idealism. As Hibbs writes, “extramental material objects exist, but they are ontologically dependent upon a nonmaterial source” (Hibbs , 569). Biblical res‐idealism holds that material objects are real—they exist independent of human perception—even though they depend entirely on God's willing them to be. Divine Compositionalism is a version res‐idealism and is not a version of Berkeleyean idealism. Therefore, continuous creation is not incompatible with the reality of material objects. It follows from all this that, since things willed, thought, or imagined are items of consciousness, known as intentional objects, Divine Compositionalism is intentional object panentheism.

In this article, we have provided a fine‐grained, conceptually coherent account of divine action, causation, dispositions, and laws of nature consistent with divine aseity. The analysis of dispositions and disposition ascriptions satisfies the widely recognized conditions for such analyses.