Without doubt this is one of the most important books on divine action of recent years. Except for some theologians within more evangelical circles, the amount of studies explicitly addressing theological, philosophical, and scientific issues of divine action is small. Moreover, many classic studies on the subject (such as Keith Ward's "Divine Action," Michael Langford's "Providence," and Vernon White's "The Fall of a Sparrow") have been out of print for years now and are very hard to come by. (Why does nobody protest against that!? Are publishers simply blind to the many opportunities here?) Saunders gives an overview of the most important studies, and shows that the discussion about divine action has many dimensions which are still relatively unexplored and which are in dire need of further clarification. Moreover, he makes it clear that if one takes divine action in a realist sense (i.e. that God's action has real causal effects in the world), one cannot ignore the many scientific issues involved. Miracles, laws of nature, determinism, quantum mechanics, chaos theory (Polkinghorne) and top-down causation (Peacocke) -- Saunders manages to make the crucial scientific and theological issues concerning these concepts quite clear.
The book is highly readable and does not presuppose too much knowledge of science or theology on the part of the reader (though if one has some background knowledge of science and/or theology this will aid in making the context of many discussions more lucid). While I am not totally convinced that Saunders' approach does full justice to the theological intricacies involved, and while I am critical of the fact that he simply skips many methodological issues -- I will elaborate on these points more fully in a review which in due time will appear in the online journal for Philosophy of Religion: Ars Disputandi, see -- I believe that anyone interested in the issues surrounding the concept of divine action must not ignore this book. Though it is always tricky to make predictions, I am convinced that Saunders' valuable book will remain a standard work for issues surrounding divine action for a long time.
