Denis Edwards begins by acknowledging that human
suffering and the animal suffering that is built into biological evolution are a challenge to Christian theology. To meet this challenge, he presents a theology of divine action that sees God as working in and through the natural world, rather than arbitrarily intervening to send suffering to some and not to others, promising that all things will be transformed and redeemed in Christ, and lovingly accepting the limits of his creatures and living with the constraints of finite creaturely
processes.
Denis Edwards points out the while science does not indicate purpose or design, it does not rule them out. "The sciences do not reveal a divine design or blueprint, but the scientific evidence is open to a Christian interpretation, [namely] that the sciences support an overall directionality in the evolution of the universe and life."
He explores "a noninterventionist theology of special divine acts, proposing that in such acts God can be thought of as acting and bringing about special effects in and through the laws and contingencies of the natural world."
This is a view of God who acts in and through the interactions of his creatures, rather than the alternative view
of an interventionist and arbitrary God. He points out that even in the life and death of Christ, God's self-giving and saving love did not overturn natural law or coerce human freedom, but actively waited for creaturely response to achieve the divine purpose. He gets a little vague when it comes to the Resurrection, though, because "it is not something to which we have direct access." He views it as far more than overturning the laws of nature. It is the deifying transformation of all things.
This appears to echo John Polkinghorne's view that Christ's resurrected body is, among other things, a preview of the continuity and discontinuity of the New Heaven and New Earth.
Edwards takes the position that "God works consistently through secondary causes . . . " He views miracles as wonders of God that take place through manifestations of grace that occur in and through secondary causes.
He argues that God achieves his divine purposes "by acting consistently as Creator in a noninterventionist way through created causes, through the laws of nature we understand, and through the natural world that our laws do not yet describe . . . "
