Divine Character: Iqbal's Conception of Divine Action and Armstrong's Laws of Nature

ABSTRACT This paper will look at David Malet Armstrong's conception of the Laws of Nature in light of Iqbal's conception of nature and divine action. For the sake of pragmatic austerity Armstrong rooted his theory in naturalism, physicalism, and an understanding of the world as a “state of affairs.” In contrast to Humean empiricists, nominalists, and transcendent realists, Armstrong affirmed the reality of both universals and particulars, which relate to each other in what Mumford calls a form of immanent and a posterior realism. It is out of this formulation that he developed his Laws of Nature as relations between universals. Due to the theoretical problems that typically arise from interactionist views (such as some forms of theism), Armstrong operates from a viewpoint that would question the conceivability of anything acting upon nature from beyond the spatio-temporal realm. However, the conception of God offered by Iqbal, the Ultimate Reality existing as “pure-duration”–holding together “the multiplicity of objects and events,” offers a view of nature not as “a mass of pure materiality occupying a void,” but as a “structure of events, a systematic mode of behavior” that is “organic” to the Ultimate Self. Nature is an expression of God's character, His habit. And, “nature”, or “laws of nature,” is our interpretation of the “creative activity” of the Creator. This essay will thus elaborate on the details of Iqbal's conception of God and divine action and the benefits it offers to one seeking to operate within the pragmatic benefits of Armstrong's system while maintaining a decidedly theistic worldview.