Breathing New Life Into the World‐Soul? Revisiting an Old Doctrine Through the Lens of Current Debates on Special Divine Action

Nicholas Saunders’ 2002 book Divine Action and Modern Science remains among the most significant and widely‐cited recent contributions to the literature on special divine action (SDA). One of the tasks he takes up in that work is to critique a wide assortment of models of SDA, including that of Grace Jantzen. Her account employs the panentheistic notion that the physical universe is related to God in a manner closely analogous to the way in which a human body is related to the human mind—that is, the cosmos is God’s body. And just as we humans can exercise basic actions on and with our bodies without violating the laws of nature, God can exercise basic action on parts of the cosmos without such violations, thereby providing a workable non‐interventionist model of SDA. Saunders critiques this model on both philosophical and theological grounds, and moves on to consider another: the idea that God never acts directly on the cosmos, but instead interacts with the world by influencing human minds, which influence needn’t involve the violation of laws. This model too comes in for heavy criticism. In this essay I suggest a way of retaining important aspects of both of these accounts while sidestepping the criticisms levelled by Saunders. This can be done by reviving an idea sympathetically entertained by such notables as Plato, several early Church fathers (including Augustine), and Isaac Newton: that of a World‐Soul distinct from God.