John Polkinghorne has commented on divine action*. He acknowledges that contemporary science accepts a causally open view of nature and that top-down organizing causal principles must be at work to bring about the future. Active information brings about the formation of a structured pattern of future dynamical behavior. The notion of information input is necessary to resolve what actually occurs. It is the vehicle for top-down operating causality and a possibility to accommodate human and divine agency. He concludes that there should be a flow of information from God to the universe (and to mankind) by which God guides it providentially. As has also been stated by William Dembski in a previous blog the input of information involves no exchange of energy between God and the universe (and mankind) thus avoiding action that would violate the energy conservation laws. Polkinghorne sees it plausible that God’s providence acts within the open grain of nature, capable of receiving pattern-forming information (including linguistic neural codes which I have discussed). Polkinghorne is clear that God is not the active informational principle, and God is not information. God is the agent that generates active information and transfers it into the system He created. Polkinghorne gives no explanation for how this causality works and believes it imperative to continue the search for the causal joint where God’s action acts causally on nature’s (and on Man’s) actions, on how the divine and the creature interact. In my two books it has been the object of my research to inquire into this very question, to conduct this very search.
*Ignacio Silva, “John Polkinghorne on Divine Action: A Coherent Theological Evolution,” Science and Christian Belief, Vol 24, No. 1, 2012